June 01, 2006
Beginning the Summer of '06
What is the state of our chapter right now?
Finals are officially over. We graduated two promising young men this Spring: Blaise Exon and Jared Cooke. Both will be sorely missed, and their contributions to our fraternity were countless in number. Now, as we head into the long drudgery of the lazy summer months, we prepare ourselves for the crescendo of responsibilities and tasks we must accomplish by the Fall semester.
We moved out of the Suite, which was the single and greatest thing to happen to our chapter last year. The University worked with us to meet our expectations and demands, and the end product was a slick, shiny new 8-bedroom suite in the heart of campus: Taylor Hall. Some will be back for next semester, most won't.
We had a rough last semester. We only rushed one person, and he's now enrolled in a school in his hometown of Houston, Texas. Our numbers are low, our grades are low, and our morale is low. We need a boost. We need a fire under our asses to get us back in shape. I believe Conclave 2006 in Indianapolis is that fire.
Our last Biennial Conclave was held in San Francisco in August of 2004. Six of us went. We had a great time, and brought back carloads of ideas and dreams for our chapter. You can read my entry here on Conclave 2004, actually. I believe we have five guys going this year, which is a healthy amount, considering most chapters only send two. Hopefully it'll give us that spark we need to get back on the right track and and get us more excited about our Fraternity.
Terry is back from spending a long time studying abroad at Macquerie in Australia, and he seems to be the only one that's completely elated at taking the reigns of the fraternity and whipping it into shape. You'll hear it from me now: He will be the next president our our chapter.
Everybody has left for the summer. It feels deserted in Boise. Brody went to his summer camp in Decatur, Michigan for the entirety of the summer. My brother Flounder is deployed for at least 30 days in the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East, although he thinks he'll stay for the majority of the summer, depending on how it goes. Jeff and Tex both headed to New York for the summer selling security systems door-to-door. Cuz went back to California to be with his family and friends. Joey, Bradey, Garrett, and a few more all left to go to Atlanta to also sell security systems door-to-door. Now only a scraggly few remain to hang out in the summer time.
What has to get done before school starts? An inconceivable amount: Our rush schedule has to get finalized. Our summer activities and meetings have to be finalized. We get to go to Conclave. We have to get in contact with incoming freshmen and get them the information they need on rushing. We need to get three more people to sign up and live in the Suite, as we only have five confirmed right now. That right there might be the hardest part.
I stand corrected: the hardest part will be recruiting 10-15 brand-new, promising, bright young men to fill our ranks. And to do that, our attitudes have to change and our levels of excitement and expectations need to go way up. Without a sudden influx of new rushes, we will wither away into nothing.
Here's to the summer of '06. God bless us.
Posted by spunkinator at 03:25 PM