[33girl]

damasa - didn't you mention once that the school is making you (or, as they stay, STRONGLY ENCOURAGING as they hold the knife to your throat) go national? If so, there is nothing you can do, unless you want to be unrecognized by the school. If that is the case the alums shouldn't blame y'all for that.

You have NOT been selfish, that's for sure. As an alum, I don't buy this "I was too busy to know" bs especially in this day & age of email. The busiest person in the world, if they really care, can take time to send a 3 line email to the chapter periodically and see how things were going. The truth of the matter (and needless to say this excludes all the involved alumni here on GC) is that a lot of alums are perfectly content to go on thinking everything is fine, somehow contained in a time bubble and exactly how it was when they left, and then when 10 years later they find out otherwise they have cows. After I graduated, my collegiate sisters respected me and my opinions because I stayed involved. Would they, SHOULD they, show the same kind of respect to the alum who only shows up every 5 years to drink beer at homecoming? Hell, no.

You have a whole summer to get in touch with alums and find out their opinions. I can't tell you which way to go, but give everyone that last chance to say what they feel, and have the situation explained to them. If you don't get jack in the way of support, go forward. And if there are any repercussions, remind the alums that they chose you to be brothers because they trusted you with the future of the fraternity, whatever it may be.