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News and Updates from Sigma Pi Fraternity – Circa 1916

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One of the many fascinating elements of reading past issues of The Emerald is generating a basic idea of the climate within a Sigma Pi chapter during the early years of the fraternity. I recently finished reading the January 1916 issue of The Emerald which featured a lengthy update on the Kappa Chapter of Sigma Pi and its history at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Temple University around the turn of the century

Temple University around the turn of the century

What I liked best about reading this update from the Kappa Chapter is that they told a wonderful story regarding the history of their chapter. And I might add that they told their story in a beautifully written piece where the language was rich and the content was deep. There are no writers today who put pencil to paper (or fingers to keyboard) in as beautiful, meaningful, and precise a language as what I have read in the old issues of The Emerald.

Some other interesting notes and observations from the January 1916 issue of The Emerald:

Who Should Be Elected to the Grand Council?
This is of particular interest to me since I am running for the Grand Council next month. There was an editorial in The Emerald that gives good advice on the type of person who should not be elected to the Grand Council. The magazine says: “…the distance between good intentions and actual results from hard work is so infinite, that to elect or reelect a man simply because he appears to love the Fraternity; to propose the name of a man simply to get chapter representation or to hold on to a man who has proven his worthlessness, not only injures the Fraternity at large but seriously handicaps the Grand Chapter.”

What to Expect at Convocation
Next month’s Convocation will be the eighth one that I have attended. Before attending my first Convocation in 2002, I had no idea what to expect. Well, for brothers who find themselves in a similar position to the one that I was in 14 years ago, here is what the editors of The Emerald wrote to prepare Sigma Pi Fraternity for Convocation 100 years ago: “The coming Convocation is the logical and appointed time to shoulder all your grievances, protests or recommendations and go after the ‘powers’ without gloves. All delegates should come ‘armed to the teeth’ with sound arguments to propel their pet hobbies through the ranks of the ‘enemy.’ The man who has to stop to think is going to find it rough sledding.”

What is the Executive Council?
In this issue as in prior issues, The Emerald lists both the Grand Council as well as something called the Executive Council. It seems to me like the so-called Executive Council is either the group of people who worked for the fraternity at the time or an expanded governing body of volunteers, which we sorely need today. Seven Grand Council members just does not cut it in 2016 – we need more.

The “Father of Chapters”
The brothers at the Kappa Chapter referred to themselves as the “Father of Chapters” because they set up two iterations of the Delta Chapter at the University of Pennsylvania and the Theta Chapter at Penn State University. Back in 1916, there were only 9 active chapters so Kappa Chapter’s claim was pretty legitimate.

Who was the First Grand Sage?
Throughout their update, the Kappa Chapter talks about so-and-so being elected as the Chancellor of the chapter. Based on what I’ve read, it sounds like the position of Sage used to be called Chancellor. At some point in their update, they mention that Kappa Chapter alumnus M. Atlee Ermold attended Convocation at the end of October 1910. During that Convocation, Ermold was elected as the Grand Sage of the fraternity and was “the first man in Sigma Pi to hold that title.” Interesting. So were Francis L. Lisman and Winford L. Mattoon not the “Grand Sage” but, instead, the National Chancellors of Sigma Pi Fraternity?

No Love for the Herald!
Incidentally, they refer to the chapter’s Executive Council as the Sage, First Counselor, Second Counselor, Third Counselor, Fourth Counselor, and “fifth member.” No love for the Herald position back in 1916!

Fall and Spring Convocations – Not Summer
Also, whenever Convocation is referenced in the old issues of The Emerald, it never takes place during the summer months. Rather, the Convocations seem to have taken place during the months of April and October. Why did this change? The fraternity appears to be so disconnected during the summer months and most of today’s undergraduates are busy working summer jobs to pay increasing tuition, textbook, and off-campus living costs that it seems like holding an event during the school year might actually generate higher attendance along with some cost savings. Who knows? It’s probably worth some research. Here is a screenshot of the invitation to the 1916 Convocation that was included in the magazine:

1916-convo-invite

Kappa Takes a Shot at New Jersey!
As a New Jersey guy I have to take issue with Kappa Chapter’s comment that one of the negatives about a recent initiate is that “he hails from Camden, NJ, that barnacle which clings to Philadelphia’s water line.” How dare you?! We didn’t even have any New Jersey chapters back then to defend our good name!

The Worthiness of Inter-Fraternity Councils
I laughed out loud after reading this line in one of the editorials: “We sometimes wonder whether local Interfraternity Councils are of any real value or not.” Ha ha! Oh, if the editors of the magazine could only see some of the IFCs on our campuses today…

That is all that I have for this review of the January 1916 edition of the magazine. If you are interested in this type of stuff, then I encourage you to check out the online archive of The Emerald by clicking here!

Back From “Boston” And Loaded With Work To Catch Up On…

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You know that feeling when you have your first day back in the office after having been gone for a while? Well, that was my day at the office yesterday. To give you a physical description of how it went – before I left for “Boston” (more on that in a minute) I was getting frequent tension headaches while at my office. Things were out of control on almost every transaction and my clients were about as unruly as you can get. The pain of the headaches was actually affecting my ability to relax when I went home each night.

Then I went to “Boston” and hung around with my fraternity brothers of all ages, engaged in some work for the Foundation, and had a few beers each night and wouldn’t you know that my headaches went away? Of course with the convention over I went back to work yesterday and all of a sudden guess what returned? That’s right – the tension headache came back and it was worse than before. So after driving home last night with my head pounding, I told myself that I was not dealing with anyone’s crap today and that I was going to deliberately slow down the pace of the work in my office so that we all weren’t running around like crazy people.

And do you know what happened today? No headache!

Sigma Pi Educational Foundation Logo

The Sigma Pi Educational Foundation

I’m not interested in being one of those people whose job makes them sick. No thank you. No, instead I want to be one of those people who wakes up in the morning and loves going to work. Right now, while I love my job, I hate going to work. Hopefully, that will change soon.

As for my trip to “Boston,” I put that word in parenthesis because we really didn’t stay in Boston or even outside of Boston. We were some 30 – 40 minutes away from Boston in a place called Danvers, Massachusetts. It was a little bizarre because the hotel bar stopped serving drinks at 12:15am and there was absolutely nothing within walking distance. Certainly a very odd place to hold a fraternity convention…

At the convention itself, I was elected to be the Treasurer of our fraternity’s Foundation as well as the Chairman of the Strategic Plan Study Group that will ultimately create a new strategic plan for the Foundation. I’m excited about both positions. Also, one of my fellow fraternity brothers from New Jersey was elected to be the National President of the Fraternity. For the first time in a long time there is a feeling of excitement and that “can do” attitude running throughout the undergraduate chapters, alumni clubs, and members of the Foundation Board of Trustees. I’m looking forward to helping the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation move forward by serving as its Treasurer – it’s going to be a fun two years!

Leaving for Boston Today – Coming Back Late Sunday Night

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By the time you read this, I’ll be on the train heading towards Boston, Massachusetts. Once I get to Boston, it’s off to Danvers, Massachusetts for my fraternity’s biennial convention. I’ve never been up to that part of the country before, so I’m looking forward to doing some sightseeing when the schedule allows.

Once you graduate from being regular fraternity guy to someone who volunteers and actively donates his time and money to the fraternity, these conventions become quite the event. You get to see guys that you haven’t caught up with in a while and, depending upon how/if you volunteer for the organization, people are always trying to drag you down into petty politics. The way I see it, I don’t have the time or additional space in my short-term memory to be concerned about fraternity politics so I try my damnedest to stay out of that bullshit.

But like I said – this is my first time to the Danvers-Boston area and I’m looking forward to seeing the sites. Also, the hotel has a pool so I’m looking forward to going for a few dips before the activity starts each day. Hey, I won’t have my Wii Fit Plus available to help get me moving, but I’m going to attempt to keep the momentum going anyway!

I’ve arranged for a few entries to automatically upload to the site while I’m gone, so have no fear about this place being a dead zone for a few days.

Removing Distractions and Focusing on Getting Down to Business

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Next Wednesday I’m heading to Danvers, Massachusetts for my fraternity’s 50th Biennial Convocation. If you’re not in my fraternity – or any other fraternity for that matter – this is our organization’s national convention which takes place every other year. For the last three conventions I’ve walked away with a major volunteer award (either the #1 local volunteer in the nation or the #1 regional volunteer in the nation). This year I’m ineligible for those awards since I was elected to a higher level volunteer position that does not have an award associated with it. No biggie – I’ve been extremely busy in the two years since the last convention and that’s the focus of this entry.

Sometimes we can get distracted from the important goals that we are each trying to reach in life. For some folks, those goals are big, grandiose accomplishments like climbing Mount Everest, losing 100 pounds, flying an airplane, etc. For others, those important goals are as seemingly simple as purchasing a new telephone, being sure to attend Church on a weekly basis, showing up to work on time, or even having a job to go to show up to in the morning. The point is that each person has their own objectives that they’re trying to reach.

Recently, I realized that I was becoming more and more distracted by insignificant people, places, and things. These insignificant distractions – on there own – are nothing out of the ordinary. However, combined they put a person in a bad spot where they can’t move forward. Here are some examples of what was distracting me:

  • Clients that don’t get it. I’ve mentioned this annoyance before on this blog, but some of my website clients don’t understand what my small business’ role is in their overall internet presence. For example, some of my clients think that it’s perfectly acceptable for me to create a website for them and then – two months later – completely redesign their website because their tastes have changed. These types of clients are clueless and abusive and I’m shedding them from my portfolio. In the grand scheme of things, their inability to make a decision should be – and now, in many cases, is – insignificant in my world.
  • Dumb cell phone games. My current and former roommate can tell you that I was nearly addicted to playing BrickBreaker a few months ago. I mean it was crazy! I’d play that stupid game on my cell phone while I was at work, waiting in traffic, sitting trying to watch television, at the restaurant, you name it! I was consumed with scoring 1,000,000+ points (which I did) that I wasted a bunch of time in the process! Talk about something insignificant getting in the way of getting work done!
  • Stupid television. This is interesting because I don’t really watch much television other than a few shows that I DVR. Sometimes, I put the television in my bedroom on as background noise while I work on my laptop, but I don’t “watch” whatever is on the screen (typically a news channel like FOX News). In the last week I’ve kept the cable box off more and missing whatever dumb talking heads are on the television certainly could be the very definition of insignificant.

The reason that I emphasized the words cable box in the last point is because I’ve been keeping the television on so I can do some more working out on my Wii Fit. In fact, removing each of the insignificant activities listed above has allowed me to do something else that is more important. Less talking heads = more time working out. Less BrickBreaker = completing more tasks at the office and advancing my work overall. Less whacked out clients = more time to spend on teaching an online course.

Sure, there are a lot of other things that I’ve cut out of my daily routine and by doing so I’ve created more time to focus on the things that matter. However, I’m not going to list them all here because then I might be wasting your time!

Sigma Pi Fraternity’s 49th Biennial Convocation

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So by this point you know that I traveled to California last week to attend Sigma Pi Fraternity, International’s 49th Biennial Convocation. For the profane out there, “biennial” means once every two years. The entire visit and the event were absolutely amazing for so many reasons!

To start, this was my first time in California and the minute that we touched down, there was a 5.4 earthquake! How crazy is that? Luckily, we really didn’t feel the earthquake in the plane, but there were a lot of people huddled around television screens in the airport. It was pretty weird, but definitely a fortuitous event in terms of how my delegation and I fared at the national convention.

As for Long Beach itself, I wasn’t overly crazy about the location. Granted, the temperature was nice and there was nearly no humidity, but there was no “beach” in Long Beach. The closest beaches were 20 minutes away north or south by car. There was a nice tourist area with a Hooters and an Outback and some other places that you can find across the country, but only a few places with local flavor. We did spend one night in something called GameWorks and that was a blast. However, I find that as I get older at these events I want to go to the bar less and less and I enjoy the time I get to hang out with my friends from far away more and more. The last thing that I’ll say about the location is that the convention two years ago was about a 3 minute walk from Bourbon Street in New Orleans and I don’t know how anyone can top that scene!

Once again, my undergraduates and alumni volunteers wiped up the awards. I have 7 chapters out of some 130 that are under my direct supervision. Of those 7, THREE were awarded as among the Top 25 chapters in the nation! Better yet, of those 3, TWO were listed as among the Top 12 in the nation. The culmination of the event came when my chapter at The College of New Jersey won an award for being the #1 chapter in the nation. Absolutely amazing.

I was extremely proud of my chapter at Rowan University which won the Most Improved Chapter Award. In 2002 when I attended the convention as an undergraduate, my chapter won runner-up for the Most Improved Chapter. It only took four short years for us to rise to be the number one chapter in the nation and I expect the same thing will happen with our young men down at Rowan University. They have great leaders, great brothers, and a plan for success that is unmatched.

Our alumni volunteers also did a magnificent job of bringing home some awards. Each of our chapters has a direct advisor which we call a Chapter Director and the gentleman who advises our group at The College of New Jersey won the award for being the #1 Chapter Director in the nation! Each chapter is also required to have a Faculty Advisor and the professor who serves for our Monmouth University chapter won the #1 Faculty Advisor in the nation award! And the hits just kept on coming as I was honored and humbled to be awarded the #1 Province Archon in the nation award (we have 33 different regions in Sigma Pi, each with a Province Archon). We didn’t expect to receive so many awards and even though we’ve been building a history of success in New Jersey, this was a beautifully shocking event.

Also, I decided to run for a seat on the Board of Trustees on our Educational Foundation and thanks to the support of my brothers from around the nation I won the election. Once again, I am in debt to my fraternity brothers both local and far and I thank them for their support. I pledge NEVER to let them down so long as I serve on this Foundation!

Two more somewhat significant events took place for the New Jersey guys at Convocation. First, our delegate from the William Paterson University chapter proposed (and passed) a major new merit reimbursement program for the fraternity. That’s awesome. In a world where costs are going up and responsibilities are increasing, Sigma Pi Fraternity has decided to provide financial incentives to those chapters which adhere to their commitments to our National Organization. Second, our delegate from Monmouth University proposed (and passed) a new awards program that awards those chapters which perform the most outstanding events for the Sam Spady Foundation, our international philanthropy.

For some pictures of the event, you can check out my galleries on Facebook or on Google’s Picasa Web Albums (both have the same pictures in them). And, as I always say at the end of these events, this was one hell of a good time and I can’t wait to go to the next convention in 2010 in Boston!