July 2006 - Convention Update

Hi everyone,

Wow – after a whirlwind fast trip to DC, in between her busy research schedule and summer holiday, Helen Chuah has provided us all with this update from Convention 2006 in Arlington Virginia (just outside of Washington DC). It seems as if it was an amazing time, and I for one am already looking forward to Palm Springs California in 2008, 25 to 29 June 2008 at the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa.

General Items

The European Alumnae Chapter received the following awards at convention: the Alumnae Panhellenic Award, and honourable mentions for Alumnae Newsletter, Outstanding PR, and the Elizabeth Gorham Hoag award.

There has been some discussion about the Fraternal Caucus on cybersigmas, as well as at convention, and it is really important for all members of Sigma Kappa including the European Alumnae Chapter members to join in on the letter writing campaign. Bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate to relax the laws to allow for tax deductible donations to be made to national and local house corporations for maintenance and renovation of fraternity and sorority houses, which will hopefully lead to more donations to houses across the nation. For more info on the letter writing campaign including sample letters, please go to www.sigmakappa.org

Helen caught up with Bobbi Wilson and Sigrid Skvorc. The Kappa Iota (UPenn) chapter, for which Bobbi is the advisory board chairman, won a 3 star award (highest award for a collegiate chapter) at Convention! Bobbi is back to work full-time but is hoping to be able to attend the EAC annual meeting in November. Sigrid took a two-week trip to Ireland in May, and she is enjoying life in Bethesa, MD, though she does miss the Italian coffee.

Helen also had a chance to catch up with our two collegiate chapters, Delta Psi (Radford University) and Delta Rho (James Madison University). A photo is attached of Helen with the President and VP Alumnae Relations (to her left) and Advisory Board chair of Radford. There are a lot of ideas from both chapters on how to improve our links across the miles, and we look forward to a robust discussion at annual meeting on the subject. Ideas mentioned on how to bridge the distance between chapters is a face book of sorts, so if you have not sent a photo for inclusion on the website virtual composite, please do and we can turn this into a face book so that the chapters get to know us virtually without much of a problem. Send photos for the website virtual composite to Donna.

Susan Eisenhower, the former President’s granddaughter, gave the key note speech and was phenomenal, and an invitation to join Sigma Kappa was extended to her.

Convention Update – Voting Items

As for the proposed amendments, an electronic copy of them, which has all the right language and rationale, can be found on the national website in the sisters only section. Helen Chuah can provide you with a summary of votes including additional comments as necessary. If anyone has any questions, please do feel free to contact Helen.

The nominating committee presented the following slate for the National Council. It is the exact same national council that served the previous year with the exception of National VP for Programming. All of the slated officers were elected.

President: Barbara Wilmer VP Alumnae: Carole Townsend VP Collegiate Chapters: Laura Owsley VP Membership: Jennifer Hohman VP Programming: Pamela Mounday VP Administration: Cheri De Jong VP Finance: Dawn O'Connor

The National Council presented the following slate for the SK Foundation's Board of Trustees. All of the slated individuals were elected.

Dr. Tisa Mason
Glenna Pierpont who incidentally, was also elected to be the Foundation President for the next biennium.
Dr. Madalyn Teal

If anyone would like to read more about these individuals, their bios are on the national website, in the Sisters Only section.

Sigma Kappa Shopping

Helen has offered that if anyone would like to order things, she can do a general order with free shipping (before end July) and then distribute once she returns to Europe.

Best wishes and happy July – and hope you all survive the heat wave hitting Europe!

LISK,

Donna
President