TKE house

TKE Nu Mu 354 · #1 02-18-2003, 10:17 PM

For those who didn't see. there was a comedy central special for the old school movie and they filmed it at a TKE house. doesn anyone know what house that was because i have now come to the conclusion that every tke house is falling apart and a pile of shit. Thanks for the help nationals, you guys suck!!!!!!!!!!!

The1calledTKE · #2 02-18-2003, 11:17 PM

I meantioned it in the old school thread. It was the Rutgers TKE house. The house was a mess but if they cleaned it up it would look alot better. Internationals can't afford to help with houses. Never could it is not their job. Maybe if every chapter paid all the money they owe to internationals they could start a project like that. It probably is a pain just to make the insurence payments to keep the chapters open. Everytime a TKE chapter gets busted for alcohol violations the insurence goes up. No I don't work for internationals but I know they are not rolling around in money to fix up and buy houses for chapters. Ask any chapter around even the really old ones. Alumni and undergrads helped pay to get the houses they have and it is there job to maintain them. I Have been a alum close to three years now. My chapter has a house. It could use a little work but you would be amazed the ways fellow fraters can fix up things when they pool their resources. In my undegrad days I bashed internationals too. But I know its not their fault some chapters don't have houses and some chapters to fix up their houses. It is the fraters job to maintain it so it looks like it is in good shape

YITB
Brandon

TKE Nu Mu 354 · #3 02-18-2003, 11:41 PM

Thanks for your words of wisdom Brandon, i do agree with some of what you said but that is for the chapters that shouldn't be but we have won top teke 5 out of the past 6 years and all nationals has to say to us is if it's not broke don't fix it. so thats why i feel so strongly against them. sorry we don't have the money to buy one of these nice 3 story houses that i see at chapters that flat out suck but we work with what we have and i think we are doing a damn good job at what we are accomplishing. I am sure you can agree with some of my points just as i can with some of yours.

YITB

Rin

The1calledTKE · #4 02-19-2003, 12:05 AM

I understand. Your chapter goes beyond most and does what it is suppose to. All I can suggest is set a housing fund that no one but your cryso can touch. Try looking into leasing a house. It is done all the time. My chapter is lucky enough to own the house we are in but only one other fraternity on campus own their house. The rest lease or rent. If you are lucky you might find a TKE alumni (doesn't have to be from your chapter) that might get you a good deal. If not you can rent from soebody else. More than likely they will put soe strict rules in effect but at least you would have a house. If you can get a certain amount of brothers to promise to move in a house rent should not be a problem. Say its a three bedroom house get 6 brothers to live in it and chage them 100 dollars a month. Have them let them pay most the utilities and the chapter would have a house. Even with that deal it would be cheaper for them to live in the house than out on their own with one or 2 room mates.

Nu-Mu356 · #5 02-19-2003, 12:45 AM

those are all good ideas, but surprisingly enough, we already lease the house, and it is 3 bedrooms, and we do have 3 brothers living there, and they do pay 100 bucks a month, ironically enough.

I've just heard lots of stories about (Inter)Nationals about how they funded chapters for houses and they ended up falling apart and losing their charter or becoming inactive. They help fund a lot of chapters that really never did too well to begin with. From my understanding, they'll help out a chapter with no house and hardly any guys. We have A house, with not a lot of guys, but since we win these awards, they don't help us. I think one of the reasons we try so hard to begin with is to get their attention to see if we can get some funding, because we really need it.

I should take pictures of our house. If you thought the house on the Old School special looked bad... well, you get the picture. I don't think there's been any serious renovations since it was built in the 70's. But hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Well, last time I checked, it is broke. Heater don't work, TV is broke, doors are falling off. Our driveway washed away years ago... all we have is a bikepath worth of driveway and the rest is a damn BMX course we call our parking lot.

Tell me that (inter)nationals isn't responsible for houses and their renovations and all that, but uh... well, you read my statement.

The End.

CanadianTeke · #6 02-19-2003, 12:50 AM

This is the first year our chapter has a house. we rent our house as part of a triplex, which means there can be alot of difficulty when we have parties. Only 6 fraters of our 40 man chapter live in the house, but at the same time it is ours. It means no more scrambelling for locations to hold events. If you take your hosue for granted it will fall apart and it will look like a shithole animal house. Like i said this is the first year we have had a house, this is the first house in Canada for a Teke chapter, maybe that doesn't mean much, but we take care of it, because it is finally 'ours'!

The1calledTKE · #7 02-19-2003, 01:18 AM

I will have to ask internationals that one never heard of them funding a house, and I have talked to quite a few guys from IHQ. The few restarts I seen around my area either don't have a house or their alumni helped get it.If it is true that they help fund houses for restarts then you have a valid complaint. I agree IHQ doesn't like to help the chapters that do well, probably because there always seems to be a chapter on the verge of closing that needs help. If you hate IHQ so much use the money you collect for dues and pay for the repairs to your house. Furniture is not a necessicty and if you really need it you can get cheap allready owned stuff real easy. 90% of the furnature in my house was donated by alumni when they got new furnture for themselves. Zeta Nu's drive way needs repairs too. We usually find way to fix up things. Yes Zeta Nu owes money to IHQ that probably because of house repairs. I guess basically you got decide what is more important house repairs or being a top teke chapter. Maybe at the next conclave someone can try to get a bylaw passed that top teke chapters should be eligible for money for house repairs. I bet that might get even more chapters to strive to achieve to be top tekes. I really doubt IHQ does not care about you. They are indeed your fraters and probably have seen many cases like yours. If they do fund houses for restarts then I think there should be a bylaw banning that and should use the money for the in worst shape TKE houses and the chapters that don't even have houses.

Does your school have a big greek community? If so maybe you can get the university to build university run houses. It sucks you have to follow the universiities rules for a house but you know they would keep it maintained.

I know you have heard or stories, but do you really know if they are true or not? Drill IHQ, email them and call them about it regularly. They may get annoyed but your dues pay their salaries. I wish some of the IHQ guys that are members here would come back and post about the topic they could answer the question alot better than any of us. I am always cautious about stories because I find out a bunch of them are not true. Like one story I have been hearing lately is if a chapter pays it's debt off to IHQ , IHQ will close them so they don't go in debt again. I emailed IHQ about that one and found out it never has happened. The story started after a chapter was being investigated for hazing. The chapter paid off their debt thinking it would help their case. The ended up getting shut down for hazing. After that angry fraters claimed they got closed down for paying off their debt.

SOTKE242 · #8 02-19-2003, 03:55 AM

Just to set the record straight. Nationals cannot do it all. They assist in keeping the fraternity together as a whole. That insurance you pay for every year? Done by them. They get us a hella good price for a service well needed. Those magazines you get every semester (I hope anyways). Published and printed by none other than our IHQ. The Conventions and Conclaves we have. Once again our brothers at IHQ. The scholarships provided yearly to brothers who apply for and earn it. Once again IHQ. While getting a house might not be at the top of their priority list, they still do alot for us. I had/have some of the same feelings as you Nu-Mu, but to rag IHQ because us chapters can't wipe our own asses sometimes is just stupid.

Secondly, I saw this problem months ago and suggested to my prytanis at the time if in a few years whether or not it would be cool to stash money away not for us. Let the money build up over time when we can and someday donate it to a chapter in need of a house. If enough chapters chipped in they could make a big difference. If we worked more as a team internationally the ripple effect would be amazing. Think about it. Re-establishing a chapter somewhere that gets about 40 brothers. Imagine just doing that to say 10 chapters who had their charters revoked long ago. Or for a new chapter. The more brothers signed up internationally would not only decrease dues to international, but would probably allow for our IHQ to provide more services such as a housing fund. But that's just me.

It's good to get a lively debate on this forum for once. hehe

The1calledTKE · #9 02-19-2003, 11:10 AM

I brought this topic up in the list serve. The only thing they used to have was a housing fund. It was just a loan though that had to be paid back so other chapters could use it. The only thing is most chapters didn't pay it back and the fund went dormant. They said they might just eliminate it next conclave, partly because it never has any money in it. There never has been any free money from IHQ to pay for or repair houses.

Wes_517 · #10 02-27-2003, 12:42 AM

The housing fund was started a long time ago with the ask every alum for a few dollars and it built up quite well, a bunch of chapters used it and abused it like said before, and now after a couple of houses got bailed out recently from debt, there is no money. (that and collections for AMFs and insurance aren't at 100% yet)

Kevin Meyaux is doing ALOT to get the collections % up there, he's raised them i think about 10% now so their in the high 80-low 90%s in the past year or two, which makes alot more money for TKE.

there's also talk about when the TEF gets realigned very soon, it will have a chapter focus instead of an international focus. i.e. your alum gives $100, $100 goes to the chapter that he wants it to go to in the form of scholarship, programming, housing, support that kinda stuff for that chapter instead of international base.

Getting pretty close to HQ this past year or two, there's alot that their doing, but when you look at 270+ different chapters that all need help, and you look at the support staff, there's no possible way. BUT THEY ARE WORKING ON IT.

the new idea is to really push provinces. you got a GPA and hopefully a few PAs that are already within a few hours of your chapters, we boost the number of volunteers and get them trained in the right areas, it'll do alot more good than hiring another person for staff or a loan on a house.

the Grand Council and HQ are working really hard to get things changed, in the RLCs they are finding out alot of what undergrads want, problem is, if we don't tell them that there's a problem, it's hard for them to find out. i.e. visits, when a CMC comes around, most chapters hide their problems to look better, and so the CMC doesn't see the problem and can't address it.

basically, if there's something you want, tactfully tell HQ you want it. it'll go alot farther than yelling or namecalling.

CanadianTeke · #11 02-27-2003, 12:48 AM

Another thing that is useful in telling IHQ what you want is the Collegiate Advisory Commitee . It is a commitee that reports directly to the grand council, but is made up of undergrads from every region. The whole point of the CAC is to take your needs as an active undergrad chapter and have them met.

Wes_517 · #12 02-27-2003, 12:54 AM

and if you ever get the chance to meet chris vining (on the collegiate advisory commitee), great guy... he can bs you into about anything. seeing him talk it up (CAC) to get women in Perdue is great... when you talk to them, they do listen, even if what you want isn't practical right now, it may happen later.

ncstatetke · #13 02-27-2003, 12:55 PM

Quote:

i have now come to the conclusion that every tke house is falling apart and a pile of shit

Well, I can think of at least one TKE house that is neither falling apart nor a pile of shit:

Quote:

sorry we don't have the money to buy one of these nice 3 story houses that i see at chapters that flat out suck but we work with what we have and i think we are doing a damn good job at what we are accomplishing

Your accomplishments sounds nice and all, but I beg to differ when you say you're doing a "damn good job." Granted I have never met you or anyone from your chapter, but ask yourself one question: "Are we using our alumni base to our best potential" I'll wager that the answer is no. We thought we would never have a house of our own, but we began asking our wonderful alumni for help (thankfully we have a strong alumni association set up) and lo and behold ONE alumni donated the full 3+ Million dollars for the new house.

Before placing the blame on others, sometimes you have to look at yourself.