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June 27, 2010 Alpha Phi Omega / Twitter
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Turning Weakness Into Strength

March 10, 2010 Alpha Phi Omega / Friends
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(I recently wrote this for the Iota Phi Alumni blog.)

A recur­ring issue that our chap­ter faces is active reten­tion or mem­ber turnover. We are lucky that our chap­ter is so large and that it is able to accom­mo­date large pledge classes, but we could be much big­ger and bet­ter if we were able to hold on to more brothers.

When I’ve talked to rushees who did not choose to pledge, pledges who chose to DP, or broth­ers who have drifted away from the chap­ter, the most com­mon rea­son for leav­ing is some­thing along the lines of “I don’t feel like I belong.” Some­times older actives are left behind after their friends have grad­u­ated and moved away. Some­times, pledges never quite bond with their pledge broth­ers. Whichever the case, the end result is the same — when you feel like an out­sider among a group of 200+ peo­ple, it can be incred­i­bly intim­i­dat­ing. It’s under­stand­able that you would con­sider leaving.

What I can­not under­stand is how the sit­u­a­tion is able to get to such a low point. Our chap­ter has a lot of safety nets built in to pre­vent any­one from falling through the cracks. You are never alone in Iota Phi. You have pledge broth­ers, spon­sors, spon­sorees, train­ers, pledge group-​mates, big broth­ers, lit­tle broth­ers, ExComm, Plex­Comm, and advis­ers. Every­one in Iota Phi is con­nected and we are all here to help you suc­ceed in Alpha Phi Omega and out­side of it. If you feel as if you are drift­ing away from the chap­ter, I’m sure that if you took a closer look, you’ll real­ize that you have a lot more sup­port than you thought.

And to every­one else in the chap­ter, keep an eye out for those near you who could be start­ing to drift away. If you notice that one of your broth­ers is not com­ing out to events as much, invite him or her to join you at a fel­low­ship or ser­vice project. Don’t be afraid to intro­duce your­self to some­one you don’t usu­ally talk when you’re both at a fel­low­ship. Try part­ner­ing up with some­one new at a ser­vice project. Good mug some­one for some­thing that you don’t think any­one else noticed. You never know… that ran­dom act could make the dif­fer­ence between a future Pres­i­dent leav­ing and com­ing back. Besides help­ing your­self by meet­ing a best friend, you could be help­ing the chap­ter grow stronger.

In short, be a leader, be a friend, and be of service.

Yours in LFS,
Dinh Luong

Restart

February 27, 2010 Alpha Phi Omega / Friends
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“You can never go home again.”

Before I pledged APhiO, I only hung out with friends from high school and went back to Sacra­mento every week­end. The fra­ter­nity gave me some of my clos­est friends and a chance to find myself and grow as a per­son. It made Davis “home” for me.

It was incred­i­bly hard to let go, and I don’t think I would have been able to if I hadn’t moved to Min­nesota right after grad­u­at­ing. When I came back to Cal­i­for­nia, I was on the fringes, but really only hung out with old peo­ple out­side of offi­cial events. I’ve changed, and so has the chap­ter. New faces, new peo­ple step­ping up to get things done, and new ideas about how do get those things done. Iota Phi is not the place where I grew up anymore.

But Ini­ti­a­tion is still the same. I still get the awe­some sense of tra­di­tion and pur­pose every time I hear the Oath of Pledge­ship. There may have been some ren­o­va­tions done, but under­neath, the foun­da­tion is as solid as ever. Con­grat­u­la­tions, Luong class! I hope that you’ll soon feel the same sense of “home” that Alpha Phi Omega has given me.

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