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What's wrong with APO?
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When in the course of chapter events it becomes necessary for one person to
differ from the opinions of another, and to assume among the ideas of
the mind the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and
of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of
brotherkind demands that we declare the cause that impels them to the
flamage.

We hold these truths to be self-evident--that all brothers are pledged equal,
that we are imbued by the pledge program with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are Leadership, Friendship, and Service, that to secure
these rights, officers are instituted...  (whereupon I forget how the rest
goes and I decide not to be silly anymore).

--------------------------

Just today, I read a new publication in the office, ``The Federalist,'' in
which, I suppose, the anonymous authors discuss how our chapter should be
run (not, I hope, related to revolting against National).  Seriously,
though, I saw old and new ideas that were floating around the chapter that
puzzled me.  Some were puzzling in how to implement a solution.  Some, in
what that solution was.  Some, in what the problem was.  Some, in whether
or not there was a problem to begin with.

As SVP I have some things to say that give my limited perspective on the
issues.  Because I cannot help it, I will also intersperse my opinions as
a brother.

On Leadership: Leadership is a quality to be learned.  Like any educational
experience here at MIT, the amount of leadership you learn depends on how
willing you are to find it.  First let me discuss the leadership value itself
then its rate of change.  There is a large number of qualified leaders in
the chapter.  Many are applying those leadership qualities in other
organizations (LSC, MITSFS, ASA, Assassin's, etc.), and many are swamped
with schoolwork (more on this later).  We are therefore left with a large
number of qualified leaders, and a small number of actual APO leaders.

Also note that unlike last year, we do not suffer from a large loss of
leaders due to graduation.  The leaders we have are more concentrated
in Sophomores and Juniors, which is as it should be, to allow time for
new leaders to learn from old leaders before they disappear.

Based on how I've seen myself and others change from pledgeship to today,
I can safely say that almost all the brothers who use the leadership
opportunities in APO are developing leadership.  Talk with some of the
people who you think are leaders, and many feel as if they haven't changed
and need leadership experience.  Little do they realize how much they have
learned through APO.

We have PLW.  We tell people to go to LDW and CPW.  Perhaps more importantly,
we have experienced people telling new people how things work.  They
generally give them tips but expect the new people to come up with new ways;
new ideas--and the new people generally do.

We have the opportunities available.  The next question is: are brothers and
pledges taking advantage of these opportunities?  At the very least they
are aware of a few opportunities, notably PCships and officerships.
Of the 31 available PCships (not counting the projects that didn't happen),
16 were taken by brothers (not counting those who co-PCed with their
little brother or younger sister, or those that helped a great deal but were
not officially PCs).  The rest were taken by pledges, giving
some of them more than one PCship.  We have never thus far cancelled a
project for lack of a PC.

Granted, getting a PC is difficult.  But it's to be expected everywhere
(not only at MIT).  It's a surprise how many we DO have and how many of
them are not regular project goers.

Officerships.  The situation changes from term to term, and for the past
couple of times, people say we're in a hole.  We can't get enough people to
run for offices.  Look in the chapter and count how many people you would
trust with the Presidency.  With SVPship.  And so forth.  I came up with
a long list.  For different reasons, however, many have declined--notably
temporarily.  I was surprised how many of them were taking Junior Lab
(Physics) next term, how many were officers in other organizations,
and so forth.  There are people who don't feel confident of running,
with or without their courseload.  This is a problem, but not a symptom
of a deeper problem.  It arises from the fact that from time to time
more is expected of an MIT student, and we were unlucky this term.
In previous terms, however, it had been a question of experience and
confidence in carrying out the job.  This term, that has only come up with
a few of those nominated, and there are usually more people convinced of their
ability than not.  

Workshops I will leave to a better authority.

------------------

Membership retention, the holy grail for the past few terms.  We have not
created very many strong programs in this direction.  I must, however,
point out that we have seen at least three members come to projects
(excluding Reg Day which everyone comes to) who had not come to ANY event
in the previous two terms, to my recollection.  In other terms we have
elected brothers we don't see very often to officerships and sometimes
they become more active.  Sometimes not.  We gain some old brothers
each term.  But we also lose a few.

We have 70 actives currently on our roster.  The level of activity can be
measured in many ways:

\begin{itemize}

\item The number of people who pay their dues

\item The number of people who pay their dues minus those declaring themselves
inactive

\item The number of people who have gone to at least one service project this
term

\item The number of people who have gone to at least one service project this
term other than Reg Day

\item The number of people who have gone to at least one APO event this term

\item The number of people who, if they were pledges, would be well on their
way to being elevated that term (i.e. they will fulfill pledge expectations)

\item The number of people who you see regularly if you fit one of the above
definitions of active (including hanging around the office)

\item The number of people fairly clued in about what's up around the chapter

\end{itemize}

I don't have numbers for all of these, but, if my recollection serves me any
well, 34 have come on at least one service project this past term, NOT
including Reg Day, which I already said brings out people from the
woodwork once a term.  (The number is 53 including those who came to Reg Day).
Personally, I have never met four of the 70.  Ten
brothers are sufficiently engrossed in at least one other activity that
I would consider it fairly unreasonable for them to make it to more than
one project, if that many.

If we want to aim for National's 75\% retention we need to ask if we want to
lower the denominator in addition to raising the numerator; that is, we
know we want more people to be more involved in the chapter.  Do we want
to reduce the total brotherhood as well?  One thing I have noticed in the
past two terms is that there's more awareness about continuing pledging,
and depledging.  This means that if you've done some of your pledge
requirements, and don't think APO is REALLY what you want to do, instead
of deciding to ``finish it up because you've already invested this much
in it'' and then drop it the next term, or deciding to pledge this term
because ``all my terms after that will be too hellish to pledge in,'' you
also have the option of leaving APO.  If pledging is partly a time for
the pledge to discover if APO is something for them, the pledge ought to
be able to say, ``no'' other than being elevated, then not doing anything.
This has been mended and that's at least a step in the right direction.
The next question is if we want to limit the phone calling sheet more.  I
don't think so, but the option exists.  Both limiting elevations and limiting
phone lists will help, but both open up possibilities of removing someone who
could have done a lot of good.  In view of this, there is the question of
whether we WANT to have 75\% actives, if we reach the stage where in order to
increase our percentage, we would have to ``reduce the denominator.''  I
don't have an answer for that; it's something to discuss further.

The statement, ``The chapter ... should aim to keep those members who think
they are active and then, and only then, should they worry about the rest''
seems to arise from an attitude that we have an insurmountable, unsolvable
beast to deal with and we had better cut our losses for now.  I don't think
this is the situation.  We can strive to satisfy the ``active'' brotherhood
which is what meetings and CPPC is for, and we can work to approach the
``inactive'' brotherhood, at the SAME TIME.  To approach the inactives
without satisfying the actives' needs will be futile since the inactives
may come to one event and be disappointed and leave forever.  To approach
the actives first means we will never get to approach the inactives since
the work of adjusting our program to the brotherood is an ongoing,
dynamic process.

Granted, a membership retention program involves time and effort.  We have that
time and effort.  As long as we have enough people to flame about what should
be done, we have the manpower to put these policies into effect.

There are, as I see it, three kinds of inactives.  There are the inactives
who don't hear about things and don't try to get in contact, or hear about
things but not in a medium that will convince them to come.  There are those
who would like to dissassociate themselves from APO (which are few, thankfully)
and there are the majority, the people who have a billion things to do, and
APO just happens to be one of those priorities.

The last might be solved
by teaching time management, but there's only so much you can do with that.
If people have decided to put other organizations over APO in their priorities,
or, more usually, their studies, then it is their prerogative, and we cannot,
and should not, try to change that.  We can help them organize themselves to
get them to do both, maybe.  But we shouldn't try to change peoples'
priorities.  We can, however, try to get TIMELY publicity (phone callings,
What's Up APO, email, etc.) so that they can schedule when they CAN
make it to APO events and be sure to come.  This is the factor that shows
the direct correlation between number and time of publicity and turnout at
projects.  It's also what brings more people to on campus, booth projects.

The second group have disassociated themselves from the chapter,
and it is a choice they have made.  If the reasons are not ones that we can
change without worse effects, there's nothing we can or should do about it.
The first group, the ``apathetic'' group, is not the most populous, but is
the easiest to change.  Well, at least we can agree that we ought to change
something.  We can send out more publicity.  We can ``use'' friends who
are brothers.  We can put up a sheet in the office for them to volunteer
themselves if they think they need an extra nudge in phone callings and
PCing for motivation.  They know who they are.  We can train pledges to
look for information on a regular basis, and update those sources of
information.  Then there's the personal touch of the friend in APO that
has brought many-a-brother back into the chapter.

Membership retention is possible.  We just have to keep trying.  Satisfying
the brotherhood is certainly a part of this, but we can do better than that.

-----------------------------

There was an article about stiffening up ``requirements'' for pledges.  I
think that the concerns about expectations not taken seriously enough by
the brotherhood arise from the opposite perspective: that pledges should not
be treated any more strictly than brothers.  I agree with this; but these two
statements are not mutually exclusive.  It simply means we ought to take
brotherhood expectations more seriously.

At the start of each term, each brother should examine the pledge requirements,
and decide if he or she can realistically fulfill these expectations.  If
the answer is, ``absolutely not,'' the brother should consider declaring
himself inactive.  Otherwise, the brother should consider these expectations
as responsibilities, or as an extension of the promise he had made to
``take part of the activities of this fraternity and obeying the laws of this
brotherhood... to give unselfishly of my time and energy, building a program
of service....''  If at any time during the term the brother changes his mind,
he can change his official status.

In the same way, a pledge should look on his or her future terms at MIT,
deciding whether or not to accept the responsibility of future membership.
The decision is personal, and if made responsibly, will tend to make the
title of brother one that is associated with firm committment to the
fraternity.

-----------

There's been some talk about when service should be given.  Should we have a
project every Saturday, so everyone knows that there's a project each Saturday?
Should we have a project every other week, to try to increase the number of
brothers TOGETHER each week and emphasize the project's importance?  Should
we have some on  Sunday, so brothers who have other committments on  Saturday
can come on Sunday projects?

This past term, I have tried to incorporate as many aspects of as many of these
proposals as possible.  There have been three long weekend projects (including
January), seven weekday projects, three Sunday Projects, one on a weekday
vacation time, and seven Saturday projects.  No matter what the time,
there have been projects with too many people and projects with barely
enough people.  People (I think) can expect a project just about every week,
and the question is whether it was Saturday or Sunday.  True, three of those
projects didn't happen, but in all but one case there was another project
that DID happen that weekend.

In view of the past year, the distribution of projects doesn't seem to be
an issue in number of participants.  There is a closer correlation to
time in the semester, coincidence with other MIT activities, and ``crams'' in
the service calendar.  Many of these are cases in which service is needed;
that is, we can't schedule it any time we like.  Either we're there to serve
or not.  My philosophy is that some service is better than no service, and
if I'm the only on there, at least I could do something and not simply flame
about it.

When I pledged, I was told that the philosophy behind having all these projects
is that no one could possibly go to all of them, so you can choose when you
can go.  If we only had it so it fit in a ``reasonable'' schedule, there would
be fewer projects that each person could go on.

When I go to some projects, I feel I have made a difference, no matter how
small that difference may be.  Yes, paneling the building at Camp Nobscott
DID make the cabin much nicer (and warmer, too, with people working on the
glass windows).  The first four people who went to the telethon may have been
disappointed, but at least I had fun, and it was a pleasant surprise to
discover that in the next few days, others had gone, too, bringing our total
to first place in student organizations.

The playground project coming up is a stereotypical example of a morale
project.  We can see how it is worthwhile.  There's lots of people and lots
to learn.  There's a lot of physical work that is exhilirating and not
mundane.  There are kids who are standing by the fence waiting for the
playground to be finished.  These are projects we ought to have.  But more
important are those projects that may be more mundane in comparison, but
STILL NEED OUR HELP.  They are not there for us.  We are there for them.
If we only go to projects we think are going to be ``fun,'' we lose sight
of the ideals of service for its own sake.  And when you get there, you
find you're having so much fun, you wondered why you thought it was going
to be boring.

-------------------------------

``Sixteen brothers said we're fulfilling only 40\% of our potential.''  Most
people only use about 10\% of their brain.  Are we then, not all in healthy
mental capacity?  ``One-third said they are satisfied with the chapter as it
is now.''  If all of the chapter said they are satisfied, I would be concerned,
no matter how well off the chapter is.  We should never be satisfied with
ourselves.  That is not the same as saying we should be tearing our hair and
being convinced we're dying.  The Spirit of APO is exemplified in the brothers
who show up for projects, even if it IS 8 in the morning.  Or the group of
brothers seeing someone working hard in the office, and asking if they need
help.  Or the bunch of people who see a brother down and ask if he's okay.
And so on.  The Spirit of APO is NOT dying.  It is alive and well.  But we
should never be satisfied with our accomplishments.

Our chapter emphasizes responsibility in service.  If you asked any brother
what we're all about, service comes to mind.  If you look at the calendar,
most of the activity is service.  You're looking for friendship.  I don't
know about all brothers, but I've never had trouble finding that in the
chapter.  There hasn't been a problem of finding support or even an ear to
hear you.  Leadership I've already talked about.  Concerning the balance,
I think the chapter has weighted the three apropriately.

Asking whether or not leadership is being developed is different from asking
whether or not the chapter is developing leadership.  Same with friendship
and service.  Ask the right questions and you will get different answers.

Improvement must, however, happen.  I concur that improvement can only come
from ourselves.  The chapter can offer leadership, emphasize friendship,
and provide opportunities for service, but each of us must, every day,
decide how we've fulfilled that promise we took at initiation.  We must
think, when we see something that ought to be done, what WE can do to help.
We must ask ourselves, every night, how we have done our daily good turn, and
how we can be better brothers.

``To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, that
thou cans't not then be false to any man.''

--Bill Shakespeare

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