Author Archives: MuOmega

Fall Rush Shirt Design

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Hello all,

The chapter is having rush shirts made this semester and wanted to make them available to alums if you would like one.  If you’re interested, please email Robbie Houser (robbiefresh.739@gmail.com) and include the number of shirts you want and the sizes you want. The recommended donation amount is $20-$25 per shirt going directly to the chapter to support their recruitment efforts. If you are not local to GMU, donations can be made via our paypal link and I’ll make sure they get fwd’d to the chapter. We’ll also work out the best way to ship you a shirt if necessary.

Here is the design, pick up a couple for you and your kids!

Upcoming Meeting Reminder and Request

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Hey Fraters,

I hope you’re all enjoying your summers. I wanted to let you all know that I made it back safely from Conclave down in New Orleans. I’m so thankful to have been a part of such an incredible event.

I was able to witness the initiation of Tau Kappa Epsilon’s 250,000th frater in the bond: Forbes Magazine’s own Mr. Steve Forbes. I met fraters from all corners of our great country, and even a few that were our neighbors to the north from Canada. One of the heights of the trip was when nearly a thousand TKEs literally shut down city streets as we paraded through the french quarter.

I attended an Alumni Association development workshop, to learn what makes a successful group of alumni fraters who strive to contribute back to their fraternity. The panel was made up of the Presidents of Alumni Associations that had been around for decades, and also a few who had just started brand new associations of their own. I was able to take away a ton of ideas for how to help establish and sustain our group of men, and also how to achieve our ultimate goal:

To bring to new men the successes that TKE has brought us, through our support of each other and our active fraters in the bond.

In our pursuit of this goal, I’m looking forward to doing my best to help you all find the right level of contribution and activity in this effort. Since you were all man enough to step up and take our bond in this fraternity for life, I will be man enough to tell you all what we need and ask you for your support.

I am asking for each of you to:

  • contribute twenty five dollars for annual membership dues, and to donate more if you are able. This will help us pay for our fees and build a good size financial fund with which we can contribute to philanthropies and chapter support. Payments can be made online or via check to our treasurer, and will be accepted at the annual meeting prior to opening new business. http://muomegatke.com is our website, payments can be made via the paypal links at the top right.

  • attend the business meeting at Brion’s Grille at 7pm on September 15th, or attend by phone (conference call info will be sent out), or vote by email proxy on all motions be sent out. Your feedback will ensure that we operate to a level that is expected of us.

  • reach out to any fraters you are still in contact with that are not yet members and ask them to join us.

I will be sending out a few more reminders as the meeting approaches, specifically detailing the chapter’s planned fall rush activities and ways that we can help contribute to their recruitment success. Scott our secretary, will also be sending out a list of propositions to be voted on via proxy in case anyone is unable to attend the meeting…

Oh and one more thing… Initiation. Some of you haven’t participated in a TKE ritual in over 20+ years, and I want this to be the spark to reignite the TKE flame in all of us. Scheduling the Fraternity for Life Ritual to act as the initiation ceremony to our Alumni Association will do just that, and reward your renewed commitment to our bond by unveiling the final secret of Tau Kappa Epsilon. Putting this event on our Fall calendar will be a part of New Business at our Annual Meeting.

Please let me know if you have any questions at all, and thanks in advance for all your help and contributions.

Yours In The Bond,
Chris Hall
#651

New Business

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Fraters:

We are six weeks away from the Annual Meeting of the TKE Mu Omega Alumni Association. One of the agenda items will be to elect Board members for the coming year. I am writing to ask for nominations for the Board of Directors. The current board seats are filled as follows:

President: Chris Hall
Vice Pres: Kevin Geist
Treasurer: Steve Cheek
Secretary: Scott Kazem
At Large: Eric Mauthe and Billy Reilly

All seats are open and the current Board may be re-elected. Any member in good standing who has paid his annual dues may run for any seat. Yes, you may nominate yourself. If you are interested, please send an email either to me at skazem@kazemlaw.com or to Chris Hall at christopherwilliamhall@gmail.com by August 18. For those who will be unable to attend the meeting I will be sending out a proxy ballot by the end of August.

Thank you all for your continued interest and support of the association.

YITB,
Scott Kazem #369

Announcment of TKE Mu Omega Alumni Association Annual Meeting and Social to Follow

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On behalf of our Secretary, Frater Scott Kazem:

NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING

OF TKE MU OMEGA ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, INC.

DATE: July 15, 2009
TO: All Members of Record of The TKE Mu Omega Alumni Association, Inc.
FROM: Scott N, Kazem, Secretary of The TKE Mu Omega Alumni Association, Inc.
RE: Annual Meeting of the to be held on the 15th day of September, 2009 at 6:00 p.m.

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the annual meeting of the members of The TKE Mu Omega Alumni Association, Inc., a Virginia non-stock corporation, will be held on the 15th day September, 2009, at Brion’s Grille, located at 10621 Braddock Road, Fairfax, VA 22030 at 6:00 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time.  Social Event to follow.

You are invited to attend and participate.  Members in good standing, having paid their annual dues, are eligible to vote.

CERTIFICATE

I hereby certify that a true copy of the foregoing written notice was delivered by electronic mail, on this 15th day of July, 2009, to each and every member in good standing of the TKE Mu Omega Alumni Association, Inc. of record on the date hereof to the address of such member shown on the membership books of the Corporation.

/s/ Scott N. Kazem (orig. sig. on file with corporate records)

Secretary


What is a “Charter Member”, and how do I become one?

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Several Fraters have asked me “What exactly is a Charter Member? Is that different from a regular member?” so I’ll see if I can help explain it better here.

The short answer is that a Charter Member is not really a different status than a regular Member. I am qualifying any member who joined our association prior to us receiving our charter from Nationals, as a Charter Member because I think they deserve special recognition for their commitment to help us found this organization. If I didn’t get a good amount of interest from you all I wouldn’t have pursued setting this up, but your encouragement has really been a driving force behind its creation.

Charter Members have agreed to support our association without knowing exactly what was in store for them, and to me that means it must have required a lot of good faith, and great TKE spirit!  It’s easy to want to join an already established, successful organization, but those of you who have already committed your support sight unseen have really impressed me.

For example, the budget will not be put in place until it is approved at our first business meeting coming up in a couple months. I have been able to outline our operational costs so far, and also propose a set amount for dues, but I won’t be asking for dues payments from our members until you all have a chance to vote on the budget.  What I’ve been very impressed with is that several members have already contributed dues payments prior to the finalization of the budget, which is a tremendous support in covering our initial incorporation and chartering costs, and getting us off the ground. To me, this is exactly what being a Charter Member is all about, showing your committment to our Fraternity and helping us have a strong launch in any way that you can.  If you are already a member and want to show your support for us in this way, the easiest method is to use the paypal links on the right side of our website’s home page. I promise it’s incredibly easy. As soon as we’ve gathered enough money to cover the initial costs of incorporation and chartering ($225.00), our Vice President will be submitting the application to TKE HQ and we will have the final piece of the puzzle. We will always be open for continued membership recruitment, but the window of opportunity to say you supported us strongly from the very beginning is quickly drawing to a close!

Thanks again to you all for your continued support.

YITB,

Chris Hall

Mu Omega #651

If you haven’t joined yet, just send an email with your

  • Name:
  • Scroll#:
  • Chapter:
  • Email:
  • Address:

to muomegatke@gmail.com and I’ll add you to our roster.

Professional Network

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One of the benefits of membership in any alumni association is the large number networking opportunities. Many TKEs go on to successful careers in a wide variety of industries because they are excellent at keeping in touch with other success-driven individuals.  One of the goals of the TKE Mu-Omega Alumni Association is to extend the opportunity for all our members to get and stay in touch with other members and to act as a resource for our members when they would like guidance or support with their own career development.

This part of our organization will begin to take shape as each of us gets to know each other better. I have dedicated a page on this site to help raise awareness of which members represent which industries. If a member operates his own business and would like to promote it, we will link to it on this site as well. If you would like your information added to this section, please contact Chris at muomegatke@gmail.com and I’ll add it promptly.

Financial Contributions – Annual Dues & Donations

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Greetings Fraters,

I wanted to let everyone know that since we have incorporated, I have opened up a checking account for the association for us to operate from.  Our initial expenses are as follows:

I have fronted the $75.00 to cover the incorporation fee, but we will need to pay the Chartering Fee out of our new checking account. As is necessary, the budget to be proposed at our first Business Meeting will include an annual dues line item of $25.00 per member.  I wanted to set dues at a modest amount for our first year, and let the membership see what we are able to accomplish with this dues amount, and then later decide if we all want to contribute more in hopes to accomplish more.

Many Alumni Fraters have asked me how they can contribute to our success because they are not close in proximity and don’t have much free time to spare. Well gentlemen, this is certainly a way that you can make a big impact to our efforts of starting some quality programs to support the active chapter.  Many Fraters have also asked me how they can contribute more above and beyond our annual dues amount, so I wanted to open up the ability for anyone to easily make donations to the association. As we are a nonprofit organization, these donations will be Tax Deductable! Our Treasurer, Frater Steve Cheek, has begun filing for our tax deductable status so we simply ask that you hold off on filing your deductions until we announce that the formalities have been cleared.

Annual Dues and Donations can be submitted in check form made out to TKE Mu Omega Alumni Association Inc. to the Treasurer at:

Steve Cheek
Accounting Solutions Network, PLC
2111 Wilson Blvd. Suite 600
Arlington, VA 22201

Your payment will be recorded in our ledger for our records. A convenient alternative to mailing a check is to pay dues or donate via Paypal online using a credit or debit card. Payments should be submitted via the buttons on our website, on the sidebar of the homepage.

In principle, I believe in formally recognizing and thanking those who support our association, but we will respect any requests made to keep donor information anonymous. Simply note this in the check memo or paypal notes if desired.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me at muomegatke@gmail.com and ask away.  Thanks in advance for all your support!

yitb,

-Chris