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to Glory!
Dave Dunn '08, President "We'll be starting the 2007-08 school year as one of the strongest PA Theta chapters in history and one of the best fraternities on the Penn State Campus" If you had the opportunity to join us for our Blue/White Stockholders Meeting last April, you know we had a lot of great news to report. In the last 3 years, our outstanding House Managers have refurbished and restored the capacity of our house back to 45 members causing the Fire Inspector to report on his last visit, "This is perhaps the best inspection I've ever done on a fraternity house!" In the last three years, our incredible Rush Teams have set all-time recrutiting records resulting in our 2006-07 Composite containing more photos than any other Composite in PA Theta history. In the last 3 years, our Vice Presidents led the charge to "fill the house", so we're starting Fall Semester 2007 at capacity, with 45 brothers living in the house - the most in over 15 years. In the last 3 years, our Treasurers have have remained focused on our bottom line and just reported our first profit in 7 years proving that PA Theta is now financially viable - something considered impossible. Most important, our Alumni of all ages are beginning to return once again, proud to to say they are members of the Pennsylvania Theta Chapter of Phi Deltla Theta.
With still two years to go in our 5-year Return to Glory Campaign, we believe we'll be starting the 2007-08 school year as one of the strongest PA Theta chapters in history and one of the best fraternities on the Penn State Campus, and we now have a proven Chapter Management Plan in place to keep us there. We're also attempting to reach-out and reconnect with Phi Delta Theta General Headquarters (GHQ). We decided we were ready and so we invited members of the GHQ Staff and the GHQ General Council to attend our Blue/White Stockholders Meeting in April so they could see our methods and accomplishments first-hand. Our Province President, Roy Cunningham, agreed to attend. Roy joined us for the Stockholders meeting in the morning, spent most of the afternoon with Alumni Corporation President, Randy Thompson '83, and Alumni Corporation Chairman, John Carnwath '63, and then attended our Alumni Corporation Board of Directors meeting that evening. Roy seemed very impressed with everything happening at at our chapter. Following his visit he wrote a letter of recommendation that included... "Through internal reorganization and development, external reconnection with their Alumni, University Community, and GHQ, as well as tireless efforts to strive for excellence, they have defined themselves as one of the elite chapters of Phi Delta Theta. I would be proud to recognize them as Gold Star members of our Brotherhood"
Other members of GHQ declined to attend the Stockholders Meeting but Jesse Moyer, GHQ Director of Chapter Services, agreed to join GHQ Leadership Consultant, Ken Colby, on his visit last April, two weeks prior to the Stockholders Meeting. Alumni Corporation President, Randy Thompson '83, made a special visit to the chapter to meet with Jesse and Ken. Tom Smith '54 also attended some of the meetings. The visit went well and both Jesse and Ken were very impressed with PA Theta. Following the visit, Ken Colby wrote a very positive Leadership Consultant Report that included... "Let me start by thanking the men of Pennsylvania Theta for a great return visit to the chapter. The chapter goes from a group struggling to get by, to one of the most improved chapters in my region and possibly in Phi Delta Theta." "Make sure you apply for awards. The chapter is doing some amazing things and not being recognized for them. Make sure you submit an awards packet on time applying for the Gold Star, Phoenix Award (most improved chapter), the Website Award, the William Allen White Award (best publication), among others." "Good luck gentlemen, we here at GHQ are ready and willing to work with you in any way we can."
Based on their suggestion, we decided this would be a good way to reconnect with GHQ so we created an Awards Applications Package worthy of all our great accomplishments in the last 3 years. The result of all our hard work is impressive - a 265 page notebook with applications for 17 GHQ Awards. Take a look if you get a chance and judge for yourself. We believe it must be one of the best ever submitted. Click here to Download the pdf version (265 pages, 16M) . We applied for the following 17 awards...
We plan to make winning GHQ awards part of our culture and we're setting a goal to win the Harvard Trophy (best chapter at a large university) every year from now on. The winners will be announced at the GHQ Emerging Leaders Institute in Oxford, Ohio this summer. Hopefully, we may need a bigger trophy case soon! As the saying goes, “I will transmit the fraternity, not less than, not equal to, but greater than it was transmitted to me.” Therefore, it will be a focus of mine to maintain all of the lessons that have been inherited from past Presidents, as well as implementing my own ideas to strengthen and improve Pennsylvania Theta. Even after my term is over, and I eventually graduate, I will make it a point to use my experience to help guide the chapter just as the current Chapter Advisory Board is doing. This attitude is what has allowed activities such as Rush to operate at such a high level of excellence, expanding and improving with each passing year. Since the attempted sale of the house 3 years ago, our focus has been identifying our internal needs for improvement, formulating a plan to address these problems, and then executing the developed strategy. Confident the active chapter has a complete grasp of day-to-day operations, our focus has shifted to using the leadership skills we have developed to gain recognition as the best fraternity at Penn State. Initiatives have been developed and are being executed to place Phi Delts in positions of influence in the Inter-Fraternity Council, Student Government, State College Borough, Homecoming, THON, etc. – anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to demonstrate our superior leadership abilities. The foundation has been laid and it’s time to build our reputation on campus until it rises above the rest of the fraternities at Penn State. I once heard Paul Silber say, “You elect someone as President, and the position shapes that person.” I can’t describe how true that really is. I feel being the front-man for keeping the house running, getting bills paid, bringing in new recruits and all the countless other tasks a President has to oversee has already been a life-changing experience. And my term isn’t halfway complete! I plan on adapting and implementing more initiatives as my time as President continues, making our mark on the Penn State campus and demonstrating why we are the best fraternity in the nation.
Henry Hillmann '09, Vice President 45 to Thrive! After 3 years of hard work and intensive problem-solving, we'll be starting Fall Semester '07 with 45 brothers living in the house! My main priority as Vice President, is to continue the work begun by our past Return to Glory Vice Presidents, Elliott Skrinjar '05 and Shane Goodenough '07, and oversee the Housing Contracts and fill the house. I’ll also be helping the Phikeia work with Penn State to get out of their dorm contracts if they wish to live in the house immediately. As you may know, in the past 3 years we were forced to resort to renting rooms to borders only so we could survive financially. This is not something we were proud of, or spoke much about publicly, but something we were forced to do to survive financially until we got our numbers up. Now thanks to our record setting Rush Teams, we're going to start Fall Semester 2007 with 45 brothers living in the House, and since we have a rock solid Rush program that's now an integral part of our culture, I'm proud to announce, that there will never be another boarder living at PA Theta.
Another goal I have is to get involved with all of the positions and provide them with any support they need to progress to new levels. For example, I’ve been helping the House Managers out a lot, because the task of maintaining a house as old as ours is daunting. As for other fraternity business, I’m beginning to get the Actives involved in the Phi Delta Theta Affinity Circle. The Circle is a good way to get connected to chapters across the globe. It’s also a good resource for finding jobs upon graduating, because there are certain listings that have employers who are only interested in Phi Delts. I encourage everyone to go to www.phideltatheta.org and check out the Circle and all it has to offer.
As Vice President, I'm also assisting everyone bond together along with increasing our involvement in outside activities so we can leave our impact on Penn State. Thanks again to our past Return to Glory Vice Presidents, Elliott Skrinjar '05 and Shane Goodenough '07 for all your hard work and helping get all this started.
Eli Bohémond '09, Treasurer Just 4 words... At our Blue/White Stockholders meeting in April, I had the great pleasure of standing before our brotherhood and announcing our first profit in over 7 years. More importantly, I had the numbers to prove that PA Theta, not only can be, but is, financially viable - something many thought was impossible just 3 years ago. The key to our success has been our run of incredibly talented House Managers that led the effort to restore our house capacity back to 45. Simultaneously, our record-setting Rush Teams developed and executed brilliant recruiting plans netting over 20 outstanding new freshmen members each year. As a result of this incredible team effort, we'll be starting Fall Semester 2007 with 45 brothers living in the house - the most since sometime in the early 90's.
We started our Return to Glory Campaign in Fall 2004 with 18 brothers living in the house and a loss from the previous year of about $70,000 on a total income of about $130,000. In 2007-08, only the 4th year of our Return to Glory Campaign, we're projecting $280,000 in total income with a profit of over $20,000. On behalf of all our Actives, both current and future, I'd like to thank all of our Alumni for their very generous and record contributions to our Annual Fund of over $65,000 in the last 3 years. Your generous contributions saved our fraternity. They not only allowed us to stay in business while we rebuilt PA Theta, but more importantly, your belief in us inspired us to keep going against overwhelming odds.
We're also continuing to improve our financial reporting system. Our goal is to keep every member informed of exactly where we stand financially. We want to be able to recognize problems as they arise so we can deal with the issue immediately before it becomes a catastrophic problem. We decided to develop a very detailed chart of accounts that we will keep consistent year after year so every member can see at a glance where every dollar is received and spent, even your donations to our Annual Fund.
Our Active Chapter Treasurer will always give a complete Financial Presentation at both our Homecoming and Blue/White Stockholders Meetings along with a printed Financial Report to hand out. We also plan to have the Report available online for those who can't make the meeting. Click here to see our first, the Financial Report from our Blue/White Stockholders Meeting in April. We're also continuing to improve our billing system to aid in invoicing and collection of outstanding receivables. We implemented a 1.5% late payment finance charge and Warden Tom Campbell '09 has been helping with collections. We also started billing members living outside the house for the first time this year.
We're also continually improving the quality of our new recruits so problems collecting bills are much rarer. Plus, next year we'll be entering uncharted territory for PA Theta. For the first time we'll have more members than rooms available which will make our life so much easier. Now we'll have real leverage to enforce our rules. If you don't have a signed housing contract with a check for the full deposit by the published deadline, you're not moving into the house. If you decide not to pay your bill on-time, we'll have a waiting list of other members who will. Many thanks to our past Return to Glory Treasurers Joey Direnzo '06 and Nate Killough '07 for getting things started, constantly improving our systems, and teaching me everything they had learned.
Kevin Haslam '10, Chapter Relations Chairman & Tim Pawloski ’10, Historian Top-Bonds in Fall 2005 and Fall 2006 Pledge Classes, plan to continue spreading the great news of PA Theta Now that we’ve established the informative and interactive environment of ProudtobeaPhi.com, we’ve been working hard to improve what we’re all ready doing, and also implement new things.
Sometimes we have struggled to get good quality photos which can be used to update the website and for mailings to Alumni. The recruitment of freshman Tim Pawloski ’10 has been vital to solving this problem. Pawloski is a Film & Video major and vows to make sure there are countless amounts of pictures to choose from when creating mailings or web updates. We’ve also revamped the format for updates. We’ve included some of the most detailed Officer Reports to date, and we’re now including not only a section devoted to what the actives have been doing, but also a section devoted to what alumni brothers have been up to. As for the history of PA Theta – the actives will now be more informed. It is a requirement for new Phikeia to know and understand what it means to be a brother at PA Theta and all of its glorious history.
This semester, in refurbishing the basement, we were able to finally replace broken picture frames that held photos of our more famous brothers. “I’ve also made it my personal goal to inform pledge classes about class paddles. I want to make sure that when the new house is built, there are a sufficient amount of paddles, trophies, photos and awards to fill a History Room,” Alumni Relations Chairman, Kevin Haslam says. We hope you enjoy this Annual Report - be sure to check-out all 8 pages. As always, if you have anything you’d like to contribute for future updates or mailings, please do not hesitate to e-mail us. In this report…
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