We seem to continue to suffer from an "identity crisis." One looks at the National Fraternity Website and if someone does not recognize us as "Sig Ep" they wouldn't know what they were looking at. It is obvious that we want to avoid the "frat boy" stereotype, but we do have very positive traditions (or at least I thought we did) in being a Greek letter organization and having the lofty ideals and symbols that have been with us since 1901. Certainly some things have changed over the past 100+ years, and for the better, but some things have remained constant and we should as proud of them as we are our more progressive programs that set us apart from the rest of the fraternity world.
It seems that we still use some of the operational tactics of the early years. Who has a clue what resolutions are made at conclave and some just come to be as a matter of convenience (and subversion) by the leaders and staff du jour. In the early days, Uncle Billy (W.L. Phillips) used to destroy all the Conclave resolutions and publish them like he wanted. Nobody ever knew the difference because no one else was keeping records. When you, as a delegate, come back from Conclave, are you really sure what happened and what the outcome was... and is there a record of that 3 months down the road???? As a delegate, have you noticed how your committee "mentors" come in with a pre-programmed agenda regarding each issue you are to discuss - and how you are led down a specific path for outcome? Rarely is anything accomplished that hasn't been carefully orchestrated? Have you noticed that with each succeeding conclave, resolutions that increase the power and autonomy of the Board and the HQ staff between legislative sessions increases? Have you noticed that many "interim" decisions made by the Board and HQ staff are never validated by the Grand Chapter?
Where are our records, our history, our archives and why is it virtually impossible to trace any extant resolutions, etc.?????
Which brings me to the first of the issues this author will be exposing periodically now that I have been invited to provide an occasional op-ed to the Sanguine et Purpure. Let's look at one example of a conclave resolution that mysteriously disappeared. That one being "publication" of the list of standing national committees and their constituent membership. A codicil of this was that the National Board Meeting Minutes also be published and distributed. One can get on the "mailing list" for the NBD minutes. They make interesting reading, more from a creative fiction standpoint, but interesting nonetheless. It is quite obvious that they need some degree of sanitization for public consumption, but they way they read, for the most part, nothing goes on but the HQ "dog and pony" show to the board giving the "state of the fraternity" as seen through the eyes of the blind (aka Staff). This seems to me to be a great waste of time and resources if the board is totally dependent on the perceptions of the staff. I am not sure that the feather ever gets weighed against the heart of truth. That too will be a good bedtime story for another day - so come back later for that.
Let me get to today's point du jour - the national committees. Well, after some careful investigation, it has been discovered that besides the National Board of Directors we have 9 national committees and here they are:
- Citation Nominating Committee
- Investment Committee
- Marketing and Communications Committee
- National Housing Corporation
- National Leadership Committee
- National Recruitment Committee
- Order of the Golden Heart Nominating Committee
- Technology Committee
- Balanced Man Development Committee
So, I guess you are interested in knowing who is serving on these committees and how they came to be there? Well, you will just have to come back to the Sanguine et Purpure and check it out. My plane is about to leave here at Heathrow. Perhaps I will have time to continue after I get to Rome.
I am Il Doge of the poison pen and I approved this message.
