Rule 47: Post-Presidential Role

   A former president is a very valuable resource for the chapter. The former president has been there, he or she knows the struggles that come with the job. There is nothing worse than someone who tries to undermine the new president's initiatives. Don't be that person.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”
by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com
  

Rule 27: Successful public speakers

Keep it brief. Always thank everyone for coming, and say a quick thing or two about the event or the person being honored. Finally, and most importantly, thank those who worked hard to plan the event. You must always publically recognize the folks who do the work for the chapter. I'll let you in on a secret: the thank you is the only part anyone will ever remember. And the only person who will remember it is the person being thanked. Think about the times your current chapter president spoke in the past year. Can you remember anything she said? You probably can't unless she made some type of major gaffe. Therefore, keep your addresses short, sweet, and filled with thank-yous.

Never, never, never speak without preparing first. Granted, there are some situations in life where you don't have a choice. There isn't much you can do about that. But always prepare if you have the opportunity. Write your key points on a note card, just in case. Your delivery will be more polished and you won't forget anything.  Don't make it about you. Even the hint that you are bragging about yourself will immediately nullify all the good you are doing by talking about the event and thanking others. Don't do it even if you do deserve all the credit. Your brothers and sisters know full well who did all the work. There is no need to rub their noses in it.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”

by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com

'My Brother's Keeper' Initiative by President Obama

FACT SHEET: Opportunity for all: President Obama Launches My Brother’s Keeper Initiative to Build Ladders of Opportunity For Boys and Young Men of Color

“I’m reaching out to some of America’s leading foundations and corporations on a new initiative to help more young men of color facing especially tough odds to stay on track and reach their full potential.”

– President Barack Obama, January 28, 2014

“There are a lot of kids out there who need help, who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?”

– President Barack Obama, July 19, 2013

President Obama is taking action to launch My Brother’s Keeper – a new initiative to help every boy and young man of color who is willing to do the hard work to get ahead. For decades, opportunity has lagged behind for boys and young men of color. But across the country, communities are adopting approaches to help put these boys and young men on the path to success. The President wants to build on that work. We can learn from communities that are partnering with local businesses and foundations to connect these boys and young men to mentoring, support networks, and skills they need to find a good job or go to college and work their way up into the middle class. And the Administration will do its part by helping to identify and promote programs that work.

That starts by using proven tools that expand opportunity at key moments in the lives of these young people. The President believes this includes ensuring access to basic health, nutrition, and to high-quality early education to get these kids reading and ready for school at the youngest age. But that’s not enough. We need to partner with communities and police to reduce violence and make our classrooms and streets safer. And we need to help these young men stay in school and find a good job– so they have the opportunity to reach their full potential, contribute to their communities and build decent lives for themselves and their families.

New Presidential Task Force to Expand Opportunity. President Obama will sign a Presidential Memorandum establishing the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force, an interagency effort, chaired by Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary Broderick Johnson, that will help us determine what public and private efforts are working and how to expand upon them, how the Federal Government’s own policies and programs can better support these efforts, and how to better involve State and local officials, the private sector, and the philanthropic community in these efforts.

The Task Force will work across executive departments and agencies to:

• Assess the impact of Federal policies, regulations, and programs of general applicability on boys and young men of color, so as to develop proposals that will enhance positive outcomes and eliminate or reduce negative ones.
• Recommend, where appropriate, incentives for the broad adoption by national, State, and local public and private decision makers of effective and innovative strategies and practices for providing opportunities to and improving outcomes for boys and young men of color.
• Create an Administration-wide “What Works” online portal to disseminate successful programs and practices that improve outcomes for boys and young men of color.
• Develop a comprehensive public website, to be maintained by the Department of Education, that will assess, on an ongoing basis, critical indicators of life outcomes for boys and young men of color in absolute and relative terms.
• Work with external stakeholders to highlight the opportunities, challenges, and efforts affecting boys and young men of color.
• Recommend to the President means of ensuring sustained efforts within the Federal Government and continued partnership with the private sector and philanthropic community as set forth in the Presidential Memorandum.

Investments from Leading Foundations and Businesses to Advance the Achievement of Boys and Young Men of Color. Leading foundations and businesses have long worked with others in philanthropy to create opportunities for young men and boys of color and today are committing significant resources to research critical intervention points in the lives of boys and young men of color; change the often-damaging narrative about them; and catalyze coordinated investments to seed, replicate, and scale up effective community solutions.

The foundations supporting today’s call to action have already made extensive investments, including $150 million in current spending that they have already approved or awarded. Building on that, today these foundations are announcing that over the next five years they seek to invest at least $200 million, alongside additional investments from their peers in philanthropy and the business community, to find and rapidly spread solutions that have the highest potential for impact in key areas, including: early child development and school readiness, parenting and parent engagement, 3rd grade literacy, educational opportunity and school discipline reform, interactions with the criminal justice system ladders to jobs and economic opportunity and healthy families and communities.

The foundations will work over the next 90 days to design a strategy and infrastructure for coordination of these investments, which can be aligned with additional commitments from a diverse array of actors from other sectors.

These foundations, who are joining President Obama at today’s announcement, include The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The California Endowment, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Open Society Foundations, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and The Kapor Center for Social Impact. Many of the foundations are members of the Executives’ Alliance to Expand Opportunities for Boys and Men of Color – a coalition of philanthropic institutions committed to leveraging philanthropy’s role in improving life outcomes for boys and men of color.

In addition to the leadership from the philanthropic community, the My Brother’s Keeper initiative will leverage participation from the business community and elected officials to support this cross-sector effort. As part of today’s announcement, President Obama will meet with a number of business leaders – including Joe Echevarria of Deloitte, Magic Johnson of Magic Johnson Enterprises, Glenn Hutchins of Silver Lake Partners, Adam Silver of the National Basketball Association and Thomas Tull of Legendary Entertainment – to discuss ways in which they and their companies can work with the Initiative to improve the life outcomes of boys and young men of color.

The President will also be joined today by public sector leaders including General Colin Powell, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Honorable Michael Bloomberg. Additionally, several other prominent members of the business community—including Rosalind Brewer of Sam’s Club, Ken Chenault of American Express, and Don Thompson of McDonald’s—have already expressed their support for this effort, and the White House expects additional commitments in the coming days and months.

Data shows that boys and young men of color, regardless of socio-economic background, are disproportionately at risk throughout the journey from their youngest years to college and career. For instance, large disparities remain in reading proficiency, with 86 percent of black boys and 82 percent of Hispanic boys reading below proficiency levels by the fourth grade – compared to 58 percent of white boys reading below proficiency levels. Additionally, the disproportionate number of black and Hispanic young men who are unemployed or involved in the criminal justice system alone is a perilous drag on state budgets, and undermines family and community stability. These young men are more than six times as likely to be victims of murder than their white peers and account for almost half of the country’s murder victims each year.

The effort launched today is focused on unlocking the full potential of boys and young men of color – something that will not only benefit them, but all Americans. The Task Force and new private sector partnership will take a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach to building ladders of opportunity. Both the Task Force and the partnership will take action immediately while planning for long-term success.

http://m.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/02/27/fact-sheet-opportunity-all-president-obama-launches-my-brother-s-keeper-#

Register and subscribe at:

http://boysandmenofcolor.org/executivesalliance/

Rule 23: You must mediate conflict

Help steer the conversation toward resolution.

1. Keep the conversation on point. When one or both parties starts talking in circles, you can summarize their points and steer the conversation in a healthy direction.

2. Make sure the conversation is not confrontational. You can do this by stressing the goal of the conversation - to make sure both sides are happy with the resolution. Asking each participant what it would take to resolve the issue is a good way to keep the conversation productive.

3. You need to remain positive and encouraging. The individuals going through the conflict are in the middle of a stressful situation. They probably don't want to be there, and the meeting can quickly go downhill if you cannot keep it positive.

4. Make sure emotions are kept in check. Set ground rules that neither party can get angry or blame the other party for what happened. Everyone is going to focus on the facts of what happened and work together to find a resolution. You cannot properly mediate if people are angry or emotional. It is important that you keep both parties in line.

5. Finally, realize that it is OK for the parties to disagree as long as both acknowledge and understand why there is a disagreement. A potential outcome may be to find mutual understanding. Sometimes parties simply have to understand their differences.

Being a conflict mediator is tough. It is definitely one of the thankless jobs of a chapter president.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”

by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com
  

If you had forgotten.... Excuses

Excuses are the tools of the weak and incompetent.
Used to build monuments of nothingness.
Those who excel in it seldom excel in anything else but excuses.

Rule 53: What is your vision?

A big part of your role as president is to communicate your chapter's vision and plans. You can only succeed at communicating a vision by having real conversations with your members. This is the only way to get members to buy in. Conversations give members the opportunity to ask questions and voice their concerns. It also shows them that you genuinely care about their opinions. Conversations give you the opportunity to explain the vision completely, leaving nothing open to interpretation. You get to share the excitement you have, and excitement is infectious.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”

by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com

Rule 2: You must graduate from college

You must manage your academics. In my first semester as chapter president, I made a 2.0 - straight Cs. I was so excited about finally being president that I neglected my academic responsibilities. The problem was that this was a critical semester for me academically. I was just getting into the core classes for my major, and the rest of my academic career built on what I was supposed to have learned that semester. This made the rest of college a struggle for me, as I did not have a good foundation in the core classes. Don't make the same mistake I did.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”
by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com
  

Rule 34: The Chapter meeting

The purpose of your meeting is to disseminate information and vote on key issues. The meeting should be designed to increase the goodwill of the chapter. Everything else will just pollute the meeting and should not be included.  There are two parts to a chapter meeting, the preparation and the execution.  The actual meeting must have a set start time and end time. Begin the meeting exactly at the start time out of respect to those who showed up on time. Do not repeat information for those who come late. It is the job of the president to make sure that meeting does not run past the stated end time. Again, realize that the meeting is primarily an information session. As such, don't let the brothers or sisters debate decisions during the chapter meeting. Calmly suggest that they speak to the committee chairperson after the meeting. The debates should take place in committee meetings. That is their purpose.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”
by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com

Rule 16: The importance of the Ritual

The ritual is the set of values and ideals that members are supposed to follow every day. The ritual is part of our heritage and tradition. It is what makes us different from the other organizations on campus. It is our guide to becoming better people. As president, you play a key role in making sure your organization lives up to your ritual.  As president, be sure you understand the ritual and make a point to live it. Make sure the ritual is reflected in the actions of your members and the events of your chapter. Teach others the ritual, and encourage them to make the lessons of the founders an important part of their lives. If you do, you will have a strong chapter that will encourage growth in your members.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”

by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com

  

February 21st Black Tie Film Festival - Jurupa Tristone Theater, Riverside, CA

Fans of former Hollywood star and the first Western Regional Director of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc. the Honorable Bro. Clarence Muse, are fundraising to place his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Please join the Clarence Muse Hollywood Walk of Fame Project for two upcoming fundraisers.  The first on February 21, 2014 Black Tie "retro" Film Festival at the Jurupa Tristone Theater (8032 Limonite Ave, Riverside, CA 92509) doors open at 6PM and conclude at 10:30PM.  Tickets are $75 regular and $125 VIP.

Tickets can be purchased from the Riverside African American Historical Society at P.O Box 92502 or through PayPal at www.raahsinc.org

contact: cgivensbullock@yahoo.com

http://morethanyouneededtoknow.typepad.com/the_unsung_joe/2007/12/clarence-muse.html

Rule 22: Do the Right Thing

When your chapter screws up, be sure to take control of the situation. That means owning up to your mistakes. Remember, it is always better for the Greek life office to find out about problems in your chapter from you, rather than from other sources.  If the situation requires you to report yourself, be sure you are equipped with a clear understanding of why the incident occurred and what you are going to do in the future to ensure it doesn't happen again. Being equipped with a solution to lapses in the risk-management program shows maturity and strength in your leadership. Always strive to be part of the solution.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”
by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com
  

Rule 7: All Sigma men have exemplary manners.

When a woman enters the room, stand up. When a woman leaves the table, stand up. Hold doors open. Don't swear. It only takes one small act for a woman to label you a gentleman. Avoid gossiping. Avoid being pretentious.  Be pleasant and approachable. These little things will color what others think of you, and that will become the image they have of your chapter.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”

by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com  

MEChA High School Conference on Feb 15th at UC San Diego

The 24th Annual MEChA High School Conference will be held on Saturday, February 15th.

The conference welcomes high school students from underserved communities and will focus on the importance of going to college. There will be speakers, cultural entertainment and financial aid and college application workshops. All grade levels are welcome to attend!

If you'd like to participate, you must complete the following steps:

1. REGISTER ONLINE (tinyurl.com/mechaconf)
2. Bring to the conference the signed Parent Consent Form
3. Bring to the conference the Liability Waiver

Please note, only a total of 420 students can participate; therefore, please sign up as soon as possible!

Parents:

There will be conferences for you as well! Please email (trabajadores@mechadeucsd.org) to learn more.

More information can be found here:

tinyurl.com/mechaucsd

Rule 25: Is the chapter’s image important?

If you are a fraternity guy, think about it from the perspective of a sorority sister. This sister is not going to know a lot about your chapter, but she will probably know a few of your members. If she thinks highly of those members, then chances are she will think highly of the chapter. This obviously works in reverse too.  Because peoples' opinion of the chapter will be based on their opinions of individual members, it is imperative that your individual members are held in high regard. So how does a chapter president make sure this happens? First, you need to recruit high-caliber people.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”
by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com

Rule 5: Academic performance

The basic job of a college student is to go to class and study to get better grades.  Freshman and sophomores take classes that have standardized midterm and final exams. Recruit an older member who is proficient in that subject to hold study sessions before tests for the younger members. The older member understands the material and from experience knows what is probably going to be asked on the tests. These study sessions can significantly help younger members learn the material.  Every member should take one "fluff" class per semester to get an easy A. This was huge for people like me. I was an electrical engineering major, and most of my classes were way over my head. But I made sure to take one freshman-level class each semester to get an easy A. This class did nothing to meet my graduation requirements, but it was huge for my GPA. Roughly one-sixth of my total college GPA can be credited to these classes. For the rest of my life, people will think I was a good student because of my GPA. Little do they know how my GPA was inflated ...

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”

by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com

Eating Healthy with Diabetes

If you’re looking to lose some weight, reducing your serving sizes can sometimes help.  And if you lose weight, this can also help lower your blood sugar levels, as well as allow insulin to work more efficiently in your body.  A true win-win.  Here are some suggestions for a day’s worth of tasty meals and snacks for people who are counting carbs:

Breakfast – Eggs, toast and fruit
 2 scrambled eggs
 1 slice whole wheat toast
 ½ grapefruit

Lunch – turkey sandwich and snack
 2 slices turkey
 2 slices whole wheat bread
 2 slices tomato
 ½ cup shredded iceberg lettuce
 1 apple

Dinner – broiled salmon, rice and vegetable
 5oz salmon fillet
 1 tbsp chopped onion
 2 tbsps canalo oil
 1 cup of brown rice
 1 cup steamed broccoli
1 cup fat-free milk

Snacks
 1oz pistachios or
 1 cup low-fat fruited yogurt or
 1 watermelon slice

There are plenty of online resources for people with diabetes.  Some of them also contain advice on recipes, carb counting and making smart meal plans:

American Diabetes Association  www.diabetes.org 

American Association of Diabetes Educators  www.diabeteseducator.org

American Dietetic Association  www.eatright.org

dLife  www.dlife.com

National Diabetes Education Program  www.ndep.nih.gov

Taking Control of Your Diabetes  www.tcoyd.com

Rule 36: What is the main purpose of the Executive Board?

Implementing change can be easy or hard.  Executive board members for the chapter (especially the president) can convince chapter members to "buy in" before any change is proposed. Remember that good presidents know the result of every vote before that vote takes place. To get members to back a proposal, the exec board needs to discuss it with individual members. They need to introduce the idea and get feedback from the membership. The purpose of these conversations is NOT to tell the member what is going to happen. The purpose is to get his or her opinion on the idea and solicit suggestions for making it better. If you can do this, members will feel like they are part of the new idea. They will feel this way because it is true. Your members will now have" ownership" of the change, and will feel that it is partly their idea. People fight much harder when the idea is theirs.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”

by Patrick Daley

thefraternityadvisor.com

Rule 3: Never handle cash

A president and a chapter cannot be successful unless the finances are strong. As president, you have a responsibility to the organization to make sure the finances are handled professionally and appropriately.  Never deal in cash. Don't accept cash or pay for goods or services in cash. Make all financial transactions by check to ensure there is a paper trail. This will prove to be very valuable if there is ever a financial disagreement. Second, every check that is paid by the chapter should require the signatures of the president and the treasurer. This will ensure that both the treasurer and the president know how every cent is being spent. Also, both people have to have the backbone to say no when they don't agree with the way money is being spent.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”
by Patrick Daley
thefraternityadvisor.com

Rule 31: Out non-financial members?

The treasurer's report must include the dues owed to the chapter. The amount owed by each offending member must be specified. Peer pressure will do wonders to get members to pay. If members are offended by being called out, then there is a very easy solution to their problem. They can pay their dues.

“The Chapter President –Preparing Sorority and Fraternity Leaders for the Unexpected”

by Patrick Daley

thefraternityadvisor.com

Matt Zoller Seitz on True Detective - McConaughey and Harrelson in HBO's True Detective

Silent Killer - The murder mystery is beside the point in the existentialist cop drama True Detective.

HBO’s True Detective is truly unsettling, not because it’s about the search for a Louisiana serial killer, but because soon enough the search seems almost incidental: a pretext for testing limits and acting out and debating what makes people tick. Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey), the lead detective on the case, treats the investigation as both a justice-seeking mission and a means of philosophical inquiry.

He mutters about faith, doubt, the illusion of morality, and the nature of the human heart, often in Socratic sentences that turn his easygoing partner, Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson), into an irrelevant audience of one. Cohle is a loner who lost his wife and daughter during the years when he worked as an undercover drug agent. He has no social life and couldn’t care less if other cops (including Hart) like him. He takes crime-scene notes in a big sketchbook, lives in an unfurnished apartment, and meditates under a crucifix even though he’s a professed nonbeliever. “We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self,” says Cohle, who blasts the devout as dupes who are intellectually “so goddamn frail they’d rather put a coin in a wishing well than buy dinner.” Hart, who’s cheating on his wife but still takes offense at Cohle’s heresy, warns his partner that he’s made a religion of rationality, treats his notebooks like “stone tablets,” and is “incapable of admitting doubt—and that sounds like denial to me.”

True Detective is not fact-based; the title seems more of a shout-out to postwar pulp magazines whose lurid covers promised to violate at least five of the Ten Commandments. Like so many high-end serial-killer stories, including David Fincher’s arty hellscape Se7en and NBC’s measured, mournful Hannibal, the show is intellectualized pulp. A line from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes From, Underground sums Cohle up, for better and worse: “I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness.” True Detective is infected by that same sickness and knows it, and that’s what makes it intriguing. This show’s aspiration to both high and low pleasures is reflected in its heroes. Cohle is the stereotypical suffering artist, a man who couldn’t shut off the torrent of his analytical mind even if he wanted to. Hart’s grinning affability and do-your-job-and-go-home attitude represents an entertainer’s mentality (though his propensity to cheat on his wife—played by Michelle Monaghan, whose accusatory stare could burn a hole through a badge— confirms that he’s grappling with demons of his own). The detectives’ prickly banter evokes NBC’s classic Homicide: Life on the Street, a detective drama that followed up the question “Whodunit?” with “Did God see it?”

HBO is taking a page from FX's American Horror Story and promising an anthology in which the unit of measure is the season rather than the episode. Like so many of the pay-cable giant’s prestige projects, this one aims to tickle aesthetes with structural and thematic cleverness while also satisfying viewers who just want to watch a couple of ruggedly handsome redneck badasses get in trouble. Creator Nic Pizzolatto, director Cary Fu-kunaga (Jane Eyre), and cinematographer Adam Arkapaw treat the story as a sun-drenched film noir set in gator country, but they structure it as a dual-voiced memoir shuffling between the 1995 investigation and its 2012 remembrance by Cohle and Hart, who are talking to investigators who want to reopen the case. In the “present,” Hart has gone mostly bald (which is to say he looks as Harrelson looks now); he smiles a lot, but seems sadder and wiser, and isn’t above making inappropriate wisecracks. (Contrasting himself with his partner, he says, “I’m just an ordinary dude with a big-ass dick.”) Circa-2012 Cohle has the ponytail, scrag-gly mustache, and haunted eyes of a hippie street preacher; the same events that appear to have seasoned Hart might have driven his partner mad. For all its moments of levity, True Detective’s temperament is defined less by Hart than by Cohle. His drama-queenery is so joyless that Max von Sydow’s blustering painter in Hannah and Her Sisters might find it a bit much. (Cohle says he treats the Cross as “a form of meditation. I contemplate the moment in the garden, the idea of allowing your own crucifixion.” Put that on your OKCupid profile.)

And yet somehow McConaughey, who has never credibly played an intellectual, much less a tortured one, is furiously convincing here. Even when Cohle lures Hart into illegal and potentially fatal situations, dragging True Detective away from true-crime meticulousness and toward action-thriller nuttiness, you still buy Cohle as aflesh-and-blood man rather than a screenwriter’s conceit. The fourth episode includes a nighttime action sequence staged as an unbroken six-minute tracking shot. McConaughey’s alert reactions ground the sequence in visceral reality and prevent it from devolving into another film-school stunt. It’s about Cohle reconnecting with his old, buried self: the undercover DEA agent who was astonished by his own audacity, and who had a wife and kid and didn’t have to stay “under” for four years but did, for reasons that might appall him if he studied them too closely.

The first four episodes sent out for review become stranger and less “realistic” by the hour, not to mention more stereo-typically HBO-like (artfully arranged corpses; drug-thug posturing and handgun-waving; gratuitous T&A) and less concerned with the case that Cohle and Hart are allegedly trying to solve. But the show’s time-shifting structure is so painstaking that even when True Detective spirals into lurid madness—by the end of episode four, I half-expected someone to hand the detectives Colonel Kurtz’s dossier—there still seems to be purpose behind it. Every cut, music cue, and bit of dialogue-as-voice-over contributes to the sense that the show has a grand design, or is at the very least commenting on our need to believe that all things happen for a reason, that it’s not just a swirl of appetite and consequence. This sense of purpose may prove to be another of True Detective’s fakeouts, the darkest one of all.

New York magazine, 20 January 2014