Conclaves - Back to the Future

[Shane Foley]

Originally Posted by Bilski

Personally, I'd love to see more regional conclaves. Simply put, few brothers can afford to fly out to Texas in the middle of the first month of the spring semester. The same goes for most GA/LS's which span more days than many can take off from their summer jobs. I'm not sure how these conferences were losing money, but they sound like a great investment to me.

Regional conferences seem to be the best solution to dispersing new programs as well. The TBI could be much more effectively spread if I could send 8 or more brothers to a regional conference instead of trying to get the 1 or 2 that attend GA to tell us all about it. I believe there was a push to have regional alumni trained in the program for a similar purpose and it seems to me like they'd have that much less work to do if they didn't have to travel to all the chapters!

Lastly, one of the biggest challenges facing my zeta is the lack of officer training. Since most GA/LS's focus on recruitment, IMPACT leadership, and this new TBI there's no use for me to send an Theta, Iota, Gamma, Epsilon, or Tau. As a chapter that is still recovering from a drastic membership crisis, the continuity of officer training has been interrupted, only to be replaced with the shell of an officer manual those old PDFs on fraternitymanuals.com can offer. I look forward to the new manuals IHQ is writing, but I wish there was something more hands-on available in the interim and for the future.

The reason the RLC were costly--They were in expensive hotels. While HQ tried to reduce the costs, expensive rooms and meals add up. Having more local conferences have more flexibility as people can priceline rooms and/or stack a lot of people in a room. College students (especially those from the same chapter) don't need fancy accomodations.

Another option that was tried 5 years ago were one-day gatherings organized by the ELCs at a chapter. It was designed for fewer chapters and a more relaxed format and FREE. There were advantages and disadvantages to those gatherings. The purpose was to provide more opportunities for contacts with brothers from other chapters.

Shane

[PiLambda1]

Originally Posted by Shane Foley

The reason the RLC were costly--They were in expensive hotels. While HQ tried to reduce the costs, expensive rooms and meals add up. Having more local conferences have more flexibility as people can priceline rooms and/or stack a lot of people in a room. College students (especially those from the same chapter) don't need fancy accomodations.

Another option that was tried 5 years ago were one-day gatherings organized by the ELCs at a chapter. It was designed for fewer chapters and a more relaxed format and FREE. There were advantages and disadvantages to those gatherings. The purpose was to provide more opportunities for contacts with brothers from other chapters.

Shane

Shane, this sounds like it's got great potential. I wish we could start doing this again. The Brothers at STLCOP (and the students at STLCOP in general) are traditionally from rural Missouri and Illinois. While we are a very diverse chapter, and not necessarily fitting that mold, but many of us have never been to a traditional college/university atmosphere or most importantly, a real fraternity house.

If something like this were held at Mizzou, every chapter in MO, Kansas and Illinois are within striking distance of GK Zeta. It would allow us to have a short road trip over and experience some things we havent been exposed to before...and have a good time in a real fraternity house on a real college campus! I know that probably sounds pretty weak to some of you all, but STLCOP has 1000 students, zero fraternity houses (2 have houses, but one of them is off limits to non-members and the other is run down, in the ghetto, and problems surround it), and we are the only social/general Fraternity on campus -- so our fraternal experience is markedly different from what other Brothers have gone through...

Of course, a few of our guys have visited other chapters and houses...I haven't really had the luxury.


In ZAX,
Brandon
PLZ 001

[Tom Earp]

Brandon, that was the type of thing I was refering to.

From Columbia, Mo. the fartherest one in Kansas is KSU.

These would or could inclue:
MU., STLCOP, Truman, CMOSU, SEMO, UMKC, PSU, KU, KSU,Drury, and Culver-Stockton. I am not aware of how close some of the Chapters are in Illinois.

But, here again, when we look at the Western States they are and can be far apart as is Texas, and Florida.

But there are many states that it could work.

We do not need as Shane said expensive hotels as the idea is that we as Brothers meet each other and learn from them.

I have been lucky in visiting many Chapters and if you get a chance please do!

Mizzou has a new house and Truman is a strong Zeta, Culver-Stockton is an old TKN if I remember right and has been strong for a number of years!