Tommy Waring
ΖΘ 991
|
We have to get a new house, or at least give them a
chapter/assembly room. We went from a 70 man
chapter when I rushed and was initiated to a 30 man
chapter in three years because we had no large
commons area, no chapter room, nowhere to have a
party, nowhere to congregate after/before a game,
nowhere to invite sororities to have
social/philanthropy events with us, nowhere to eat
together, nowhere to congregate to watch TV, or
anything else. Think of your best memories and best
times at LCA. I bet most of those times center
around events at your fraternity house.
Our brothers have nowhere to hang together and build
the bond of brotherhood together that they can call
their own frat house. I know we have done the best
we can and I am proud of our brothers and the
comeback we have made at the U of M, but I think we
will always be in the bottom half until we can give
these men a chapter room and a place to congregate
for all the good times that foster fraternity. I am
thankful for
the houses we have, I think they are in the right
location and have been a great starting point for
our chapters rebirth. But we seriously need to
consider giving them something more serviceable to
their needs. They cannot even hold chapter
meetings comfortably where they are. My guess is
that they are doing like we did every week and are
having to reserve
a room in the UC for meetings. That stinks for them
too.
A perfect example is Sig Ep. Second highest on
summer rush, second highest on formal rush, highest
total man overall rush. When I took a pin and all
through my time at U of M Sig Ep was a
non-fraternity. They were
a terrible, tiny membership, a non-force in
intramurals, never any social activity, and they
could not attract and keep any quality men. But
hello, they built a nice fraternity house, put
together some good programming and rushed men with
some good events at their own place, where they
could see the potential for a heck of a lot of fun
and friendship and boom they blew up, overnight. We
have a great core group of men that are committed to
work at it. And yes they can do it by reaching out
to other men on campus and actively taking the
charge to replace themselves. We can sustain
ourselves on that and probably never get much bigger
than we are now. But I think if we really want to
pull ourselves on top we need to give them a
superior resource than what they currently have to
hold events. And for those who say we did it when I
was in school without a big house, my question is
did the other fraternities on campus have houses
comparable to what our boys are competing against?
And my request is would you please drive through
campus and see what the other fraternities on campus
have in terms of houses and compare that to their
overall membership numbers. I believe there is a
strong correlation.
Just my two cents, and a little more. Surely we
have brothers that are builders, electricians,
plumbers, and carpenters. I am glad to give my
resources as an architect and I am sure Tim
McCullough, and Bob Land
will work with me to steer the plans and
architectural side of things. We need to start
raising money and put a committee in place with
active and alumni participation for what they need
and what we have as resources. We need a committee
of alumni that represent the financials,
liabilities,
building/construction, and long term maintenance for
the house. I am sure national has some planning
guidelines or structure in place to mount a campaign
for these needs. Kick it around and see what
everyone else thinks, I might be off base. Let me
know what I can do.
In ZAX,
Tommy Waring
991 |
