Let's Get This Cranked Up Again Men

[Firehouse]

Pike is too strong not to have had any posts in a month.
How did everyone do in spring rush?
"Glamour chapter?" I'm told teen-heart-throb Mason Gamble is an undergraduate Pike at UCLA along with five memebrs of the Bruins football team.
A Pike alum from Florida State was just elected Governor of Florida.
Great stuff going on in a great fraternity. Let's hear about your successes.

[KEPike]

Firehouse,

You are too right about the lack of posts. However, I hope this means that the guys are all out on the recruiting trail and working hard in the classroom rather than chatting online.

The chapter I advise here at UT Arlington had a difficult fall. They've gone through their post-chartering lull plus they've had to deal with a ton of crap from the University/other fraternities. They've got a new set of leaders in place who are pumped and doing great things - rush is currently underway and they are closing 15+ guys. With strong recruitment efforts throughout the spring, I believe they'll add another 10-15. They're also working on getting a community service project aired on HGTV...in March they are remodeling a room for a cancer patient.

My home chapter at Rockhurst is strong as always. They're also in the middle of recruitment right now. Rockhurst had 48 men go through formal recruitment (RU is formal, deferred) and what I hear from the President is that they'll get about half that number. With that class the chapter will be between 75-80 men, which is about 10% of the undergrad population. The alumni are in the early stages of a capital campaign to raise funds for a permanent house for the chapter. We've got a full head of steam and tremendous backing from one very prominent alum. Unfortunately, I can't divulge a lot of the details because we are still in the quiet phase of the campaign.

How is everyone else doing? Who is planning on going to any upcoming Leadership Summits? The Academy? True Pike Challenge? etc.?

[thomaskat]

Im planning on going to the upcoming pike university event in Atlanta, probably solo though.
As for recruitment, it officially starts next week, we have an initiated brother from Delta Lambda as our recruitment chairman, he has some pretty high goals, but I am pumped and think that we can definitely achieve our goals, especially with him running recruitment.

[Firehouse]

I'm Delta Lambda. Who's your rush chairman?

[Tom_21]

Hello all.

I was told to check this site out by a friend, and noticed that someone from my Colony has been posting on it. I figured I'd take the time to introduce myself and assist him in filling you in on our Colony.

My name is Tom, I'm president of the Colony and Hofstra University. I'm not sure if anything I will be telling you here will be a repeat, so if that is the case I apologize.

The work to get Pi Kappa Alpha onto our campus started almost two years ago, when our interest group expressed interest in changing Greek life here. Our campus was closed for expansion but with constant contact with Student Activities and persistence we suceeded in getting the campus re-opened. Initial contact with Pike started prior to our groups interest, when an initiated brother from Delta Lambda, AJ Rizzo, transfered here. He was looking to bring Pike here as well. The current director of Fraternities and Sororities then informed me that someone else was trying to bring a new national here, Pike. AJ and I met up and the rest is history. I was put in contact with Shawn Hutcherson from HQ and our presentation to the IFC was set. In April 2006, after almost a year of hard work, we recieved permission to expand. Our IFC is known for being totally anti-expansion, but the presentation was superb, and the dedication we had all shown had given them all hopes that we would be a strong force on campus.

In October 2006, advisors Mark Doerr and Doug Kollmer arrived to start the colonization process. Within 5 weeks we had 30 solid men, making us the largest all male Fraternity on campus. We also recieved interest from freshmen, who are not allowed to rush at our school until second semester. From November 2006-January 2007 we have already taken our campus by storm. We placed first in our school's 23rd annual sinterklaas event. For the sinterklaas event, each participating organization creates a replica of a popular childrens toy and sets up a winter wonderland in the back of our cafeteria. Upon completion, the boys and girls club come and take less fortunate children around it to play and take pictures. In return, Hofstra awards first place to the best design. Our organization worked with Delta Gamma sorority to create a life-sized replica of the toy "lincoln logs." We also decorated a tree, which was to be donated to a less fortunate family. FOr nearly 6 days our group worked hard and it paid off. We won first place for best overall, recieving a cash prize. We then took our prize of nearly $500 and donated it to a local cancer cause here.

Last week, I was informed that we are in the top three for fraternity of the year at Hofstra. We have only been here for about 5 months now(one of those 5 months was winter break) and out of the 15 Fraternities here, we are number three. Finally, with recruitment approaching on Monday, we are entering with 11 interested members before we have even had a chance to hold an open recruitment next week. I am confident that we will take anywhere from 15-20 guys, which doubles the average pledge class here, hitting us up to the 50 mark. Currently, 50 is the cap at our school. (we will be working on fixing this). Now, we did lose a few guys in the beginning due to lack of time, but we have been making up for it in many other ways. This upcoming semester we have many more important events that we are hosting and participating in. I'll keep you all posted.

Okay, sorry to write you all a novel here. Ha. Oh, and to answer your question, Firehouse (nice to meet you by the way), our recruitment chair is AJ Rizzo. He has high standards, as do I.

By the way, our advisor, Mark Doerr is here on his semester visit and told me that Indiana was approved for charter yesterday, so congratulations to them!

Have a great week, all.

Tom Recine
Hofstra Colony President

[Firehouse]

Congratulations back to you.
Rizzo's pledge class must have had good genes. Two of his pledge brothers - Brian Shulis and Matt Johnson - now serve as our SMC and Rush Chairman respectively.

[KSUPIKE]

Alpha Omega (Kansas State) led rush for the year with a total of 41 pledges. Including the biggest spring pledge class of 12 guys. Were working on great numbers for fall 07

[Firehouse]

That's super! Alpha Omega has really come back after the house was rennovated. It looks great too. Congratulations.

[Pike_Cardinal]

Kappa Zeta (Louisville) had an AWESOME year, initiating 20 in the fall and 9 in the spring. Both were top rush semesters on campus. The 9 in the spring was surprising, but great.