It went great....
Sorry it took me so long to respond. We were slammed here at work yesterday, and it was the first day of school. I wanted to drop everyone a line and thank them for their support and kind words. ya'll are THE BEST! I was just so excited when I found out on Saturday afternoon I had to share it with all my buddies on GC.
It was a whirlwind of a weekend! Initiation Saturday night, meeting the grand big-wig on Sunday and rush started today, so did school. ima either gonna make best friends with my brothers or kill em. I am hoping for the former, and not the latter.
It was a great experience. I was extremely moved by my ritual this time around. I dunno if it was because of the Sept 11 thing, or I graduate this May and realize its almost the last time I'll see it as an undergraduate, or because I became really good friends with a Nm who was going through. But I haven’t been this moved probably since I went through, and I was able to put aside the entire harangue that goes along with having init, and just enjoy it. Was a WONDERFUL experience, and I feel quite moved by it.
Then we met the International officer on Sunday night. (Our executive VP had to return to Indianapolis early) so we met with our international President. I had met him a few times before, at our national conferences, but it was great for my brothers to meet him and get a concept of the international org., outside of our little corner of it. Probably 15 brothers from my chap have met our international president in the last 10 years. Sunday night, 50 of them met him, so it was cool.
He is a very affable guy. He focused his visit primarily informing the undergrads and alumni of the issues the general fraternity is facing. Risk management, housing trends, and the future for Greeks. It was cool for everyone to understand the risk management thing from their perspective, and not see it as “they don’t want us to have fun.” Opened a lot of eyes.
He was very pleased with the progress our chapter has made and mentioned so numerous times. I also did some politicking on behalf of the undergrads, and made sure he understood our position and how we are representative of the chapter of the future. At a large metropolitan university, diverse, both ethnically and culturally; many of our brothers work to help pay dues. Also, we are at the fastest growing university in the state. So I made sure he knew that we are the ones to watch. He seemed pretty pleased with that. I don’t know how his meeting with our univ. president went, but the president loves us (we have doen a lot of PR with the admin over the last 5 years and always invite them to a ‘ceremonial’ Nm ceremony, with refreshments and such), so I am sure that went well also.
In answer to AGDLynn’s question about the other chapter. I don’t know for sure why he didn’t choose to visit them. I know his time was limited. I also know that we are the strongest chapter of the two here in town. The other has had a lot of problems. Also we have done a good job of networking with the international staff, so I am sure they probably wanted to meet the rest of the chapter. But specifically why the other group didn’t get a meet and greet, I cant say. And yes Tom, they dressed for the occasion, AND none of them asked any stupid questions. Kudos to them. I know they were really tired. I don’t think any of us will catch up on our sleep for weeks..
Again, thanks for being supportive.
Last edited by lifesaver; 01-16-2002 at 01:56 AM.
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