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House Corporation Fall Meeting Minutes 2007
Written by: J. Michael Kellar
Date: 2007-09-12
OLD BUSINESS
Undergraduate President - Approximately 320 incoming freshmen for this fall – of which, 30% are male (90) and 70% are female (210)
- Guys are a little concerned about the number and our goal (23) – they are starting to recruit upperclassman as a result
Alumni President - No report
Undergraduate Treasurer
- No Report
Alumni Treasurer
- No Report
Alumni Website/Database Update
- Web site sees about 300-400 hits per month
- Few alumni are actually updating their information on the Web site
- Need to find ways to drive alumni to site for information and to update their personal information
- This is our only real database we have in the chapter (excluding various e-mail address books). We can’t rely on Simpson and IHQ to provide the most accurate information
Leadership Seminar Update
- We won the MacIntosh Award again (14 out of 16 years in a row)
- Learned about the True Brother Initiative (see below) and are starting to implement that in the chapter
- Thanks to alumni who sponsored the undergraduates
True Brother Initiative
- New program designed to overhaul educational program for LXA. It is a new educational application based on the teachings of Impact Leadership, LEAP, the Associate Member program, Fraternity Education and West Point’s Cadet Leader Development System (CLDS). Essentially, every element of fraternity (every historical/educational lesson, every activity and every experience) is planned, designed, aligned and continuously assessed to ensure the development of the undergraduate is successful. It is based on the following seven core values: loyalty, duty, respect, service/stewardship, honor, integrity, and personal courage. Combined, it forms the acronym "LDRSHIP".
- Additionally, the program will focus on the following methodology: learn about the value, implement/act on the value, react to the action in a group session, reflect on the activity in a journal and with a big brother.
Recruitment Schedule
- Scheduled for September 18-20; times are to be determined, but we can assume they’ll start between 6-7 and run until 10 or slightly thereafter
Undergrads have asked for 2-3 alumni each night (more are encouraged to attend, however). Specifically, they’ve set aside the following schedule and will be working with these guys
- Tuesday: John, Aaron, TJ and Mike
- Wednesday: Kyle and Brannon
- Thursday: Aaron, Justin and possibly Charlie to discuss: Social programming, philanthropy, finances, "up campus" point of view, leadership opportunities, values-based education
- Undergraduate chapter will send out a final schedule to Alumni Board by 9/14/07
Fall Undergraduate Schedule
- Rush Week: 9/18-9/20
- Homecoming: 10/6
- Fall Party: 11/10
- Initiation: TBD
- Elections: TBD
Major Philanthropies
- Adopt-a-highway clean-up: 9/22
- Food Pantry Drive (NAFD) with Boy Scouts: 1st week in November
- Operation Christmas Child: Mid-November TBD
- Safe Block: 10/31
- Up Till Dawn: Working with ΔΔΔ to confirm date
- Mike will check with his resources to see about printing undergraduate/alumni schedules on small, business-card size magnets to distribute to alumni at Homecoming
NEW BUSINESS
Homecoming
- Chairman: Charlie was nominated and elected chair
- Activities: Will remain the same as in previous years (house tours followed by lunch followed by the all-alumni meeting)
- Invitations: “Save the Date” e-mail will drop the week of 9/10; printed invitations to be sent to all alumni 1995 to present week of 9/17. We also have information in the upcoming Simpson Homecoming announcement.
Fall Newsletter
Articles will include the following (persons responsible for writing the articles in parentheses)
- Leadership seminar wrap-up (Mike)
- True Brother Initiative (Mike)
- Alumni Web site and need to update data (Biph)
- Results of Rush Week (Jeff and/or Erik)
- Report of the Chapter (Jeff)
- Financial report (Charlie)
- Alumni News (Mike)
- Homecoming reminder (Mike)
- Teaser about 2008 Founder’s Day (Brannon)
- ANY OTHER INFORMATION???
- Articles will be due to Mike by 9/26 - Please make sure articles are at least one page (double-space is fine) in length. Do not worry about formatting or font (keep it to a maximum size of 12 however).
- Newsletter to be sent by 10/1
Fundraising Ideas
- Mike brought up the fact that this will likely be the last year we can support the scholarship program for the undergraduates. This will also include sponsoring undergraduates to attend leadership seminars and winter leadership retreats. Even though we (Charlie) discovered a healthy CD, that doesn’t excuse the fact that we have not had a serious fundraiser for the educational foundation in many, many years. Additionally, very few, if any, alumni have been sending regular donations to the foundation. Several ideas to ignite fundraising programs were discussed. These ideas include:
- Targeting a group of 5-10 alumni throughout the years who have a direct link with a larger population of alumni. Invite these brothers to a nice dinner in Des Moines. The purpose of the dinner is two-fold: solicit their ideas for a fundraising campaign and to ask them to consider becoming a major donor (i.e., match-grant program).
- Once the target group has been identified and they are on board, develop a separate marketing campaign focused on successes of the chapter, the values-based programming and the need for alumni to reacquaint themselves.
- Alumni names mentioned: Dr. Larson, Bob Lane, Pat Lyons, John Akers
- If anyone knows of other persons that would be interested, please forward them to me!!!
Next Steps:
- Identify a chairman from the Alumni Board to take the lead by 9/28
- Identify the target alumni by mid-October (maybe right after Homecoming)
- Host the dinner in November
- Begin quiet solicitations in December through April with the hopes of raising significant enough dollars to make an official announcement at Founders Day 2008
- Officially launch the fundraising program at Founders Day and run it through the end of 2009 (tie it into the fraternity’s centennial)
OTHER OLD/NEW BUSINESS
None
ACTION ITEMS
Approval on Homecoming invitation copy due by Sept 13, 2007 - Alumni Board
Send rush week schedule to alumni due by Sept 14, 2007 - Jeff Liggett
"Save the Date" e-mail to all alumni in DB due by Sept 14, 2007 - Mike Kellar
Homecoming invitation to all alumni 1995 to present due by Sept 21, 2007 - Zach Rohlwing
Articles for newsletter due by Sept 26, 2007 - See "Newsletter" Responsibilities
Newsletter sent to alumni, IHQ, Simpson and Web due by Oct 1, 2007 - Mike Kellar
Identify and recognize fundraising chairman due by Oct 1, 2007 - Mike Kellar
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