[lifesaver]

Random thoughts here...

Rho is probably the most neglected office - by both chapters and the general fraternity. The only office I can think of that is in more need of a reworking is the High Kappa (but that also is another thread...)

I believe we need some leadership from the GF here. As I told the GHZ in February, we spend THOUSANDS of dollars on membership development and leadership training with nothing more for the members upon graduation that a fare thee well. Unlike the NPC sororities and NPHC groups, we have no inter/national mechanism for taking graduating seniors and plugging them into 'new alumni' groups. We're all brothers, but brothers are going to want to hang out with guys they went to school with or at least brothers their own age, while they develop the skills of a valueable alumni. Now, we graduate these brothers and expect them to dive right in with alumni they might have only met a few times that might be in some cases, 40 years older? We need to create a program of 'junior alumni associations' that can be city or region based and focuses on alumni development of our members aged 22-35. At 35 they go on to a regular alumni assn. - chapter or metro.

If you give members a chance to leave the fraternity, you will have a much harder time bringing them back. Why not just transition them into an alumni group that is a step between their beer soaked undergrad days and marrage and family life? At that age they are still highly social, yet are in professional jobs or grad school and still have an identity that is very closely tied to the fraternity. There's a key opportunity to tap into that underserved market, provide some services in the form of a junior alumni association and develop the army of alumni volunteers that will serve for life.

The general fraternity says they are doing a great job with this transition by implementing the mentoring program. Thats BS and I dismiss it. The mentoring program is great - but its a professional development program and nothing more. The GF seems to have this selfless view that all we can do is member development. Whats wrong with hitting our members up to fufill their obligations on their involvment post graduation?

Marty Smith (Past GHA) told me in January of 03 that inter/nationally we only have about 75 really involved alumni. For an organization of nearly 250,000 initiated members, thats insane. Why? Primarily because we arent offering services to our alumni members. We expect them to give back purely out of obligation, yet not really get anything more than the C&C randomly throughout the year. If the GF was able to say, for example, we are offering the following services to our alumni; brother locating service, alumni association training and development, new grad mixers, creation and sponsorship of junior alumni associations, etc, there might be more alums willing to give cash and time. Hell, the GF might already be doing this stuff - they just dont market that they do it.

It seems to me that the only real outreach is the regular pleas for cash, the C&C's and the new emails that come out weekly. I realize all this stuff costs, and thats been the barrier lately, but we can start to make the changes. If we dont, we wont have to wory about involvment. Cause we'll all be ATO's.

It isnt all on the GF tho. It's foolhardy to think that just because they graduate they are supposed to know how to be good alumni - especially when often we (as current alums & GF) dont give them the tools to be good alumni, or set the best example. How often as an undergrad did I see the alums come in for homecoming (at my initiating chapter - at my transfer chapter the alums never showed up for anything, they just always told us how great they were.) show up, get hammered, pass out on the chapter sofas, drop off some cash and dissapear untill the next homecoming? We have to continue to set the expample.

I hope staff will be willing to work with the alumni towards workable solutions. Together, we might come up with some solutions that will get the results we all want. I know that Holloway is ready to roll up his sleeves. The question is, are others at 8741 willing to roll up their sleeves and work with us on a solution?