Year End update on HZ

December 18, 2006 I hope that this note catches everyone during a joyful holiday season.  I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on the chapter and alumni organization before years end.  This has been a year of ups and downs for the chapter and the fraternity as a whole.  The chapter had a few miscues earlier in the year that have been addressed and righted.  First, I want to thank Mark Orlosky and the rest of the current chapter officers for stepping up in difficult times and putting a great effort into financial management, recruiting and strong chapter and campus leadership.  A few of their successes are a pledge class of 12 for this fall semester, greatly improved communication with IHQ and the Grand Chapter, strong efforts into financial management and  holding brothers accountable for dues.  We are on track to pay off the insurance and re-chartering fees on time.  I want to also thank the brothers and officers for having an open mind to new ideas and taking the advice from us alumni.  We still need to work on our attendance at national events.  I recently spoke to several members of the IHQ staff and they are pleased with the efforts of the actives and alumni, we just need to continue these improvements.   Second, I would like to thank Mark Stuhlmiller for his efforts on our fundraising efforts and his efforts of negotiating a deal a deal with IHQ to forgive a large portion of the past debt.  The deal was that the debt was reduced from $12,800 to $7000 if we can pay it off by October 1st, 2007.  We have recently made a payment of $2000.  We have only $5000 to go to finally bring the chapter out of debt that has been lingering from the late 90’s. This year we increased the number of donors to our fundraising efforts, but we are still behind our goals.  I would like to thank everyone that made either a new pledge or a continued payment this year.  To date we have pledges of a little over $14,500 of our $25,000 goal and we have collected a little over $5200.  I would also like to encourage everyone that has either fallen behind or has not yet joined the program to contact either Mark (mark.stuhlmiller@ctg.com) or myself.  We can give you information on the program and tell you if you are current or not.   I also would like to thank Pat Knapp (patknapp77@atlanticbb.net) for agreeing to organize Summer Party again for 2007.  This year will be our 40th summer at Edinboro and we would like to have some special events.  We are in discussion with the Alumni Office to have the Picnic on campus this year with indoor facilities in case of bad weather like we had this past summer.   Several people have approached me about having a golf outing on Friday in the Edinboro area, we would like for one or several alumni to agree to organize the event.  Please contact Pat or myself.  We will be communicating details to everyone as soon as they are finalized.   We plan on if our funds allow sending out a newsletter to everyone that we do not have a valid e-mail address for by June 1st.  I ask everyone to forward to me any e-mail addresses of alumni you have so that we can communicate better to our alumni. I would like to that Eric Anderson for his continued efforts on our web site.  He has upgraded the site recently and included a new password protected forum session.  I encourage our alumni and active brothers to use it more in the New Year. As many of you know 2006 marked the 150th Anniversary of Theta Chi.  The fraternity had a lot to celebrate this year.  We end the year with news that Dave Westol will be leaving his post as Executive Director after almost 20 years.  Dave has always been a stern but fair friend to our chapter.  I would like to wish him the best in his future endeavors.   I hope everyone has a great holiday season, and I wish everyone a great 2007. Doug