NS Out of the Country

Brothers,

I will be in India for 2 weeks, starting next Thursday, December 11th. I am not bringing a laptop, and I do not anticipate that I will be checking my email much. One of my best friends is getting married in Chennai (formerly called Madras), and I will be attending her wedding, then traveling around the southern part of India. I arrive back home in Roanoke on December 26th.

Thanks for your patience! I will be sure to post some pictures when I return.

Thanks!

Julie

NS

Name Changing

Hi everyone.

Now that Andrew and I are married, I will be going by Chrissy Fleming. Since I've known many Brothers for almost 8 years, I won't be surprised (or at all bothered) if this adjustment takes a while to sink in. Don't worry if you've got my old last name on your pledging info sheets or other materials, or if you slip up in what you call me for a while. I'm just now starting the very large task of changing my name legally and in all of my various accounts, and I'm finding it's more of a slow process than an instant change. This suits me just fine since, after 26 years of being Chrissy Bischoff, I tend to slip up too! Just wanted you all to know.

NEC Meeting Minutes

Brothers,

You may not realize this, but every time I compile meeting minutes from the transcripts of our online meetings, it takes me about 2 solid hours. Even though I have word-for-word transcripts of everything that was said and everyone who came and left during the course of the meeting... still, 2 hours.

Another thing you may not realize is that reading the minutes of the National Executive Committee (NEC) is actually very interesting an informative. Here's why: Every National Officer and every Chapter submits a report, and I compile these in the minutes of our meeting. What better way to stay informed than to read what your NOs and chapter MALs have written about? We often have vigorous debates during NEC, and I try to capture the essence of these debates in what I put into the meeting minutes.

Our latest meeting was at the end of August. You can read the minutes here:
http://intranet.mubetapsi.org/portal_mods/knowledgebase.php?page=file&aid=505&gid=82&kcat=Minutes (need to login to the intranet first)

Our next NEC meeting is on Tuesday, October 21st at 8pm in the chatroom.

The next meeting of the Board of Trustees is coming up in a few days: Tuesday, October 14th at 8pm EST in the chatroom.

Anyone may attend these meetings, as lurkers or as participants. We encourage you to join us.

Don't forget about deadlines that are coming up in 4 days. I just sent an email to the National Listerv, the MAL listerv, and the BOT listserv with details. You can also contact me directly at secretary at mubetapsi dot org.

That's all for now..... Enjoy your weekend!

Julie
National Secretary

The True Cost of Vacation, and other Musings

Sometimes going on vacation costs a lot more than just what you shell out.

In my case, it's coming back that tells the tale. No matter how much I prepare to be absent, inevitably there are a slew of last minute (or after last-minute) questions and problems that need to be addressed.

This week, my first back after 2 weeks in Australia, I've been absolutely buried. Even before the jet lag dissipated, problems with email delivery to roanoke.edu addresses on the national committee distribution lists sprung up. I've contacted the Roanoke College helpdesk to try to obtain their assistance with this. In the meantime, if you're sending mail to any of our email lists (mubetapsi.org addreses with a "-l" in the name), be sure to also CC the Omicron folks. You can find a listing of reps and aliases on the intranet at http://intranet.mubetapsi.org/aliases.php.

The new public relations campaign for that alias list has also resulted in a number of alias update requests. I'm happy to receive these and implement them. It sure beats waiting for an address list! And speaking of address lists, I'm currently testing a system to allow MAL's better access to updating the actives list for their Chapter. The completed system should allow us to keep the intranet profiles up to date with respect to Chapter activity, while also providing one-click submission of address lists to the NS. This should be ready in the next few weeks.

In other news, I've uncovered a couple of big bugs in the user profiles this week, with the help of a faithful helpdesk user. The first involves users not being able to manage subscriptions for their email addresses -- the fix for this one has been written and will be implemented soon. The second involves captions for uploaded images not being stored. I'm still working on that one, but hope to have a fix soon.

The helpdesk remains the ideal resource for bringing problems such as these to my attention. That said, it also helps to CHECK BACK periodically for updates to your ticket. Sometimes the automated email about updates doesn't get sent for whatever reason, or it gets sent and missed. There are several tickets open right now that are waiting on feedback from the requestor. Please, if you have a ticket open, take a peek and see where it stands.

One thing upon which you can be sure: Unlike the airlines, when you get your ticket from me, I won't lose your luggage.

Chapter-Specific Intranet Content

With the launch of the new Alumni Association website, a new capability becomes available to Chapters -- customized intranet content specific to your Chapter. To see how it works, click on the Members link on the Alumni homepage and then click Login. If you're logged in to the intranet, it will take you to a page which includes both static information and a subset of the Knowledgebase specific to the Alumni Association. If you're not logged in, you'll be prompted to do so.

While this is a minor example, it is representative of the types of content that can now be done. Chapter-specific Knowledgebase folders, Brothers Galleries, even Who's Online or specific message board forums could be compiled to form a "mini Intranet" that's specific to a Chapter. I'm also open to other ideas to help Chapters customize content.

If your Chapter is interested in doing something similar, let me know. The user validation tools are quite easy to implement, and you can be up-and-running quickly, depending on what level of restriction you're looking for (the fastest to set up is the Alumni model, which does not restrict viewing ONLY to active alumni).

Yes, We're Open!

It's summer time, when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of......well, anything, really, as long as it's not school or work or Fraternity. Right?

Maybe not. Believe it or not, the National Office IS open over the summer. (No, really!) The Brothers Intranet is open. The Maintenance Wikka is open. Heck, even the Alumni Association is open -- we're adding people to our LinkedIn group every day!

The reality is, with all of the collaborative tools available to us, the Fraternity does not need to go completely dead just because it's summer. We can now focus on the more fun aspects of Brotherhood -- interacting with and learning from (and about) our Brothers nationwide.

Make it happen!

Clerical Error: DOIN THE BOT -- forever

Brothers,

I regret to inform you that due to an unfortunate loop-hole in our Constitution, it appears that one of our long-standing fun traditions has caused considerable havoc.

Each year, as many of you know, the Legislative Council votes to re-name the Board of Trustees. All in good fun, of course, and it has no lasting consequences.

Wrong.

It seems that Article XVII, Section 4.2 stipulates that no vote of the Legislative Council may have any time restriction appended to it. This is to prevent motions being passed at Convention purposefully set to expire between LC sessions when no one can do anything about it. Therefor, the motion the LC passed at this latest Convention is binding.

Our Board of Trustees is, officially, now named "Delightfully Orthodox, Impressively Nuanced, Tremendously Helpful Entity: Board of Trustees" or DOIN THE BOT.

With the end of the semester soon upon us, and the collegiate Brothers scattering across the country for the summer break, it seems unlikely that we can convene the LC until the fall semester to reverse this decision. I have asked C-NITC Britton to correct all of our online documentation, and NS Lyon to begin amending all national documents in which DOIN THE BOT is referenced.

I have not yet heard back from C-DOIN THE BOT Zander on whether there will be a mid-year meeting for DOIN THE BOT.

It seems we'll be stuck DOIN THE BOT for quite a while.