[Tom Earp]

Gamma Zeta, let me refresh your memory for a moment.

At the conference in Indianoplis, there was a local at the time living in the old house. They were invited to the conference to try and persuade them to affiliate with LXA. I know of two Brothers on this site who talked with the young men, myself and Brother Jono.

I called them a couple of times and then they just disapeared.

I am aware as you know the person that you are refering to and he is no longer at IHQ. He also was the one totaly dead set about going back to UMass.

With the current leadership who I along with Trey have delt with, there is a huge change. We as a Fraternity were darn near bankrupt and changes had to be made. As all of have seen a lot of hard changes had to be to cut the budget and get the finances back in place. The electronic C & C, cuts in staffing and other things that we may not be aware of. But the one thing that was held in place was the number of ELCs to work with existing chapters.

The time frame you are talking about was before Bill Farkas and Biff Holloway arrived and many changes have taken place. Some not so good, but many more to the good.

Expansion at that point of time was just not in the cards as it is today. As John said, there is a concerted effort to go back to closed chapters and reopen them as opposed to expansion in new areas unless there is a compelling reason to do so. I have worked with both Bill and Biff concerning my chapter that should ahve been closed but was sent help and LX Z is now growing again.

So now GammaZeta, since there is an effort to come back to UMass, now is not the time to keep complaining about the past, but to plan for the future.

1. Begin working again with Alums and build a strong core group.
2. Have monies in place for aiding the possible new chapter.
3. Work with IHQ not against them.
4. When the chapter is reopened, have a web site in place.

Be part of it or not, that is your call and complaining what had happened before will not get anything done now.

I am sure all of the Brotherhood would like to see Gamma Zeta opened again.