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Oops! I missed a word and lost a lot of meaning. Let me ammend my previous post by changing "alumni relations" to "alumni relations program." It's not and never has been our alumni that I'm upset with. Really, they are a great bunch. But rather, our program. It's more or less consisted of a twice-school-yearly newsletter, which hasn't always gotten out twice a year. Furthermore, it often is just active chapter related stuff, when, acording to an old Rho, it sholud be 60/40 alumni/active news, coordinated and sent out by our Rho. This makes sense to me: the idea would be to help keep all us alumni aware of *each other* and our active chapter.
When I asked "Is that normal?" I was really curious if it is a common occurance that chapters have alumni actively giving money to the fraternity without giving to their chapters. I'm afraid it is.
One of the best points that I've heard in reply to my original comment, Eric emphasized asking for money to fund specific projects. That sounds like a oft-overlooked point. I can totally see passing by a "We'd like some $$, too." But if, in a newsletter, there was, "We'd like to raise X dollars to build a Y." And, better yet, the next newsletter said, "Those who donated helped us build a fantastic X!" with pictures! Who *wouldn't* be donating to the chapter!?!
Eric's second point, setting up a fund with the EF, is also something our chapter should be looking into. I've seen some brothers drop out of Rose because of grades, but I've also seen it happen because of cash. It only makes sense that we should be helping each other get through that highly expensive school.
Now, more than ever, I feel like not having a High Pi has really hurt us. These ideas seem like so much common sense, but we had no one to give them to us. Our chapter always felt, at least to me, isolated from the general fraternity. We just never got involved with SAC, the various student awards/scholarships, etc. We always sent brothers to GCs and such, but the chapter as a whole felt isolated. Especially after the close of the chapter at Indiana State. Although, really, I seemed to only see them at parties (specific brothers excluded).
I tend to make long rambling posts... I think I'll end this one here. : )
P.S. I'll pass on the link to 48hourprint.com (Although I doubt we have 1000 correct addresses, I think we could pull 50 responses.)
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