National Convention

With three actives and one life member from Nu sharing a room, you can bet this convention was a diverse set of experiences for Nu.

Issac and Victoria arrived after the start of opening separate session, so Allie sat as the Nu delegate for some time. Ultimately Nu had two seats in the delegation and the NCD was well-represented on the floor. The group traveled to the NIB concert after dressing up in such a manner as is characteristic of Nu and loved the performance. We hung out at the reception and socialized with friends we haven't seen for quite some time, as well as with new people. That evening, Nu hung out with Lambda Tau, enjoying Dublin Dr. Pepper, which we purchased from Howard Payne's chapter. Then, the NCD gathered for our first night of caucusing during which we met Mike Osborn from ZE and Malinda Matney (Nu's sponsor!), candidates for Board of Trustees, and Christine Beason, candidate for VPCM (and former NCD governor).

Peter spent much of his time participating in alumni activities, which was probably a lot less stressful than constant business. Allie spent the next few days participating in workshops. During iPsi, the three actives entertained visitors by answering their questions and explaining our "kkpsiHarmony" board display. Furthermore, iPsi provided us the opportunity to meet many new brothers, which was exciting.

Generally the entire convention was a mix of interviewing candidates for office (business), hanging out with brothers (pleasure), and taking advantage of the scenery and the scheduled events, like concerts and speakers (both...?). Nu visited the Garden of the Gods with brothers from Lambda Tau and Delta Upsilon during free time on Thursday. At banquet, Nu, ZE, and Eta sat together in a "Big Ten" table, causing a lot of puzzling looks in our direction. We also participated in the Fight Song Competition, during which we discovered the hard way that two sets of entries (traveling) plus The Victors twice through is a poor decision.

But alas, it was finally time to return home. We gave a great effort and had the great privilege of seeing Past Grand President/Past National President Doc Worthington at this year's convention (a brother of Nu). Further, Malinda and Mike were both elected to the Board of Trustees, so it was a good day for the state of Michigan! ZE and Nu are proud :) Peter and Allie both had early flights Sunday morning and arrived home in Michigan shortly thereafter. The adventure for Issac and Victoria was much more extended...

In Colorado there are often thunderstorms and we happened to be stuck at the airport during a huge storm. With much of the NCD. Eta and Nu were at the same gate and ultimately everyone managed to get to Dallas, where our connection would have been. However, only Issac made it onto his flight. The rest of us stayed the night in Dallas. Basically the moral of the story is...be friends with your brothers and you shall go forth and prosper! Eta is from OSU, but spending the night with them was great as far as being stuck in a strange city can be :)

AEA,

The Nu Chapter (as written by Victoria, Corr Sec)

Revived Blog

Hello everyone.

We have taken a year off from blogging, but now is a great time to begin again! Tomorrow Allie, Victoria, and Issac will be flying to National Convention in Colorado Springs, CO!  It is very exciting. Perhaps we will see an update on-site. Also, good luck to Nu in the bid for the Founder's Trophy :)

AEA,

Nu Chapter

Happy Birthday US!!!!

Those of us here at Leadership in Lexington hope everyone joins in celebrating today as the Nu Chapter turns 85. Its sure to be a great day socializing with our brothers from across the district and learning great new techniques to run our chapter. For those close by, perhaps a Birthday Dinner is in order. Can't wait for the push to 100 now.

AEA,
Chris, Sierra, Victoria, Issac, and Peter

TBS-Lambda Turns 62!!!

We wish to send a great big Happy Birthday to our co-chapter, Lambda, as they turn 62 today. Congrats on coming this far and we look forward to working with you for another 62 years.

AEA,


The Nu Chapter

NCD Convention

Hey Brothers!

It's been a while since we've posted on here but it's been the slower part of the season, except NCD CONVENTION! We just want to give people more insight into what happened, or if you couldn't make it, there is a bit of a summary of NCD that was hosted by our own chapters, Nu and Lambda. The following is from our Nu Committee Chair, Peter Keros. Enjoy!

Hosting the North Central District Convention is one of the largest projects that a chapter can undertake. The process takes over a year and a half and requires the work of many brothers and sisters, an extreme level of organization, and the ability to translate the needs of the district council to the hotel facilities. That said, it’s a rewarding and thrilling experience that gives a new perspective on the workings of the district as a whole. I am honored to have spent the past 18 months with my brothers and sisters of the NCD to host this convention.

Convention started on Thursday night when I went to the hotel to get started. I saw most of the district council and spent the night discussing the weekend ahead and hanging out with them (they are my friends, you know). Friday started early in the morning when the NCDIB registered so they could start rehearsing. Throughout the day, people trickled in, peaking at about 4 when our registration desk was flooded with brothers and sisters eager to begin their weekend. Friday ended with ritual and the block party, where we got to mingle with our district friends and just hang out.

Saturday was the busy day. The day was filled with workshops and committee meetings and business sessions. The NCDIB played an excellent concert including Rossini’s “An Italian in Algiers,” one of my favorite pieces. The night ended with the banquet, where governor Rod Whiteman was awarded the Charles Hass Award, Trudy Adler got the Kathy Stevens Award, Beta Psi got the Chapter Improvement Award, Beta Rho was recognized for helping to save the Toledo band program, and Zeta Epsilon won the Governor’s Cup for the second time in three years. After the banquet, we had a dance party in the ballroom while Victoria Liu, a candidate for district vice president for membership, ran around to various caucuses.

Sundays at convention are never boring. After a rigorous bout of elections, Tammi Rice of Zeta Omicron was elected district president, and Tamara Gleiss of Beta Kappa was elected vice president for programs. VPM and secretary-treasurer were left vacant, to be decided by the council and governors in the next month or so. On the TBS side, Kristy Lukaszewski of Lambda was elected vice president for special projects! In the joint session, Mu Delta of Western Michigan and Gamma Pi/Beta Sigma of Purdue were selected to host the 2011 convention.

Overall, the convention ran smoothly and well. We were going 90 miles an hour, but it was on cruise control. The preparation that Nu and Lambda put into this paid off in the ease with which the events took place. I got comments from the district council, brothers and sisters from across the district, various national officers, and a couple judgmental alumni that this was an excellent convention.

It was a lot of work, but it was SO much fun! I’ve honestly never been so excited in my life than I was running around the Hyatt. In many ways, convention was the white whale that has plagued Nu and Lambda since 2006 when we had bid for convention for the third year in a row and had lost for the third year in a row. As someone who worked on that bid during my freshman year, it’s really come full circle. I’m really happy that it went so well, and I am eternally grateful to everyone who made this convention possible.

AEA,


The Nu Chapter

Flag Football

Happy Saturday!

Besides band, Nu is in love with sports. Within the past 2-3 years, a flag football tournament has been started, and it is continually growing more popular by the second. The following is an article about its beginning and where it is now by one of its founders, David Hines Jr.



      MMB Flag Football started out of much trash talk and section rivalry in the Fall of 2007. A lot of band members were getting tired of the intramural flag football rules (no contact on the line…for real?!!). Spearheaded by our Rec Sec at the time Mike Millhaem, the first week’s matchups were held at a nearby field off campus, because we had not reserved any of the space that was owned by the University. The clarinets (aka the Sticks), trumpets, tubas, trombones (aka the Bones), horns, and euphoniums (aka the Euphs) all had teams that first year. Before, sections would play pickup football against each other throughout the year just on a whim, but for the first time in recent memory, the teams had reason to care. That season didn’t fully develop as team commitment went up and down throughout the year and most teams only ended up playing 3 or 4 games.
      The next summer, Mike and I were chosen as the Brotherhood chairs for the 2008-2009 school year. During rank leader retreat, we decided legitimatizing the football league would be an excellent vehicle for cultivating brotherhood within our chapter and the whole MMB. What we didn’t expect was for it to have such a strong impact on Nu recruiting for the year. The Mec’s saw that we enjoyed playing/practicing together during and outside of band which made them curious about what we did as an organization. So to prepare for the season, we purchased more expensive flags that we felt would last for a good few years at least using a little Nu budget money and section contributions of around $5-$10 each. We also set up a whole system for refereeing (each section would provide at least 2 for a game that was not theirs that week), a schedule (4 1-hour games on every Sunday starting at 12pm and ending at 4pm), and decided on rules. When band week started back up, we proceeded to talk up the league to both everyone in Nu and our own sections. By the time we put up sign ups, people were ready to play the first game. That season had 4 or 5 regular season games and then a single elimination playoff bracket with seeding based off of the each team’s individual records. Towards the end of the year, we used survey monkey to let teams vote for 1^st/2^nd All Band Teams and a Heisman Trophy winner for the league.
      This past season was very much like the previous in that the features that we implemented the previous year stuck. Not much changed except for the increased interest in the league from none non-KKPsi members. More people came to watch the games and the general size of the teams grew for the most part as section unity/peer pressure took place. We even got Professor Pasquale to do the coin flip at the MMB Flag Football Bowl Championship Game.
      In the Winter semester of 2009, Millhaem had an idea to try and have a pickup league in the Oosterbaan indoor field house that the Michigan Football team uses to practice. He asked the MMB’s ridiculously awesome administrative assistant, Maggie St. Clair if it would be possible. She did some talking and got us a slot on Friday mornings from 2-5…AM!! We were reluctant at first, but decided to throw the idea out there to the band…and they bit hard. So for that semester and every Winter semester from here on out hopefully, the MMB (and a few friends) has pickup football from 2-5ish AM in Oosterbaan. It has been a great way for friends to stay in touch and meet people from other sections during the off season.
      I am proud of what Mike and I started with the league, because of what it has done for both our Chapter and the entire band. We just took a simple idea that involved activities we knew other enjoyed and set up plans to make it our own. We had our blunders, but we learned from our mistakes and built something that brings a lot of people joy. If that’s not brotherhood, then I don’t know what is :-)


--David Hines Jr.

And of course I had to steal some pictures off of Facebook ;-)

AEA,

Nu

Leadership: MEC Style

Hey everyone!

Welcome back to everyone this semester, or congratulations to those that graduated last semester and are starting "real life" now. Before we get completely moved into the new semester, Nu would like to  cover some interesting happenings from right before break. One of those things was the leadership discussion that our MECs had during one of their MEC Meetings. The wonderful Malinda Matney, Immediate Past President held a lecture in addition to those brothers with and without titles explaining their roles as leaders within the chapter.

The most interesting part though, was getting the ideas that our MECs had on leadership. They were split into four groups, and told to come up with a list of adjectives that they thought a leader should hold. The four following posters are below. Watch out for one of Michigan's motto's creatively put in on one of the posters.

Did you find the hidden message? It was "Leaders and Best" in poster #1 :-)

Great job MECs!

AEA,

The Nu Chapter