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Yeah, I was right, it was 1980 we were re-established. We lived in the house until 2003, and there are still some GZ's at Umass right now. As for the first actual charter of GZ, mostly everything before 1980 is lost, thrown out, scattered or stolen. I remember something being signed by the GZ president of 1998 as an informal charter which I think was our "charter." No one ever really displayed it or anything, it was just lost in a big paper pile. I have never seen any formal charter, ever in my 4 years there. But I can assure you Tom that GZ has not been dormant since 1980!
I guess if we never had a physical charter we can't give it up. The proper procedure of making a chapter dormant wasn't really a top priority for us at that moment. When GZ disbanded in 2003, everyone just pretty much moved out of the house. There wasn't some big vote taken and documents signed or anything. In fact, all the brothers picked other brothers as their roommates in apartments around Amherst. Gamma Zeta stuck together, just not as a fraternity.
We never really went by if we were a "colony" or a "chapter" since historically we only averaged some 17 brothers a year. I think you need 20 members to be a chapter, maybe someone knows. But in the 23 years I know our numbers reached almost 60 and were at the lowest with 11 members.
The house itself really isn't too big. The photos make it look bigger, especially on the outside. It has long narrow hallways and a very damp basement. The photos really don't show much of it. You can see the original house from the expansion though in the photos. The photos were taken I think in 2002. It's too bad it doesn't have the original basement.
If you ever go into the original basement by yourself and close your eyes you can imagine what it must have been like in 1914 performing the first ritual in the house. It's really something every LCA interested in history should do someday if they pass by Amherst.
And you can see the pool table in the bottom photo.
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