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Old 05-14-2005, 04:31 AM
bonelifer bonelifer is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 40
In Kappa Kappa Psi we have what are called Alumni Associations. AA's can be chapter, district, or regional/metropolitan. In order to be a member of one of these you have to have be an active member of the National Alumni Association($25.00 a year). Also you must have been an Active, Conditional or Associate member of the fraternity, or be an honorary member(one time fee of $30.00, usually paid for by the chapter). A chapter, district or the national organization may bestow upon someone honorary membership. It is only bestow upon those either a. Are exemplary in their field of endeavor, b. Have somehow greatly affected music or the field of music, or c. Have in some way provided great assistance to the National organization, a District, or the Chapter in question. If you are an honorary member you have the same rights as fraternity Alumni, including the right of purchasing a LIFE membership. Our LIFE memberships have a one time cost of $250.00. Life members get a Life Member roster number, LIFE Member Shingle, LIFE Member Card and get our national magazine(The Podium). They also are allowed to attend national/district conventions and if a chapter chooses them as a proxy may vote on their behalf. Being able to vote on behalf of a Chapter and attend the closed business sessions are one of the rights a LIFE member has over an Alumni member. Since our Alumni association holds their biennial convention concurrently with ours there are some sessions built around Active/Alumni interaction, while some sessions are open only to Actives and Chapter Proxies.

As far as being active after graduation, that is really unfortunately something that varies chapter by chapter in our organization. I've seen chapters that have strong Alumni support and chapters that didn't have support of their Alumni due to either being weak or not attentive enough to the alumni base. But for the most part I feel our alumni situation is one of a growing nature, due to the fact that Alumni Chapters failed to work for the most part and were disbanded during the early/mid-eighties for this reason and because of the then hazing situation--> Insurance situation(The control structure was antiquated[from around our founding in 1919] and therefore Alumni Chapters often were way too autonomous and hard to punish/control for hazing activity). Then in the early nineties the National Alumni Association was formed. It's basically barely 10 years old right now, so it's still evolving. Our NAA is working hard through both the district and the district alumni associations to help get Chapter and Regional/Metropolitan Local Alumni associations started. As far as the structure, it's NAA -->> District(District AA's are considered a LAA) -->> all other LAA's. They each have their own officers and send an annual report to the NAA along with an LAA due of I believe $25.00, plus the NAA fees from the members of the LAA. Each LAA is free to collect or not collect a local fee for their local administrative needs and purposes. The NAA fee's cover national administrative cost and cover their part of the NATIONAL INSURANCE FEE.

Last edited by bonelifer; 05-14-2005 at 04:34 AM.
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