SAVE THE DATE - 10th Annual ATO Matt Heldman Memorial Golf Outing
Date: August 07, 2009
This year's outing will be Friday August 7th at Highland Park Country Club.  Please save the date now, more details to follow shortly.

Give Us the Gift of Email
With the cost of a postage stamp now at 44 cents, we would like to begin to utilize more electronic communications to keep you informed of our latest news, activities and events.

By providing us with or updating your email address, you are helping us to save money by building our email database for future electronic publications. Click here to update your email address and other contact information today. Your email address will be used solely for Gamma Zeta chapter communications, and won’t be traded or sold.

Did you know that we’re missing email addresses for 68% of our alumni? Help us to update the email addresses of other brothers! Click here to view our Lost Email List. If you are in touch with any of these brothers electronically, please follow the instructions on the page to update our database.

Continued...

Undergraduate Update
By Jeff Piper '97, House Corporation Board of Trustees Chairman

At the time of our last newsletter, the Chapter’s new leadership had recently been elected.  President Andrew Grosdidier, Treasurer Kevin Ellsworth, Vice President Matt Dixon, and Head House Manager Dan Soso, assumed their officer positions at the start of the 2008 Fall Semester with an eye towards working diligently to advance the fundamental living conditions at the house and to improve the fraternal bonds and level of respect among undergraduate members.  This group set out on achieving the following goals for the past academic year: i) achieve financial collections of 95% or better, ii) maintain a minimum of 75 live-in members, iii) achieve a top 10 academic ranking among fraternities, and iv) launch the University’s only marquee campus-wide philanthropy event.  Despite falling short of these mandates while having to deal with a few “bad apples” along the way, this team exerted a tremendous amount of energy, time and integrity in executing their roles.  This group has served the Fraternity well and we wish them the best as they transition out of their officer roles later this fall.  The new leadership team is set to use the summer months to devise a strategy for the coming school year regarding effective transitioning of roles and responsibilities and goal setting.

For the sixth consecutive semester, the chapter house has reached capacity regarding the number of members living in-house.  Maintaining this 100% capacity level will be essential to securing our financial flexibility in the coming years.

Continued...

Letter from the Chapter President
I’d first like to introduce myself; my name is Matt Dixon, I am from River Forest, IL, and am entering my junior year as a communications major – I am also the newly-elected Worthy Master of Gamma Zeta. I write to provide you with a recap of the past year as well as give insight on plans for the upcoming year.
   
Over the past academic year, the chapter experienced successes throughout rush, philanthropic events, our social calendar, and various individual achievements. Our rush team, headed by sophomore Kyle Cushing, brought in 41 new initiates to the chapter this year – a number we hope to exceed or match with the next incoming class. The chapter also coordinated with the Red Cross to hold our annual Fall Blood-Drive – the turnout was so great that potential donors had to be turned away due to an overwhelmed staff.  Our Mom’s Weekend auction featured many sports ticket and entertainment packages and raised $7,800 which was donated to the Children’s Memorial Foundation of Chicago, and The Banana Project; a group working in Central America and currently helping Habitat for Humanity Guatemala and the orphanage Casa Guatemala (www.thebananaproject.org). As usual, our social calendar was not one to disappoint. Handled by sophomore Steven Kruzel, our calendar included exchanges with Delta Delta Delta, Kappa Alpha Theta, Delta Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Delta, and Alpha Chi Omega.  Furthermore, our calendar included impromptu date events, Semi-Formal, Pledge Dance, a spring house-party, and various bar crawls.   

Besides the whole chapter’s events and achievements, there were also many individual or smaller group accomplishments and events throughout the year.

Continued...