AA/BOA Meeting Minutes 3/4/2025

Iota Pi TKE AA/BOA Meeting Minutes

 

Meeting Date: 3/4/2025

 

Called to Order: 7:03 PM

 

Present: Drew Hellebrand, Scott Repie, Anders Ove, Carson Munn, Saul Santiago, Terry Steigmeier, Scott Kulkin, Dennis Galambos, Mike Kuper, Jonny Galarza

 

Absent: Erik Cunningham, Jason Johnson

 

Prior Meeting Minutes: Unanimous agreement to waive reading of prior meeting minutes. Denny made a motion to accept as written, seconded by Terry. Motion passed unanimously.

Reports:

  • Chapter Report:
    • Membership: Only 2 of the members requesting inactive status meet the criteria to be approved by nationals. The remaining ones will likely remain in active status. One has been informed of this and accepted it. Chapter is considering Greek Bill to help collect dues that are owed by brothers that have left the chapter and have not paid. 20 members is the minimum standard for a chapter to be in good standing. Roster is not due for next school year until October.
    • Pledge Status: Currently have one pledge for this semester. The other potentials did not have the grades. The chapter is working with them to try and help them raise their GPA. Pledge process has been shortened to 4-5 weeks with the hope of having more than one rush class in a semester. Repie suggested the importance of focusing on freshmen for rush because they have more time in school. Jonny said they are going to discuss at the next chapter meeting who plans to run for which positions and that will include rush chair.
    • Grades: 2 members did not return to school for the spring semester but did not notify the chapter until after the roster was due on December 5. This affected the overall GPA for the fall. Chapter GPA is currently at 2.9884 which caused the university to place them on academic probation which limits their social activities for the semester. The minimum GPA for fraternities is a 3.0, so the two members with a 0.0 is what pulled them below this level. Denny is going to have a conversation with the FSL director about this since the chapter was not notified that these guys were not returning. Saul pointed out that the university should have known these two members should not be included because they were not enrolled in classes. Jonny pointed out that Michelle had previously said that they could not be active in a fraternity if they were not enrolled in at least two credits.
    • Financials: $771 is the current balance with some deposits still outstanding. Only upcoming expense is university invoice for $223. Fundraiser tonight to sell hot dogs downtown. Made $240 off of Pie a Brother fundraiser. Expecting to make around $300 from selling hot dogs tonight. A couple of actives with outstanding dues payments and a couple with no money paid. All others are paid in full. The chapter has about $1500-$1700 in outstanding dues to collect.
    • KRA’s: EDU.tke courses and money vehicle is updated. Jonny is going to reach out to alumni to find some more foundation donors. He updated the initiation dates and scroll numbers on the roster. Looking into service opportunities with Habitat for Humanity.
    • Housing: Toured the possible new house on main street. Rent will be $615 plus utilities. 3 of the 4 rooms are filled and they have a potential 4th. The existing house has had challenges getting people to live there due to the condition of the house and the living room being converted to a bedroom by the landlord. The potential new house has some more flexible spaces. It is located at 230 E Main St. No leases have been signed yet. Still investigating whether letters will be able to go on the house. Guys signing up to live in the house are concerned about the parties being there. Suggestions were made that some ground rules be established such as a social schedule planned well in advance and making a rule of no parties at the house on weeknights. Drew pointed out that a new house might signify a fresh start for the chapter and would make it easier to fill the rooms. Repie suggested setting up a housing corporation to assist the chapter in negotiating a better deal with the landlord. Drew agreed to put something in the newsletter but pointed out that last year there were no responses and recommended that anyone on the board that knows someone that might be interested is encouraged to reach out to them and reminded them that anyone on the board is forbidden by the black book to be a member of the housing corp. Saul pointed out that if a housing corp. is established, part of the dues paid to the chapter would include a parlor fee to cover some of the expenses.
    • Activities – Fundraising, Socials, Alumni Interaction: Fashion show is coming up to meet philanthropy goal, and they have a study table scheduled at the library. Repie suggested that they wear letters during study sessions in public.
  • Advisor Report: Denny is going to be having a retreat with the current E-Board to go over the transition guide. Denny confirmed that total accounts receivable is $2375 is owed to the chapter.

 

  • AA Financial Report (Treasurer):
    • Current Balance: $2957.11
    • Expenses since last meeting: None.
    • Donations received: $150 in Zeffy awaiting deposit.
    • Upcoming expenses: Plaque for chapter.
    • Drew asked about 990 form, Denny advised that is due in May. Drew reminded Denny to upload his Driver’s license to Zeffy for the bank account so that there are no issues with the deposit. Denny said he did, and it seems to not be accepting it, but he will try again.
    • Drew informed the board that he received an email from an active at UCM that saw our Top Golf event on national’s website and reached out to ask about Zeffy for a fundraising event they are planning for St. Jude and are looking for a ticket platform.

 

  • Social Committee Report (Social Committee Chairman):
    • Top Golf: Repie heard back from Beta Rho, and they have a poker tournament that night. He has not heard back from CSU chapter yet.
    • Active/Alumni Happy Hour: 2nd Happy Hour is Friday at 6:30. Last months was a good time, but we’d like to get more alumni to show up for the actives.
    • Targeted Get Togethers: 3 attended the last one for the 60’s-70’s guys. One coming up this Sunday for the 80’s guys. One of the suggestions from the last one was that someone from the board should have been there to welcome everyone. Kulkin suggested that there be a schedule/rotation of board members to attend each of these events going forward for that purpose. Splitting this up would mean each board member attending 2-3 of these events a year to introduce themselves. Repie will be attending the upcoming event this Sunday. Saul said he graduated in the 90’s.
    • Monthly Happy Hour: Looking for a location for these informal monthly happy hours. Kulkin committed to scouting locations for a regular informal happy hour in a central location. Drew pointed out that it would be wise to steer clear of downtown because of parking.

 

  • President’s Report (President):
    • Website/Email Updates: Kulkin and Drew are planning to get together in the next week or so, have not had a chance yet, to work on more updates. Issue with the calendar subscribe feature is not working.
    • Survey Responses: Review of survey responses. Haven’t had many events the past couple of years for people to attend. Overwhelming support for an in-person reunion separate from homecoming. Too late to plan for this year but needs to be on the calendar for next year. Feedback was shared from the virtual get together from the Fraters from the 60’s and 70’s. One issue that was brought up is that the younger generation doesn’t want a ton of emails. The older generation wants more frequent emails. This is one of the things that Kulkin and Drew will be reviewing is a method that will allow people to specify how often and the types of emails they want to receive and why getting the website updated is so important. Newsletters had not been posted to the website and will be posted going forward.
    • Geographic Roster Breakdown: One of the survey responses was from a member that moved away from northeast Ohio and requested info for alumni that may be close to him. Similar to when we made the alumni engagement calls and Denny found an alumni living nearby. Drew is going to work on separating the roster this way.
    • State of the AA Email: Drew will work on an update on the AA to include in the next newsletter with where we’ve been and what we are looking to do in the near future. Newsletter will be coming out later this week (Thursday). Repie asked if we had phone numbers for everyone. Drew advised that we did and filled Repie in on the Alumni Engagement calls made by the board last summer. Repie suggested using text messages from that list to spread the word about Top Golf and see if we can get an idea of whether the numbers are still current. Drew explained that is an option that we’re looking into that as a possibility to offer text updates for people that would prefer those over emails.

 

Old Business:

  • Special Court: Hearing was last night. Drew pointed out how embarrassing it was to air our chapter’s dirty laundry to outsiders and everything that has been going on the past two years. Drew took responsibility for not updating the university of the AA leadership as an oversight on his part. The panel gave each side 10 days from the hearing to submit a final written argument. Drew found an email in Mailchimp that was sent by Don in 2019 that said “an individual cannot use TKE or Iota Pi on a personal event. It implicates our insurance. Nationals has informed us that the use of Iota Pi or TKE is not allowed on personal social gatherings.” Drew will include this in his final argument but does not think that they will pull Don’s pin over this one rule violation. Discussion was had about the longstanding issues and division that has been caused by this behavior. Drew explained that only the current violations of the bylaws is the basis for the charges, however all relevant information that shows a history was provided to the panel to provide context. Denny attended the hearing as an observer and informed the board that he felt Drew did an excellent job presenting the facts as they stand. He stated the presentation was factual and not emotional. The board agreed on disappointment that nationals did not provide much guidance on this process but are quick to ask us to donate money to them. One of the panel members did contact Drew Frizzel who stated nationals would not be present at the hearing because it was a local matter. Drew provided the link to the shared Google Drive with the board containing all of the evidence that was shared with the panel.

 

New Business:

  • AA Board Retreat: April is the last board meeting of the school year. The board will meet once over the summer and then resume monthly meetings in August. Drew would like the summer meeting to be on a weekend where we can designate more time to have a retreat for the AA board to strategize and come up with a plan for the next year. Everyone was asked to consider some dates.

 

Meeting adjourned: 8:27 PM