| President's Message |
November 12, 2011
Fellow Brothers:
First, I am honored to have been elected President / Treasurer of House Corp. I have big shoes to fill given Bill Beach’s nearly 40 years of House Corp leadership – it goes without saying that such a long period of service is simply incredible. I am hopeful that Bill will continue to offer his considerable experience to the deliberations of the Board as we move forward. As much as he has earned the right to rest on his laurels given all that he accomplished, organizations of all types benefit from the input of their past presidents and I trust this one will be no different. .
One of the most important goals I have, especially given the loss of the charter in 1998 and its subsequent reinstatement on February 17, 2008, is the closure of a decade of ‘generation gap’ in alumni involvement. Most of the board members are of the late 70s early 80’s era and we need to be striving for the involvement of more Sigs who live in Central New York and draw upon the alumni from the most recent graduating classes. We will celebrate the fifth anniversary of the re-chartering which is just around the corner in February 2013 – this would be a great opportunity to use one of our great traditions – The Clam Bake - to celebrate the return of recent graduates in large numbers.
In the near term I will focus on updating our approach to business administration to reduce the burden of ‘bookkeeping’ on the House Corp. leadership –a truly thankless task that can be out sourced. I have investigated the service provided to the undergrads by Greek Capital Management. GCM operates with a million dollar fidelity bond, and has been subject to meeting licensing requirement to be a Greek Licensed Vendor. For a relatively modest fee they will input our operating budgets, administer distribution & collection of room & board contracts, issue monthly invoices and statements, process collection of funds and track accounts receivable, administer accounts payable (invoices are emailed for approval prior to payment) and vendor ledgers, prepare monthly Income Statements v. budget, Balance Sheet, Sources and Uses of Funds, bank account reconciliation and annual tax filings. Payroll services are available for a reasonable additional fee. A monthly financial statement package will be generated for distribution. House Corp. would reserve the parent / student relationship management role so that we can deal directly with those situations on a case-by-case basis. While I have some additional due diligence to conduct on references – all those received thus far are ‘glowing’ - I am so far very impressed with the service offering. Getting this done is a key to dividing the President / Treasurer role (as I think it has been since the original rechartering in 1965) in to two positions.
We also need to bring alumni relations into the social networking era – as much as many of us might not use Facebook, our more contemporary alumni and undergrads certainly do. I set up a Facebook group ‘Psi Psi Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity (Syracuse University)’ to move in that direction – postings to date range from humorous to highly complimentary about how the house looks. In time, with support from the undergrads, we will overhaul of our website to enhance our bulk email capabilities, alumni database administration and ‘push’ calendar notifications for upcoming events to improve alumni outreach. While the Chapter House is in excellent condition – so far the only Greek house to pass City of Syracuse fire inspection on the first pass – we will undertake a long term capital requirement assessment to ensure we develop the financial resources to keep it this way so we can continue to serve the needs of the undergraduates for housing, board club and social events. After all, it’s a fraternity house, we have to maintain it well to overcome the pounding it takes in the ordinary course of its existence. We will wind up the capital campaign undertaken through Stewart Howe to renovate the house and will hopefully collect a substantial portion of the outstanding pledges so that we can payoff the mortgage balance and operate debt free going forward.
House Corp Board members will each be leading a project or two and they will need volunteers from time to time. We all can’t be physically present at all times so I am working thru the details of setting up GoToMeetings for the purpose of accommodating people who cannot be present at House Corp meetings to call in via VoIP so they can look at their pc screen and see / hear / participate in the meeting as it unfolds. For those without such capability, your can simply dial in and participate in a conference call while looking at handouts distributed in advance.
I look forward to working with all of you over the years to come to get these important tasks done and I have no doubt we will have an awful lot of fun in the process.
Please do not hesitate to contact me at anytime.
In hoc,
Hank
Hank Suominen ‘78
President / Treasurer
House Corp.
E: hanksuominen@verizon.net
C: 617-312-6800
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Central New York Alumni Association of Sigma Chi
| Postal Address: |
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Central New York Alumni Association of Sigma Chi
c/o Mike Yates, Treasurer
42 Hannum St.
Skaneateles, NY 13152
Tel (315) 345-8623
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Metropolitan Syracuse Sigma Chi Alumni Association Inc. (House Corp.)
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