[a.e.B.O.T.]

Originally Posted by EE-BO

Hi a.e.B.O.T,

I have a great deal of respect for you. You speak with an intelligence beyond your years (and thank you nittyalum for your kind words to me on that score- I wish I was always able to live up to that praise.)

I did not mean to call you ignorant- and my comments were not directed at you so much as at a general sentiment I and other alumni have heard from many others who are currently active in various chapters.

There is a delicate balance here- and substance free is merely an issue reflecting a growing process I think Beta is undergoing right now.

The alumni of my chapter have put substantial financial support into paying travel and registration expenses to get actives to attend the various General Fraternity leadership opportunities. And 100% of the guys who go come back and report it was a great experience. These training opportunities are having a good effect and we continue to support them.

However, there is also a sentiment often expressed- usually from newer colonies it seems- that there is an "old way" of how to be a Beta- and that way must be bad, but without any coherent or intelligent explanation as to why that is the case.

This attitude comes up in discussions about things like substance free housing. There are very practical reasons to consider it, and there are Beta chapters where the actives or alumni have chosen to go that route. And to date, it has only been imposed on chapters who have shown an inability to execute their risk management responsibilities with the care and diligence one should expect of a Beta.

But the "attitude" I speak of does not address things like that. Instead it quickly degenerates into telling alumni they rushed Beta for the wrong reason or that they are part of a problem that has to be solved.

This is when we get upset. Friends of Beta who run these seminars will give out lots of theoretical advice, but after that you are on your own. And if you fail the easy response is, "well, you didn't try hard enough."

Alumni are still the ones who pay for houses and run local chapters as advisors and Housing Corporations. And more and more we are on our own. There is noone at Oxford to call anymore with requests for guidance on legal issues like tax considerations or working on zoning issues that come up at various campuses. I have Housing Corp records from decades ago when General Fraternity sent out periodic newletters with tax alerts and other legislation that Housing Corporations needed to know about. Those days are over.

That does not mean we run the show. General Fraternity does that, and their direction combined with the wishes of an individual chapter is how things have to work. As long as a chapter is not looking to do anything against Beta Principles, General Fraternity policy or in some way illegal- I think alumni are honor-bound to support the path a chapter chooses, or convince them with reasoned explanation why a different path is best.

It is a careful balance that has to be maintained.

But that balance is interrupted with some of the idealogical commentary that comes up at times and insists that we are on some new path that is unique to Beta and all the old guys are "bad". The attack on Coramoor is a good example of that.

If someone tells me that at a given campus a chapter needs to have a dry house so more guys will live there, and so the house can be kept in better condition and be the kind of haven the actives want- I can buy that.

But to say that anyone who thinks substance free is overboard chose Beta for the wrong reasons is not a logical or intelligent comment by any measure.

And that is where my "life experience" comment comes into play. Substance free, reduced hazing and all the issues we talk about today have been there for a long time. It has always been something to be dealt with, and while I am glad General Fraternity is addressing it in a central and education-drive way, there is no doubt that some people take that instruction to fanatical extremes and have developed a very unrealistic view of how the world works.

Many of us "Southern" chapters have long histories with a very clean record because we rejected illegal hazing practices long ago, and because we take risk management seriously.

And there are certainly Men of Principle substance free chapters with absolutely dismal risk management records in recent years- including specific incidents that no good Beta chapter, MPI partnered or not, would even consider could happen.

A piece of paper or a lecture from a Friend of Beta can go a long way to promoting a better chapter and a better fraternity. But that is no substitute for a chapter with alumni support that is moving in those good directions on its own already.

That is the subtle distinction. It is a matter of putting trust in Betas first and in training tools as enhancement of that- and not the other way around.

AAAH, EE-Bo, you did it again. Listen, im raising the white flag, which is what I've been trying to do, but you seem not to let me. You defend attacks by attacking me? weird, anywho, you win! I take back what I said about coramoor, because you took it WAY the wrong way. It is not his opinion on the issue that made me say this, it is what and how he relays that message, here and in almost every previous thread. We just come from different aspects, I guess, and that is OK. My right and wrong reasoning for joining a fraternity is different then yours, etc, and so will yours be to others. I am not here to argue, but merely to state my opinion and read other's opinion. I don't feel like I attacked, and if you feel that way, then please know that those are not my intentions. Please don't respond, because really, there is nothing to respond to. It has all been commenting it to a whole lot of nothing.