I love being an advisor...

[lifesaver]

Got a call at 2:30 am from an undergraduate wanting to know if they could call a brother before exec for not knowing the creed.

lol.

I told them to put the beer down and we'd talk about it later.

[JonoBN41]

At least they didn't wake you up

[Tom Earp]

Jono!

life, how did they call you?

Well, when you are a Mentor/Advisor, at least they have someone to call and ask advice! They must know you dont go to bed early!

Give a mentoring session about not calling so early in the AM for some of us, but for you is normal for late hours!

That is why it was so hard to get my plane from Indy that morning.

Boy did that B M taste GREAT!

Bless My Flight Attendent of SW Air!

[Mooch279]

Ahhh the late night drunken phone call man i miss those.....making them that is.......good times.

[GammaZeta]

LOL! Thank god I'm not an advisor, I'd already be in jail for assault!

Reasons for making a 2:30 phone call:
Medical emergency
fire
severe property damage
theft

Reasons for NOT making a 2:30 phone call:
Someone doesn't remember the creed

You need to tell the guy to sit down and take a breath. Considering most people can't remember basic American history, dates that are important to loved ones, or where the remote is, I'm pretty sure not remembering the creed is not a top priority at 2:30 am. Especially since it's readily available in the paed. at any time.

If someone in my chapter started to bitch at me (or any other brother) at 2:30 am for not remembering the creed, an officially sanctioned a$$-kicking of the uptight criticizing brother would be in effect.

[boz130]

Better to get an early morning phone call about this sort of thing than some of the nastier reasons.

ZAX,
BF

[Eric_Berger]

While I can appreciate the light-hearted tone of this posting, I would caution you to monitor the situation very closely.

Beware of the post-Chartering decline, an all too frequent situation in Lambda Chi Alpha where colonies attain their goal of a Charter and then begin a decline in standards because they have nothing else to shoot for. I temper my remarks with the notice that I go overboard by subscribing to the philosophy that if it looks like a goose, it smells like a goose, it honks like a goose, and someone thinks it is a duck, it is a duck, also known as hazing.

Also, as a fellow advisor, you need to lay down the law about appropriate times to contact you. I have a wife and one child, and that would be the last phone call at that time that I would ever get in my house.

Yours in ZAX,
Eric

[chopperLI905]

I got to laugh about this.. Here at Lambda Iota Zeta we have a long standing joke about one of our brothers who likes to call our High PI when he is drunk and tell Tom Boelk that he doesnt know what our chapter would do with out him and how much he loves Tom. The best part is Tom doesnt anwser the phone calls most of the time but Tom will play the message for everyone at the meetings to here at our meeting.

[lifesaver]

Thanks Eric,

I appreciate your admonishment about the post charter decline. It was the one comment everyone shared with both the Alpha and myself at the council of presidents/high pi conference a few weeks ago in Orlando.

Fortunately, these are sharp man and have set goals, both short and long term. They are now dedicated to achieving a grand High Alpha award and are in the nascent stages of exploring housing options. (so embryonic is the housing issue, the AA doesn’t even know about it yet.)

Some background on the creed situation might help. The call wasn’t in reference to associates who don’t know their creed. It was in reference to a few active initiated brothers who didn’t know it. The kappa is frustrated with two of the brothers not taking it serious that they should have it memorized. He’s been the Kappa since they were colonized, and is trying to cover some of the bases he might have missed when they first started. New member education can be a challenge when the entire group, including the kappa are new members. Finally, our new member education program is sub-par. Other groups have better ‘first year’ programs and I believe ours is in need of a major re-work.

I would never suspect hazing from these guys. They know what I expect of them. They know what their goals are. Hazing isn’t a part of it. I know this partly because when he called, he wanted to do things properly, utilizing exec to handle problems, not dishing out discipline himself. To me that says they get it. While there is no constitutional requirement to know the creed, he is looking at it as a basic membership standard.

The time doesn’t bother me really. They know I am a night owl and am usually up till 2 or 3 am. If I am asleep, I don’t answer. It goes to vm. I would of course be awake or there when they had a chapter function going on for risk management purposes.

[LXAAlum]

Speaking of phone calls....here's what NOT to do:

At one LXA chapter, they used to do paddle questions - an initiated brother would ask any question about LXA, or the chapter, or about the brothers, and the Associate Member could not get the paddle back until he got the answer, then the brother would sign it.

A few years ago, an alumnus asked a very challenging question of an AM "Who was the only brother from this chapter to die in WWII, and how did he die?" Associate was in ROTC, so this seemed to be a question he could relate to.

Unable to find the answer from any of the brothers, and (I guess) to his credit, he was very resourceful. He called HQ to get the answer.

A few minutes later, the Director of Chapter Services called the alumnus that had asked the question. Not happy.

Alumnus called the AM. Also not happy. Told him where to look for the answer. Found it (the brother was killed after being taken prisoner by the Japanese - on a troop ship to a POW camp in Japan, the ship was sunk by an American submarine).

Next AM class - new rules - "NEVER EVER call HQ - the secretaries there don't have the answers, plus you'll get LXAALUM in trouble again."

Good times. Sort of. The call from Bob London was not.

[GammaZeta]

We used to do something like that, but the other way around. Each associate would think of 15-20 questions to ask each brother. Then they would have a week to go around, sit down with each brother and get the answers to the questions. Some brothers gave wacky answers, others were serious. After all the questions were answered, the brother would sign off on it.

It was a great way for the associates to learn more about each brother and was a pretty good ice breaker for the shy associates.

[Tom Earp]

Ah, life, the name that I dont like!

GZ, in todays PC it is improper.

But, it has always been my question, how do we get New Associates to:

1. Learn about LXA.
2. Learn about The Zeta.
3. Study to make GPA to get Initiated, stay Active, and Graduate from College.

Isnt that the definitive question?

life, how many Brothers do you and we all know that know the Creed by Heart?

While His thoughts were good, His descretion left a little to be desired, No?

[lifesaver]

Originally posted by GammaZeta
We used to do something like that, but the other way around. Each associate would think of 15-20 questions to ask each brother. Then they would have a week to go around, sit down with each brother and get the answers to the questions. Some brothers gave wacky answers, others were serious. After all the questions were answered, the brother would sign off on it.

It was a great way for the associates to learn more about each brother and was a pretty good ice breaker for the shy associates.

Just stating policy here, dont kill the messenger.

Its a great idea in theory, but is considered a violation of Lambda Chi policy, because its contrary to the AM program. Its too simular to "active interviews" of other fraternities & of days long ago. It would be kosher if everyone interviewed everyone. But ya cant have one group have to do something (especially the AM's) while the other group dosent.

[RACooper]

There are times I admit that I wish I could ask such questions...

I'm a firm believer in indoctrination - but will not do anything that way out of fear it may become hazing...

For example - and I can relate this - for our pre-i week a scavenger hunt has been resurected... but it is photo only. So we ask for the AMs with one or more actives to go out and get photos of stupid items - but mostly stuff relating to the country, city, school, or chapter...

So an example 'question' might be - photograph one of the five members to die during WWII - before the US declared war...

Tie breakers are solved by knowing the reasons behind the photos...


As for actives not knowing the Creed - I can sympathize... with us it was rapid growth that overloaded the member education ssytem (3 times as many AMs and actives). However I can sympathize with the concern over either lack of eduction or dedication to the Fraternity... but 2:30AM calls are NOT the way to go... a revamped education program for EVERYONE seems to be the best recourse - not waking up 'old' and possibly irate Alumn

[Ottor 246]

When I was an AM (Spring '91) we had a similar activity, but nothing as formal as the 20 questions. We were given a Form 25 (coat of arms) and told that if we wanted to, we could go around and get the signatures of all the active brothers and associates. We weren't required to do it, but when all the brothers showed us their signed coats of arms and told us how highly they prized them, we understood that it was more or less expected of us. It was a task we went about gladly, but nothing happened to us if we didn't get all the signatures. We just had an "imcomplete" coat of arms.

We also did a lot of kappa events where brothers and AMs would answer questions like "who is your hero" and "what is your greatest fear." When you know how your brothers answer questions like that, you really feel like brothers.

Mark Brenneman
Phi-Tau Zeta #246