[Kevin]

My chapter did face a few of the concerns you express Delt.

First, the seniors who did not come back. This did actually happen. When our charter was approved, we were asked to submit a list to IHQ of men to be initiated. I compiled the list, on it placing all the names of the men I knew of who had been active in the colony and had not resigned or faded away for whatever reason (I actually came up with a point system as a means to this end here because there was some dispute over who would get the lower badge numbers, the system awarded points for amount of time active in the chapter, then by offices held).

I became active in the second semester of the colony's life (I sat out the first one because of work/class conflicts with mandatory meetings). In that first semester, there were two seniors who graduated. One of those seniors moved (I think) to Indiana, and was never heard from again. Another stayed local, and occasionally attended meetings, or loaned us some land for a party, etc. They were friends.

Until this came up, I had never even heard of the existance of the first alumnus. The second one, however, refused to initiate since we didn't contact his buddy. We ended up not initiating either of the two.

We did have other men who graduated, but in all cases, they remained involved on some level (some at a very high level) with the chapter's affairs. ALL of those alums were invited back, and they all showed up, some from out of state.

As for my take on that policy, I really like it. When you join a colony, you're not just joining an established chapter. You're making a promise to the men who are joining with you to do everything you can to make sure that the colony becomes a chapter. Moving away and not taking steps to stay involved or informed? Sorry, but your letting your fellow colony members down. Men who join colonies do not deserve anything but what they earn. I'm a big fan of the system (at least with my group) staying the way it is.

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As for your proposal that being initiated would put a damper in our efforts at building a chapter, I completely agree. In Sigma Nu, when we are initiated, we are given a badge number. Our badge number is designated by our chapter name (mine is Mu Tau), and then our badge number (I'm #5). If there's no chapter, I have a hard time understanding how they're going to be able to claim initiates and award badge numbers. I can't really get any more in-depth than that.

The colony experience for me was really enhanced by finally being initiated into my own chapter. Being initiated by someone else's chapter seems to defeat the purpose a little. This goes back to my feeling that colony members are not owed anything -- they need to prove themselves to IHQ first.