Ohio Gamma April Update
Greetings Brothers!
Here is the latest update on operations at Ohio Gamma:
Leadership Change
It is with mixed emotions we announce that Mike Repasky will be stepping down as our Alumni President.
Mike has been our president for the last eight years but he is embarking on a new career in the Cleveland area. The demands of this new position in commercial real estate will just require too much time to also effectively serve our chapter.
The last eight years with Mike as President have been great ones. During those years we won 4 Buchanan Cups (they are awarded every other year) and seven times the chapter was named the Outstanding Fraternity at Ohio State. Mike was able to take over the challenge of mentoring the undergrads as well as finding and managing mentors for the undergrad leadership positions.
Mike has been our “go to” guy for advice on managing our chapter and his leadership will clearly be missed.
For an interim period, John Waggoner, ’70 will be taking over the President position as we look for someone else to assume that position. John has been our President for five years prior to Mike and has some valuable experience in that roll.
With the 3-man Alumni Advisory Council (AAC) currently managing the chapter, the AAC really fulfills the duties of the President slot, so we are in good hands during this time period for leadership of the undergrad chapter.
Undergrad Update
It’s almost hard to believe but the semester ends 4/28/2019 and exams are starting as we write this update. We were not able to restart the undergrad operations until about the first day of February, so our time to “Renew!” has been short. It also affected the decision of many potential recruits as they often chose to wait until fall to join.
We currently have added five new members with a possible 6th this week which will bring chapter membership to 36. Eight seniors will graduate this spring which brings membership to 28 in the fall.
We had virtually no one to fill the chapter house this fall as most members make their living arrangements a year in advance, so they would need to break their lease and pay a penalty.
We are fortunate to find the Zeta Tau Alpha Sorority looking for a chapter house to rent while theirs is being remodeled fall of 2019. This allows us to bridge the gap better financially for 2019-2020. In spring of 2020, we will then open the house to non-Sig Ep students and well as a few Sig Ep upperclassmen. It will also allow all our men to use the common areas of the house.
In fall of 2020 we will be ready to take the house back for all Sig Eps.
“Renew!” Financial Campaign
Once again, and as expected, our alumni have come through and quickly shown support for our fundraising needs. George Smith and Jim Pfeifer generously agreed to donate $7,500 each to match other donations. This campaign runs until September 1, 2019.
We are pleased to report as of 4/1/2019, we have raised $15,750 to more than match the $15,000 pledge! That only took about a month! So it has been a tremendous outpouring of support for the chapter. Along the way, we also had a great number of alumni brothers step forward to be mentors. We now have mentors for all leadership positions…the largest number of mentors we have ever had!
Thanks to all for this tremendous support! However, please keep giving and volunteering. Financially, the $30,000 raised gets us over the “hump” currently, but the need for scholarships is ongoing and regular annual giving is still our primary goal.