This past weekend the men from Phi-Alpha Zeta at Eastern Illinois University elected a new Alumni Board President. Now, that might sound like something that is normal for every chapter, but at EIU it was not. I was the previous President for the past eight years. Now eight years is a long time and a change was definitely needed. At some point in every organizations lifespan you need to make changes and the top of the organization is a great place to start.

It is always good to get new blood and fresh ideas piped into any organization. It is not like I lost my passion for Lambda Chi Alpha, as I am still the Chair of the Mentor Leadership Program for IHQ and I now sit on the board in a smaller capacity, but it is always tough to keep the same enthusiasm going for a long period of time. The brother who is replacing me will do a great job and as I sat at the meeting watching him I couldn’t help but feel the enthusiasm that he has brought to our board. He has a lot of new ideas and his energy is much needed. We have a great mix of older and younger alumni sitting on our board, so I know this new blood at the top will be great for our organization.

My challenge to you is to evaluate where your alumni organizations are right now and see if there is a need for new blood to get involved. At Phi-Alpha Zeta, we always look for recent graduates to join our board in some capacity. It only helps keep things rolling in the right direction. Getting new people involved in the board helps the organization grow and get away from the “good old boys” club. You always want to make your board an environment for brothers to want to get involved. That is the only way to make a positive impact on your chapter.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Alumni Relations . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.