[20057] in APO-L
Summer Conferences
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Deborah Cherry)
Thu Jan 28 19:01:39 1999
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 18:51:05 -0500
Reply-To: Deborah Cherry <dc30+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU>
From: Deborah Cherry <dc30+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Something that people haven't really brought up much- How to make up for
the fact that communication to chapters and within chapters is difficult
to impossible for many, many schools in the summer. Right now,
information gets sent out to all 350+ chapters about things they need to
know about- Nationals registration, legislation, problems with
registratrion, requests for committee members, changes/updates etc. The
chapters then need to disseminate the info to those who need it (in many
cases that's the whole chapter). They may need to take action as a
chapter on it- ie elect Voting Delegates, discuss/vote on legislation,
etc. or to find specific individuals to to something- have someone
submit/resubmit their initiation form, get their member number from
their card etc. As it stands now, with all schools in active session,
it's still difficult and time-consuming to reach people. With most
schools out of active session (and most chapters at least not being in
official session), the difficulty of this increases enormously, and this
would need to be addressed in any plan. Because many schools get out as
early as April, arrangements would need to be mostly complete by then
(ie legislation sent out in time for chapters to vote on it, and have a
choice on when/how to do it) This has been a difficulty with past CPW's,
whcih were not finalized until late Spring, and it was difficult getting
the word out in time, and most communication had to eb done
individually, rather than by sending a blanket message to all chapters.
(This has gotten significantly better in the last few years, and I think
attendance has reflected that).
Who does the Region Director call when they have a question/problem
about a Voting Delegate (ie what committee do they want, who are they,
no one has registered)? The president of the chapter- at school,
temporary summer housing, at home, at a summer internship, at a Scout
Camp, touring Europe? It's difficult enough trying to get updated
information when officers change, but usually you can get either a
chapter office or SOMEONE in the chapter who can then get you some
contact info (maybe through a roundabout way), but if school is out, all
bets are off.
The same kinds of problems will affect the Convention Committee,
especially if an entire chapter is working on a section- everyone will
now be scattered across the country (and differently than they were
through most of the process) just when the crunch comes for last minute
changes.
Ignoring the problems of some chapters being forced to forgo
representation because they are in school, or their likely delegates
have other summer commitments, or are unable to make plans well in
advance (the best way to reduce costs), I see the logistics of
communicating with chpaters when most schools are not in session as the
major hindrance to having a National Convention(TM) in the summer. Other
summer events would also have to deal with these issues (and already do,
like the CPWs), they also require far less coordination within the
chapters and between chapters and staff/national office, because
attendance at these events do not affect the chapter's voice in the
Fraternity. It's great (and encouraged) for people to go to them, but if
a chapter isn't there, or doesn't decide to go until the last minute, or
sends different people than they planned, or someone' initiation
paperwork is still in limbo, it doesn't affect the functioning of the
event (except for meeting minimum attendance needs in advance).
The National Office has limited resources (both financially and in
staff), amd the rest are volunteers. The most efficient way to
communcate with these resources isby directing communications to the
chapters, and that entity is lost on most campus' in Summer.
Yours in LFS,
Debbie Cherry
Pittsburgh in 2000 Bid Advisor
Alumni, Kappa Chapter, Carnegie Mellon University
dc30@andrew.cmu.edu
