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Originally Posted by TechSigmaNu
We have a housing corporation but I wanted to know if anybody has had any experience good or bad dealing with your housing board. We just don't have a great communication link between our chapter and our housing board and I want to change that.
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Well, my experience is sort of from the other side of things. We have a housing corporation, we have elected officers for it. We have a board of directors. They just haven't met in about 4 years and the 'corporation' currently consists of one alumnus who sort of does it all. This has worked out for us, but for legal reasons, the situation isn't good.
My goal lately has been to start the housing corporation down a different path -- to hold annual BOD meetings (as their bylaws require), to come up with goals and means to improving our housing situation, etc. I'm not a member of the corp (although I'd definitely do whatever they needed me to or serve on the BoD if asked), I'm merely attempting to serve as a catalyst to move things along.
That said, the biggest obstacle to having communication with your housing corporation is you. The individuals who serve on the board are no doubt alums. The officers of the housing corporation are no doubt alums as well. Their door should always be open to (reasonable) contact from the actives. I say reasonable only because I think it'd be okay for the EC to sit in on a BoD meeting, or to give them annual status reports; whereas, as think the whole chapter showing up to a BoD meeting to 'show support' would be a needless distraction.
The onus here is on you. BoD members don't spend a whole lot of time meeting and setting the policies of the housing corporation. The officers of the corporation know what they're doing and may feel they don't
need active input to succeed.
You guys are why they're doing it though. You're the life blood of the chapter. While they may not
need your input, I'm certain they
want it. It's on you though. Probably the best way to get started on this is to talk to your chapter adviser. I know that in my chapter, the active EC and house manager both have quite a bit of contact with the house corporation.