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November 16, 2004

Initiation at U of I

It hasn't been done before, and we were a little afraid of what was going to happen. After all, as far as we've been around, we've more than managed our ritual by ourselves with no outside help (except for our chartering ceremony and initiation with our national officers). So when Jeremy Slivinski wanted all three of our Northwest chapters to come together for a regional conference and initiation, we were slightly apprehensive.

Our caravan left on Friday after school, fought through some incredibly dense and dark fog, and arrived at the WSU Eta chapter house for a little cookout. We met some of the guys, then headed back to the Alpha Phi house at U of I to get settled into our couches and meet all the guys. We even managed to play a few house-wide Halo2 matches that night. Since it was the end of their I-week, there were no girls or any consumption of alcohol by any member, so it was cool to hang out with everybody and build some brotherhood.

The next morning, us Gamma Theta boys headed out to The Breakfast Club, a small restaurant in downtown Moscow specializing in apathied waitresses and breakfast foods. We were still a little groggy at 8am, but the coffee and pancakes woke us up enough to dress into business casual and stroll to the new Commons for our first session of our Conference.

Jeremy Slivinski had a few topics we had to talk about, such as managing chapter finances, risk management (which was presented by the Eta chapter in lieu of recent events), and other obligatory topics like running effective committees, and the positive traits of chapter officers. We broke for our formal lunch at noon, which was held down the street at the Best Western University Inn on Pullman Road. The pasta was slightly undercooked, and the sauces were uninspired and directly from industrial cans. Our big BSU football game was being televised, and those old enough got to sit down at the Quiet Bar and watch the game, while the rest of us under-agers were forced to walk outside and peer through the windows of the bar to catch glimpses of the game. After two overtimes and many beads of sweat, Boise State clamored a rackety, unworthy win. BSU walked away with their record unscathed, but their perfomance on national television probably made them rethink their performance.

After lunch we reconvened back at the Commons for a few more hours of break-away group sessions and long lectures on chapter operations. All the pledges really learned a lot about how we run our chapters, and I think they benefitted the most out of everybody. Eta and Alpha Phi had endured AKL Day a few weeks before, in which they had to sit through the exact same content as this weekend. Needless to say, they were less than excited about all this. But us Gamma Theta boys were the most attentive and appreciative of all the hard work Jeremy put into it, and we thanked him accordingly.

We came back and had a great dinner by the cook at the Alpha Phi house, which included pot stickers, sushi, spicy chicken wings, cheesy log, kietsch, and baklavah. Pretty cool stuff.

After that, we sent all the pledges from all three chapters into a little room at seven, and everybody helped set up the initiation stuff while they waited. Finally at nine, everything was set up, and we performed the Ritual. Everybody helped out, and it was an awesome experience for all of us. It's great seeing how different chapters make the Ritual their own while still sticking to the integral basics.

That night we went to an afterparty for the new members, and everybody had a great time. Maybe a little TOO good a time, because the next morning's breakfast at the Breakfast Club was pretty groggy and slow. We said our goodbyes to Moscow and the guys, and drove all the way back through endless highway traffic back to Boise.

All in all, it was a great trip, and something we'll probably be doing yearly from now on. It was great to be able to finally meet the Eta and Alpha Phi guys, and the networking will only help us out in the long run as we strive to be a big chapter like those two houses have become.

Posted by Danny on November 16, 2004 02:00 AM