General Assembly 2006

[lifesaver]

I am about to go to bed and havent even read the entire thread. I can barely keep my eyes open. I am not going to get into WHY chapters get small. That's an argument for a time when I have had some coffee and am more awake. Please note that I am only speaking of chapters SMALLER than 20 men. If you are larger than 20 men, then you are upholding our standards, even if it is 21, 22 or 23 guys.

If you are handeling your business as a 22 man chapter, then you should be left be. But unfortunately, Kevin's experience seems to be the exception to the rule. Eight GA's/Leadership Seminars have shown me that RARELY are there chapters under 20 that can fill a house/a high zeta/pay their bills/etc. Obviously there are going to be chapters at 20 that handle their business, and chapters of 140 that dont. But since policy cant be set in shades of gray, we have to set thresholds. I agree that 20 is a good threshold. It has been studied, evaulated and examined by men much smarter than any of us and this is what the data reveals. This is a complex issue that goes way beyond awards and ritual exemplifcations.

I can say definatively, from my perspective that it SUCKS being in a chapter of less than 20 men. I experienced it twice. When I joined at Texas A&M kingsville, we were 18 men. I loved being a Lambda Chi, and what we stood for, but I always felt like I was missing out on something. Like there was a bunch of people on campus I could have been brothers with and met that I wasnt/didn't.

The second time was after I transfered to UT-San Antonio. The first year I was there we were 56 men on average. We had a house cleaning by the alums after a substance abuse problem was revealed and we dropped to 20 men. Of those 20, 8 more walked because it 'wasn't what they signed up for,' so that left us with 12. Again, it absolutely sucked. We barely had enough warm bodies to fill the High Zeta and I agree that I did NOT get a true Lambda Chi Alpha experience in that environment. Eventually, we got back up to the mid 40's, but I always wanted more when we were small. At the time, the largest fraternities on the campus were at 70 or so.

I understand that some people prefer a more 'intimate' setting of under 20. They state that they can know each other better then. I call BS on that. You can know whoever you chose to know. Its unrealistic to believe you have to be best buds with EVERYONE in your chapter. In the real world, you will be closer to some guys moreso than others. If the best brotherhood was had at only 20 men, there wouldn't be a chapter above that. If you want the super small chapter experience then why did you join LXA? There are literally DOZENS of groups on the small end of the NIC scale that SPECIALIZE in providing a brotherhood to guys who want to be in chapters between 10-20 guys. Yeah, love our ideals, but be prepared to live by our rules and policies if you join (which state that your zeta will be 20+ men). WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO EXPECT OTHERS TO SUBSIDIZE YOUR MEMBERSHIP EXPERIENCE? If you stay under 20, then you are a financial drain on the org, and some other chapter somewhere has to generate extra revenue to compensate for your laziness and 'we wanna be small so we can be tight' BS attitude. I am DONE with the freeloaders in our org.

Yeah, I am sorry you didn't know all this before you joined, but you know now. There's no free rides here. The MOS (minimum operating standard) of 20+ men has been around since before I was initiated, some 14 years ago. We're just now beginning to enforcing it, and people gotta get all up in arms about it.

WTF is wrong with us when we have to BEG and convince people to live up to their oaths and obligations and standards. Again, my point is that these were the ground rules when you joined. Ignorance of the rules is no defence against a violation of them.

I cite Lambda Chi Zeta as the example of how it can be fixed if people get off their asses and work in conjunction with HQ. LXA isnt even focusing on expansion in the near future, to provide resources to our existing chapters that are struggeling. This is a major departure from the ego-centric years where we were in love with ourselves that went from about 1955 to about 2004. There was time when chapters were regularly alowed to die on the vine, because they 'couldn't help themselves'. LXZ was one of the first test chapters where HQ went in and recruited for a struggeling zeta. Earp had TWO actives and a new house on the way. Staff rolled in and worked with the alums. They ended this spring with 22 guys. If it can be done at a small state school on the plains of Kansas, it can be done ANYWHERE. They went from 2 to 22. Why cant some other school somewhere go from 14 to 20 with the same help? LAZINESS and SELFISHNESS. Again, the days of the FREE RIDE are over. Pull your weight or get the hell out of the org. I am TIRED of begging people to uphold their obligations. I could care less if it left us with 150 chapters. We're better off without them.

I'll close with my challenge for the 2006-2007 year to the undergrads at UIW...

I don't care if you are proud of Lambda Chi Alpha. I only care if Lambda Chi Alpha is proud of you.