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August 11th, 2005
amzmtm
 | 01:08 pm - Our July 2005 activities
Our summer 2005 newsletter was completed and mailed out – thank you to our PR Guru, Heather ZU ’93!!
Thank you to Candice and Liz for the photo and caption from the July 8th all-AXO picnic at the house; and to Karen ZU ’98 of the photo of her and her big sister Cat ZU ’98 at the Chicago wedding of a Case classmate.
We announced MTM’s new public website to our members. http://axomtm.squarespace.com
The chapter had an extra piano at the house so we advertised one for sale to our members.
An update on MTM was published in the summer issue of The Lyre as well as a mention of Sarah ZU ‘95’s wedding.
Dues billing was sent out via email by CIAO. Thank you Alison!
The book club discussed its fourth selection The Time Traveler’s Wife July 26th.
The collegiate chapter invited us to a Welcome Back BBQ at the House August 27th.
We announced three Alpha Chi Omega job openings (house director at Alpha chapter, resident consultant for the University of San Diego chapter, and Leadership Mentor for the Northeast) and posted job descriptions on the private site.
Heather, the ZU Chapter Advisor, sent an update on the house, including the hiring of a new house director and cook and details of renovations underway this summer. She also announced she has a co-chapter advisor Amy. Welcome, Amy & thank you, Heather!
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amzmtm
| 01:01 pm - Our June 2005 activities
The academic year was winding down but the philanthropy committee was working overtime.
Race for the Cure
We unveiled our plans to participate nationwide in the Susan J. Komen Race for the Cure this year and learned that not 2 but 3 of our members were out representing us June 4th - Leila and Nikki in the National Race for the Cure in Washington DC as part of the Alpha Chis for Alice team and Christine in the Madison, WI Race for the Cure. Thank you Leila, Nikki and Christine for the photos and reports!
We updated the "Other Projects" philanthropy page to be specifically about the Race for the Cure, and encouraged our members to see when their local events are and sign up.
DVA website pages
We expanded the philanthropy section on our website to include a number of ways to provide support to domestic violence shelters and survivors, including 60 Seconds for DVA (help you can provide in 1 minute!), Shop for DVA and Music for DVA. http://axomtm.squarespace.com/dva-projects/
We shared the lovely flash presentation created by Alpha Chi Omega Foundation in honor of the Symphony with all our members https://ssl9.chi.us.securedata.net/pursuant2.com/alphachiomega/axoselect/flashstory.asp?tpgid=0&sn=1
We congratulated Lisa ZU ’86 and Carole ZU ’88 on their engagements; Lynette ZU ’88 and her family on their impending move to Cleveland; and Victoria ZU ‘01 on her graduation summa cum laude from Temple University.
We congratulated Beckie ZU ‘98 on the birth of her son, Jen ZU ’95 on the birth of her daughter and Lynn ZU ’93 on the birth her son; and thanked them all for the photos as well as Summyr ZU ’84 for the photos of her daughter.
The collegiates invited us all to an all-AXO picnic at the House July 8th.
And for the second time in 3 months an Alpha Chi was featured in the Alum news e-newsletter distributed by the Case Office of Alumni Affairs. This time Rahila ZU ’95 was pictured.
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amzmtm
| 11:04 am - Our May 2005 activities
Greek Week in April prompted a flurry of postings of old Greek Week memorabilia as we tried to remember Variety Show themes and songs we used years ago. Among the postings – AXO variety show lyrics from 1987 and 1989; names of songs and themes used pretty much from 1983 through the 1990s; and various fraternity variety show lyrics from the 80s (Pikes, Sigma Nu and Sammies 1986).
On May 13th we received in the mail our official certification as an alumnae chapter, signed by the National President. We scanned it and posted it to the private site. We are really official!!
We celebrated Case’s very large incoming freshman class for 2005-06 and mourned the passing May 14th of Dr. Ignacio Ocasio a beloved chemistry professor who was famous in part for memorizing the names of everyone in each freshman class and in part for his energy in the classroom and the quality of instruction he provided.
We introduced all the graduating seniors on our private site with a photo of each and a brief bio.
We set up our new public website http://axomtm.squarespace.com and started adding features.
The book club discussed its third selection Like Water for Chocolate May 25th.
And we congratulated Michele ZU ’85 for her Congressional testimony given May 24th before the United States House Judiciary Committee!
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May 15th, 2005
amzmtm
| 01:06 pm - our April 2005 MTM activities
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month so we kicked off the month with a posting http://www.livejournal.com/community/mtm_axo/7126.html that took on a life of its own and ended up being cross-posted on a number of communities and individual user blogs. I was really pleased the message had a positive impact.
Greek Week at Case was the first weekend in April – we sent individual good luck emails to the chapter, posted old photos and old variety show lyrics on our private site, then said Hurrah when AXO took 2nd place!! It was great seeing photos from this year’s events – thank you Kristina for help with the captions!
Heather (our PR guru) and I had a phone chat to map out the MTM summer newsletter.
We hatched a plan to match up our ZU full-time graduate students with MTM members who could send them good luck notes and care packages during finals week. Since finals time runs from late April through mid-June (many schools are represented, Arizona State University, Boston University, Stanford, UC-San Diego, Northwestern, University of Cincinnati, Case, SUNY-Stony Brook, Columbia, Brooklyn College, Georgetown, Rochester, MIT, Vanderbilt, and the University of North Carolina) we don’t know how the project is working out yet but hopefully it will be a success! It would be great to expand it to include the part-time students, since their lives are especially busy, working and going to school at the same time. This effort is part of our greater goal of supporting the academic achievements and endeavors of our sisters.
Nikki posted a poll about instant messenger platforms – which we use – to help us figure out the best and easiest chat rooms to meet in.
We welcomed the seniors as new alums – inviting them (the evening of their Hall of Commitment ceremony) to our private site at myfamily.com and sending each one an e-booklet to help with the transition from their collegiate years to the rest of their lives. A summary of that booklet is posted http://www.livejournal.com/users/amzmtm/4023.html. We also posted a list of all the new alums’ names and addresses on the private site and hope to have photos and bios to share soon as a means of introducing our newest alums to the rest of the group.
Christine Gosen, a ZU senior, was featured in April’s monthly Case alumni e-newsletter http://www.case.edu/alumni/news/alumnews.html - a great article with a photo and mention of her Alpha Chi Omega activities! Congratulations, Christine!
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April 22nd, 2005
amzmtm
| 08:58 pm - March 2005 activities
*We celebrated Hera Day 3/1, Alpha Chi Omega’s National Day of Service to Others http://www.livejournal.com/community/mtm_axo/6422.html
*Nikki launched the book club blog 3/1 http://mtmaxobookclub.blogspot.com/
*Leila compiled a brief history of all the places Zeta Upsilon chapter has called home – at the request of the New Member Educator - to share with the new members (a copy is posted on the private site).
*We celebrated International Badge Day 3/7 http://www.npcwomen.org with a post on our site and some interesting information from Vicky Harrison, Alpha Chi Omega’s National Archivist:
“The stones in our pin must be diamonds or pearls and there must be at least three (each upper outer corner and the center just below the scroll. In the beginning, the badges were member choice on size, how many stones, and what kinds. In 1906, an official die was ordered and the standard size as we know it was adopted. No reason for the 22 pearls. They just fit the design.
There are no rules governing placement of guard, accompanying fraternity pins, etc., but you will usually see the dangles and guards lower.
The new member stickpin was designed so the badge could be added to it at 2nd degree. It was an effort to get rid of the pledge (inferior person) concept. So instead of giving up your pledge pin after you earned your badge, you instead receive the first part and then the second part.
Neal Armstrong's first wife is an Alpha Chi from Purdue. We did have them in a Lyre article once, but there is no lyre badge on the moon. There is no badge in the Smithsonian. At one time, the jeweler ran the "prettiest badge" contest. The lyre supposedly won and the story started that it was on display in the Smithsonian. [2 big myths dispelled there!!]”
*We celebrated International Women’s Day 3/8 with a quiz from http://www.internationalwomensday.com/
*3/16 Karen posted a stack of photos from 1998-2000
*3/19 we were invited to attend AXO Formal to be held 4/1 at the Cleveland Athletic Club.
*3/28 our first book chat – it did not go perfectly (same issues with chat platforms that we experienced with our exec board meeting in February) but overall it was a good start. We posted the transcript and have open discussion threads on the blog.
*During March, there was also a lot of behind the scenes exec board work – getting projects organized – we found someone to help with our website – then 2 weeks later found out he couldn’t. Nikki talked with the Center for Women staff at Case about working together with them on some projects.
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amzmtm
| 07:21 pm - February 2005 activities
We welcomed the newest members of ZU with a photo posted on the (private) website. Of course everyone wanted to know how Recruitment went!!
We celebrated MacDowell Month, Alpha Chi Omega's time to focus nationally on fine arts appreciation. http://www.livejournal.com/community/mtm_axo/2278.html?view=742#t742 is a text copy of the message we sent to our members, to the collegians and posted online.
We sent the new ZU Exec board members gifts to say congratulations and good luck with their offices - cute thermal coffee mugs - perfect for winter in Cleveland. http://www.greekcreations.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=15 The funny thing was the first shipment contained Chi Omega mugs instead of Alpha Chi Omega ones. Fortunately Greek Creations corrected their mistake!!
We launched this blog!
And most importantly, we had our first MTM Exec Board meeting via chat. It took us awhile to get started - clients did not work as predicted (or if we could have predicted, we might have seen that Murphy's Law was after us - whatever could go wrong did go wrong!). The chat feature on myfamily.com uses a java console that wouldn't load for everyone so we went to AOL IM but not everyone had IM set up. We ended up on MSN IM and from there out things went beautifully and we got a lot accomplished - many plans set into motion and lots of ideas off the drawing board and into implementation. The transcript was 18 pages long! Among our long-range goals - setting up an e-card feature on our website with cards specifically targeted to AXO and ZU/Case, holding a contest with prizes to the sister who created the best graphics and flash files to use as e-cards, revamping our website to manage the e-card feature, publishing a newsletter over the summer, making some purchases requested by the spirit chair at ZU and the chapter president, new member gifts for the newbies at ZU (along with an introduction to MTM http://www.catholicsupply.com/christmas/19410.html), getting the fundraising committee going (lots of brainstorming about who might be able to participate), and providing long-distance support for the advisory board. It will probably take us awhile to implement some of these things but it was exciting to talk things out and get some of the plans sketched out in more detail! Thank you to Leila, Nikki, Heather and Erin who "attended" the meeting and Karen, Lisa and Jen who read the transcript and sent their comments in afterward.
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April 1st, 2005
amzmtm
| 09:45 am - April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month
As you know, one of Alpha Chi Omega's National Philanthropies is Domestic Violence Awareness.
Sexual assault unfortunately often goes hand-in-hand with domestic violence. To better educate ourselves on domestic violence and to protect us, our friends, sisters and families, here are some important things to know about sexual assault.
Statistics
One in four female college students reported they had been the victims of attempted or completed rapes; 80% were victimized by boyfriends, friends or acquaintances. http://www.icasa.org/uploads/adult_victimss.pdf
Women ages 16 to 24 experience rape at rates four times higher than the assault rate of all women http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/mime/open.pdf?Item=269
There is no boundary for who might be raped. Almost 18%, or 17.7 million women, in the United States have been victims of rape or attempted rape sometime in their lives. http://www.icasa.org/uploads/adult_victimss.pdf
Prevention
Being Date Smart http://www.teenpcar.com/girls/default.asp
Don't use alcohol or drugs which can impair your ability to make smart decisions, lower your inhibitions, and render you unconscious, making it easy for someone to force you into a harmful situation. If you're going to drink, enlist the buddy system and NEVER leave your drink unattended.
Be aware. If someone's drunk, aggressive, touching, or pinching you and won't stop, DON'T wind up alone with him.
If you're in a relationship, it's time to get out when:
· He doesn't listen, talks over you, ignores you. He doesn't respect you and might not listen when you say "NO."
· He shows hostile feelings or has a demeaning attitude toward women.
· He does what he wants, regardless of your opinions. If he always has to be in control, deciding where you go, what you wear and who you see, he may take control when it comes to sex - regardless of what you want.
· He acts overly possessive or jealous, all signs of a bad temper, which can lead to violence.
Getting Involved
To find a Sexual Assault Awareness Month event in your area http://www.nsvrc.org/cgi-bin/suite/calendar/calendar.cgi?request=month&website=default&month=4&day=1&year=2005&category_id=121&set=1&session=3ffaf0800d87dab2
Decide to End Sexual Violence – Build Healthy, Respectful Relationships
more links at http://del.icio.us/tag/saam+axo
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March 5th, 2005
amzmtm
| 10:32 am - January = Recruitment (January 2005)
Recruitment Recruitment Recruitment!!!
Case now holds Formal Recruitment in the winter (there is a history of bouncing back and forth between fall and winter - this year was the 2nd one for winter this go around).
As a club, we emailed all the ZU alums to keep them in the loop. We also posted info about recruitment events, times and attire on our public website. http://axoalummtm.org/rush.html
We sent out a blanket request for alumnae help with a mock recruitment session held on Thursday 1/20.
Because there are 4 local AXO alumnae groups in Cleveland, each one in charge of one of the 4 recruitment events, and because so few of our members live in the Cleveland area, we volunteered to sponsor 2 Sisterhood Events – one Saturday 1/22 and the other Friday 1/28. Thank you to Kelly and Lisa for being the alums in charge at these events! Saturday was pizza night (in the middle of a blizzard) and Friday was snacks and soda/pop – we also sent in old AXO stuff we alums had to share with the collegians – t-shirts, stuffed animals, stickers, etc. – that they used for door prizes that 2nd sisterhood event – and art supplies for making signs and things for the new members.
Our members also mailed cards and notes to the house and sent encouraging emails to the VP-Fraternity Relations to share with all the sisters.
Non-Recruitment related activities
We posted information about AXO Foundation Scholarships – with the forms and deadline. Many of the scholarships awarded go to graduate students so we specifically sent the information and forms to our alums who are in school.
We received a nice thank you from the chapter for the pencils.
And we solicited advice for the new VP-Education from our members specifically those who had held the job previously.
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March 1st, 2005
amzmtm
| 06:59 am - Happy Hera Day! (March 2005)
Tuesday March 1st is Hera Day, Alpha Chi Omega’s national day of service to others.
Celebrate by doing an act of kindness. It can be as simple as smiling at an acquaintance! Explore more ideas here:
http://www.actsofkindness.org/
http://www.helpothers.org/pif/ideas.html
Remember – when you give to others good comes back to you – in more ways than one. Here are some of the health benefits of kindness:
“Numerous scientific studies show that acts of kindness result in significant health benefits, both physical and mental.” http://www.actsofkindness.org/inspiration/health/detail.asp?
id=2
"The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor.
But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give.
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt."
Author:Leo Buscagli
"There is a wonderful, mystical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else."
Author:Unknown
[Quotes courtesy of the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation]
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February 28th, 2005
amzmtm
| 07:22 am - December activities and the Post & Win contest results (Dec 2004)
Despite the fact that we were all busy with our holiday preparations, December was an active month for us.
The collegians elected a new executive board - we thought about what we could do to congratulate them.
We posted a revised version of our alumnae address directory on our private site.
The Post & Win contest turned out to be a good experiment. During the 5 weeks, sisters posted 18 items about themselves. Because it went so well we decided to give 2 runners-up prizes (in addition to our grand prize). Congratulations to the winners – Lynn, our grand prize winner, who posted her new home announcement, and Gretchen & Sheri, our runners-up, who had coincidentally both posted photos of their weddings. They all (also independently) chose gift certificates from amazon.com (the runners-up were offered $10 gift certificates for either blockbuster, the photo finisher of their choice or amazon). Because it went so well, we thought we'd run the contest as an annual event.
The best part of the contest of course was seeing and hearing everyone's news and photos! Also the contest created some great momentum for us - there were lots more postings through the end of December, into January and now! (2/28/05)
Our printed finals week pencils began their journey to Cleveland. What should have been a 2-day priority mail delivery turned out to be over a week, but they did arrive - though most of the sisters did not get to enjoy them until January. Live and learn!!
We welcomed the one ZU senior who graduated in December by posting her photo and a short bio on our private site. Congratulations Jennifer!!
Nikki suggested we start a book club and volunteered to be in charge.
The Winter Lyre (AXO's National quarterly magazine) came out – our article and photo (from the Installation) were included.
And we wished everyone happy holidays and a wonderful new year!
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February 25th, 2005
amzmtm
| 07:25 am - Other November activities (Nov 2004)
Here are some of the other things that happened in November (in addition to the Post & Win Contest):
On myfamily.com we posted the list of all lost sisters (5 lost altogether and a bunch we don’t have email addresses for) – so everyone would know who to look for for the contest. Our five lost sisters are Tina Rice, Evie Mina, Nicole Kovach, Brandye Brown & Jennifer Wilkey. Thanks to everyone who sent in working email addresses for sisters. Unfortunately we haven't found the five missing women (as of 2/25/05 at least!). We'll keep looking!
Our public website went live! http://axoalummtm.org
Some of us attended the alumni holiday chi connection at the ZU house Sunday November 14th.
We started a discussion of old/new Chapter Traditions – little things like serving casada cake at Initiation and bigger things like maintaining the family trees. [For the 20th Anniversary, the chapter traced all their big-little families back to the founders.] We made it a goal to put together a list of "lost traditions."
Finals week was fast approaching so we discussed what to do for the collegiate chapter - we had a lot of ideas - some of them not so feasible. (We thought it would be awesome to provide 24-hour coffee service at the house during Reading Days and Finals Week - but with most of us not actually living in Cleveland we couldn't find a way to make it work.) We decided to combine something "real" with something "virtual" - so we had pencils printed with a url on our site that featured a good luck message and study tips (http://axoalummtm.org/finals.html). Some of the other fun things for additional pencils (thank you to Karen, Leila and Erin for your work on this project!!) included "Achieve Believe Succeed AXO" and "Case + AXO = Stellar!!" The hardest part was keeping our messages to the 30-character maximum our vendor had on the pencil personalization!
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February 22nd, 2005
amzmtm
| 07:03 pm - The Post and Win Contest
The idea behind the post and win contest was to boost the amount of information posted on our private website with the aim of getting to know each other better. And have some fun!! It launched November 4th with this message:
Announcing the AXO ZU Alum
Post & Win Contest
The winner will choose one of these great prizes:
A sterling silver lyre charm from James Avery
A Fun Basket from Executive Sweets “…filled to the brim with our famous world famous chocolate covered potato chips, pretzel twists and cookies!” or
A $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com!!!
It is easy to participate!!
All you have to do is post an item (photo, news item, etc.) to our private website at myfamily.com. For each item posted you will receive 5 raffle tickets. Members of Mu Tau Mu will receive 10 tickets for their first submission, 5 for each subsequent one.
Additionally, if you “find” someone from our Lost List, you’ll get 3 tickets!
Contest ends December 15th 2004 at midnight EST. Winner will be chosen at random in a drawing Tuesday morning December 16th. Winner will be contacted by email for her choice on the prizes after the drawing. Chances of winning depend on the number of entries submitted. The virtual alumnae club reserves the right to edit content for clarity and appropriateness.
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amzmtm
| 06:55 am - Pondering the Big Questions – Academic & Personal Achievement
We had made it our mission, practically from the get-go, to promote academic achievement among the collegians. The incentive we offered in the spring of 2004 helped them improve their grades substantially, but they missed the target by a hair. The goal was an overall chapter gpa of 2.2 and they earned a 2.189.
We started to think of ways to help – and we started to think beyond just grade point average (which while it is very important is not the only indicator of how well you do later in life, how successful you are, and how happy you are). Part of our problem was that the chapter in general (I am quoting Karen here) “did nothing to celebrate academic milestones.
As I recall, during my collegiate days [in the late 1990s] we did nothing really special to honor top students either. I don't know if the chapter has implemented any program of sorts, but perhaps we could come up with something as alums--something really enticing...”
We have a lovely ceremony to celebrate pinnings and engagements. It is called candle-passing. The entire chapter gathers in a circle in a darkened room. The warden has one lit candle which is passed sister to sister around the room as sentimental songs are sung. The first full rotation of the candle is for sisterhood, the second for pinning, the third for engagement. The sister to be celebrated blows out the candle when it comes to her in that round and thus is her secret revealed. It is a tearful happy gathering full of hugs and congratulations – we all love it!!
The only downside is it very male-centered (clearly there is no candle-passing without the man giving the pin or ring) – not a bad thing in and of itself – BUT wouldn’t it be wonderful to have some sort of ceremony that could be held to celebrate the great things in our individual lives? – like when a sister gets accepted to medical school or wins the lead in a play or gets the internship or summer job she always wanted. We have hopes of creating such a ceremony – we even have a name: Bravo-passing! Thank you Nikki for that awesome idea!!
This line of thought made us realize that we as alums could make a tiny start by setting a good example. Our private website is full of weddings, engagement, new babies, and photos of our children, and that is wonderful. We all want to see that and share those things. In addition to that though we are encouraging everyone to share their personal triumphs – new jobs, promotions, hobbies, philanthropic work and awards.
We hope to set up some kind of an informal career network – using the profile feature in myfamily.com to keep track of what we all do for a living so the collegians and younger alums will know who they can call on for advice about their professional lives. Thank you Susan for spear-heading that effort!
We hope to establish a scholarship fund – starting small perhaps with bookstore gift certificates – but working up to something bigger and more substantial.
And we hope to find more interesting creative ways to foster academic achievement and lifelong learning in all our members. Any ideas you have please share by leaving a comment! Thank you!!!
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February 19th, 2005
amzmtm
| 08:22 am - October is Domestic Violence Awaress Month
Support for victims of domestic violence is one of Alpha Chi Omega's National Philanthropies. October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. We participated in three ways.
Alpha Chi Omega Foundation created a wonderful flash presentation in honor of the survivors of domestic violence. http://www.pursuant2.com/alphachiomega/axo_email1.htm
We posted the link on our website and encouraged everyone to view it and send it to their friends and family. Foundation pledged $10,000 to domestic violence programs if the presentation was sent to 10,000 people. The goal was met before the end of October!
Second we adopted the “Call to Protect” program as our MTM chapter philanthropy. You donate your old deactivated mobile phones (w/ charger & battery) and they redistribute them to victims of domestic violence. Even phones without a wireless service provider can be enabled so someone can call 911, those that can't be enabled are sold and the proceeds go to the cause. http://www.wirelessfoundation.org/CalltoProtect/index.cfm
Third, the collegians held Domestic Violence Awareness week at Case, in cooperation with the Center for Women there. We publicized all the week’s events and co-sponsored “That Takes Ovaries” an event Monday November 1st at Arabica Coffee House. More information about the program is here http://www.thattakesovaries.org Our members attended the event to help out behind the scenes and MTM provided the books that were used as door prizes that evening.
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amzmtm
| 07:55 am - Things that happened in October
The hurricanes finally stopped!
Lisa applied for our EIN (employer identification number) from the IRS online.
Alison at CIAO helped us get our paperwork together to open the bank account – letters from National, scans of our drivers licenses and social security cards… Thank you Lisa & Alison!!
We wrote an article for the Case Magazine – a true group effort that would not have been possible without the internet. Elizabeth in NYC added to my first draft, really polished it up and then Leila in VA edited it and got it ready for submission. http://axoalummtm.org/about.html. Thank you Elizabeth & Leila!!
Case hosted the Vice Presidential Debate - thank you Maura for the great photos posted on myfamily.com! Alpha Chi Omega was mentioned in a front-page article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer - a scanned copy of the article is posted here http://www.myfamily.com/isapi.dll?c=content&htx=view&siteid=tViYAM&contentid=ZZZZZZO7&contentclass=NEWS
Happy Founders' Day - October 15th!
Heather polished up our first newsletter – we edited it – and she printed it and mailed it out. Thank you Heather!! We sent it by email to our MTM members and by snail mail to all other ZU alumnae right around the first of November. http://www.myfamily.com/isapi.dll?c=Content&htx=View&siteid=tViYAM&contentid=ZZZZZZNS&contentclass=FILE
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February 17th, 2005
amzmtm
| 08:44 pm - More on the Installation (September 26, 2004)
The installation day had 4 parts: assembling & waiting for the ceremony to begin; the ceremony itself; our first chapter meeting; and the reception afterward.
We enjoyed seeing each other and meeting in real life the women who would make up our virtual club. We lined up alphabetically and made a list of all present for the petition that would be read during the ceremony. The house was looking beautiful both inside and out and the mood was festive.
The ceremony went off very nicely, thanks to Sarah’s planning, as well as Jennifer’s, Heather’s and Andrea’s contributions playing the roles of the alumnae officer, warden and petition-bearer, respectively. Afterward we thanked the 3 of them with small gifts of appreciation and took a lot of photos (one of which was published in the Lyre with our edited article). National sent little gifts for each of us – beautiful prints of the Symphony of Alpha Chi Omega and pewter lyre charms. (Thank you Betsy! We mailed these to our members who could not attend the ceremony.)
Our chapter meeting consisted mostly of officer reports – from myself as President, Leila our Collegiate Liaison and Kimberly on the collegiate chapter and housing issues. Full text of those reports as well as photos are posted on myfamily.com. The only low point of the afternoon was that it did not work out to broadcast anything over the internet – and the hurricane (Jeanne) that had forced cancellation of my flight home!
Sarah and Erin set up a little feast for us for the reception following the ceremony. There was cake and punch as well as trays of cheese and crackers and veggies and dip. It was a good ending to the afternoon! And it was great to officially be an alumnae chapter!!
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February 16th, 2005
amzmtm
| 07:33 am - Official Installation Report (September 26, 2004)
The Installation of Mu Tau Mu
Submitted to The Lyre
September 29, 2004
Mu Tau Mu made Alpha Chi Omega history as it was installed Sunday September 26th as the first virtual alumnae chapter. MTM is made up primarily of alumnae of Zeta Upsilon chapter (Case Western Reserve University) and ZU’s other supporters. Rather than being geographically based, we conduct all our business over the internet – via email and websites – and boast 49 members from all around the United States – from Maine to Idaho to California to Florida and back up to Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Though installed on the 26th, our official installation date is September 24, 2004, to coincide with Zeta Upsilon chapter’s founding date of September 24, 1983.
The internet affords us so many opportunities to maintain and rekindle our connections to Alpha Chi Omega. Mu Tau Mu uses this technology to keep all Zeta Upsilon alumnae in touch with the chapter, its activities, and the happenings in the lives of our alumnae (promotions, weddings, graduations, and new babies for example). MTM’s goals include supporting Zeta Upsilon and other collegiate chapters, planning the every 5-year reunions we have come to enjoy so much, conducting philanthropies, and benefiting Alpha Chi Omega in general.
We were fortunate to have 13 MTM members in Cleveland, Ohio, on the 26th to participate in the installation. It was a gorgeous fall day, made all that more special by the company of our sisters. The Zeta Upsilon chapter room was a perfect setting for the installation ceremony and the chapter and house director, Rahila Ansari, were most welcoming. A special thanks to National Council member Jennifer Diederich, Alpha Omicron, who drove up from Columbus to conduct the ceremony, Sarah Mullet, MTM member, who organized the festivities that day for us, and Betsy Fenn, Alpha, at National Headquarters, who shepherded us from being an idea into an actual chapter.
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February 15th, 2005
amzmtm
| 08:00 am - Some firsts! (August - September 2004)
A timeline:
8/24 finance committee agrees with Lisa's suggestion to hire CIAO. CIAO is a financial services company owned by an AXO. They'll set up our bank account, send us reports and help with billing for dues, all for about what we would pay for bank fees alone on a business account. We are well on our way to having our first bank account!
8/27 we received our first thank you note – from Kristina the chapter president at Case for the back-to-school cookies: “Thank you so much for the tasty back to school treats! They were much appreciated by the entire chapter. We are also excited that our lovely alumnae are so innovative to form the first virtual alum group! We look forward to keeping all ZY alumnae and collegiates in better touch with eachother!”
9/7 Leila made a date to meet with the Greek Life Office at Case the week of our installation - to fill them in on new alumnae group and get a feel for the state of greek life on campus. It's our first official appointment!
9/10 Jennifer (an AXO National Council member from Columbus, Ohio) agreed to come to Cleveland to conduct our installation ceremony which will officially be held Sunday September 26th at 1pm at the ZU house. The plans for the installation are coming along well and we are excited to have someone representing the National organization participate in our activities!!
9/11 first draft of our first newsletter ready for editing.
9/15 due to the hard work of Kristina the ZU president, a new chapter advisor is recruited – she and the Recruitment Advisor agree to help with the installation ceremony. 2 MTM members volunteer for the advisory board as well.
9/17 first donation made to AXO Foundation in our name (by the director of alumnae province chairs – thank you!)
coming next - the installation!
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February 14th, 2005
amzmtm
| 07:00 am - Setting up our alum group... in cyber space (August - September 2004)
Now that we had official approval we got to work on all the details we could not attend to before – the things every new alum group (for that matter, any sort of club) must do to get going – only we had to do it “virtually.”
- set up a bank account
- plan our installation ceremony
- fill out our executive board
Setting up our banking turned out to be complicated. Having the President and Treasurer not only not in the same city but in totally different time zones meant it was unlikely we could go to the same bank branch and fill out signature cards. We took suggestions from our members for banks to work with and found that even Bank of America is not nation-wide (in fact they are only in 26 states). Lisa researched our many different options while I worked on the details for the installation. We had two thoughts: One was to have a ‘virtual installation’ in a chat room maybe on the actual date, Friday, September 24th provided that our members all like that idea and that National agreed and that we could find a time on that day that would work for most of us; A second option was to have an ‘irl (in real life)’ installation in Cleveland that weekend – maybe Sunday, September 26th, with the understanding that many of our members would not be able to attend.
There was understandable hesitancy on the part of Headquarters staff to broadcasting our secret ritual over the internet, no matter how much security we could attach to the proceedings, so we went with the second option – an installation ceremony in Cleveland.
The collegians agreed that the 26th was a good day for us to use the house for our ceremony. After discussions with National, we agreed to try to simulcast the installation on the web but not include any of the ritual. Sarah volunteered to be our Warden/ritual specialist and be in charge of setting up everything we’d need on-site.
In addition to Sarah we added Karen and Jen as Philanthropy co-Chairs, Heather as Newsletter Editor, and Erin as webmaster and felt like our Executive Board was really coming together.
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February 12th, 2005
amzmtm
| 07:34 am - Hurray!! (August 23, 2004)
Finally we got word about the National Council meeting. Betsy wrote: “I have exciting news!! Your Petition for a New Alumnae Chapter was approved on August 14, 2004. The chapter will be named the Mu Tau Mu alumnae chapter. I will be in touch with you soon regarding plans for an installation of some sort. I also wanted to let you know that it was also approved for your founding date to be September 24, 2004 to match the founding date of Zeta Upsilon."
August 23rd was also the first day of classes at Case. We delivered 2 boxes of cookies from Presti's to the house as a welcome back to the collegians. The chapter president sent us a nice thank you note that week: "Thank you so much for the tasty back to school treats! They were much appreciated by the entire chapter. We are also excited that our lovely alumnae are so innovative to form the first virtual alum group! We look forward to keeping all ZY alumnae and collegiates in better touch with eachother!"
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