[21158] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] What is our "Bread" abd "Butter"?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Grossi)
Tue Sep 12 11:58:17 2000
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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.10.10009121506480.978-100000@penobscot.bbn.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 15:48:11 +0000
Reply-To: John Grossi <jgrossi@GENUITY.NET>
From: John Grossi <jgrossi@GENUITY.NET>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20000912083629.0091a9a0@mail.sprintmail.com>
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Steven R. Crawford wrote:
> Maybe it is time for a Constitutional Convention. Give the Actives of this
> Fraternity a chance to sit down and think about (and possible change/redo)
> everything, not just go to a National Convention and approve amendments
> that are mostly written by Alumni and National Committees comprised of
> mostly Alumni.
One needs to correctly frame the question. The question is not why a few
actives like Rich Vehlow submit so much, or why "the alumni" submit so
much, but why do the students submit so little?
>
> Afterall, most of our documents were originally written 33 years ago at the
> last Constitutional Conventional.
the age of the document is irrelevant to wether or not it's working well.
The question is more does the organization want to change (see the need
and have the will)? because unless the organization wants to change... you
can talk things like "regional -re-alignment" all you want and nothing
will happen.
> On a side note, I think the reason why so few Actives submit legislation to
> the National Convention is because the deadline is in late September when
> the semester is just really getting going for most people.
I would hazard to take a different, possibly unpopular view, the students
submit legislation on what effects them. The works of some esoteric
committee whose paper work gets filed in the circular file... isn't worth
the effort. It's also the fact that people need time before they are
comfortable enough in the organization to propose changes. Will you
propose changes as a pledge? (I don't think you can) How about your first
semester as a Brother? (If you know what a Section Chair is your doing
good at that point) By the time your around a couple of years your well
enough versed in the structure of our distributed organization to know how
it works, see it's difficencies, and propose corrections. Of course by
this time your also likely an alumni already... remember the average
active life of a brother is 18 months. SO in the end for a student to
submit legislation you've got to meet the; "it effects me enough that I
care, I know what it is, how to change it, and what I want to change it
to."
Now pair that with Pete Fagan's comments about the status of APO
in the priority list of people's lives and it becomes very clear why the
alumni are submitting the bulk of the legislation. The problem with this
is that those alumni are the ones who most likely are happy with
things the way they are. (Remember these people must be fairly happy if
they've stuck around 6,7 or more years)
Now follow back to Hayim's comments... where do we go in the
future? At this point, at least in my opinion we need look at ways to
empower the students to set the organizations direction. (and in a way
that's not scripted, or suggested by staff/alumni) Remember our goal is
to get themn submitting the legislation. Partly this can be done through
education. One of the other things, that should be looked at is, making
the running of the fraternity something that is accessible to more people.
The working of the national organization are a lot of times hidden by
the miles that seperate and the dollars and time that need to be spent to
be in the right place at the right time.
Ponder for a moment the requirements and logisitics of our
national convention. I remember hearing somewhere that only *six* cities
in the US meet our logistical requirements. (Boston, the sixth largest
city in the US doesn't meet those reqs) The National Convention is
something that we are going to have to examine at some point very soon and
make changes, because the cost of what we want, where we want is soon not
going to be possible. The cost of a room is what? Now ponder the fact that
it takes TWO YEARS once the bid is secured to pull it off... on top of the
two years to bid it. (so unless your a freshman at the beginning of the
process... your not going to see it happen as an active)
That's one example... of a place where we can work on making the
national fraternity more accessible to the average brother. Shorten the
turn around, and deal with the time and money issues that are inherent in
being at the right place at the right time.
just some food for thought...
-John Grossi
