Welcome to our fall semester! I hope you all are as excited for this fall as I am. TAP officers have been working hard to plan some exciting events for everyone. I first off want to apologize for how long this email will be. No one likes long emails but it would be better to combine it into one than to send multiples. No one likes that either! So let's jump right into the calendar for this fall!! Feel free to pass this email or the dates along to your entire membership. TAP isn't just for the delegates and presidents. It's for everyone. Once you pay your dues every single person in your group is considered a member of TAP and welcome at our events and meetings.
** Pref Night w/UNC (Wednesday 9/8 from 6-10pm)- this is an annual activity that TAP has participated in. Each year alumnae women help the UNC PNM's fill out their Pref cards. This takes place at the Carolina Inn. I think the exact address puts it on the corner of Pittsboro and Columbia Streets. There was an Evite sent out about this but if you didn't receive it you are still more than welcome to attend! UNC Greek Life has split the night into two shifts (6 to 8pm and 8-10pm). They need the most volunteers between 8-10 because this is when most PNM's finish the round. They would like 4-6 volunteers between 6-8 and 40 volunteers for 8-10. If you are interested you can reply on the Evite (if you haven't already) or you can send an email directly to osflunc@gmail.com to sign up. As an FYI if you are helping your individual chapters with recruitment and will be present at the chapter house at any point during UNC's recruitment you are not able to help with the Pref Night Card signing. It's simply a precaution in case a PNM had seen you at any of the parties. Some groups have alumnae members "on the floor" and other groups don't but to be fair and as cautious as possible if you have been in the house during recruitment in any capacity you unfortunatly aren't able to help with Pref cards.
** Kickoff at Serena's (9/30 at 7pm)- to officially kick off our fall calendar TAP will be sponsoring a Kick Off Fall event!! Serena's is located in Durham at 5311 South Miami Blvd about a 1/4 mile off I-40. They serve tapas and other yummy foods! TAP will provide the food. All you need to do is show up and be ready to have some fun! Serena's does serve alcohol but TAP will not be covering the cost of that so have some extra cash on hand if you would like a cocktail. An Evite will be sent closer to the event.
** Leadership Meeting (10/19 at 7pm)- this will be our first leadership meeting of the year! The location hasn't been finalized yet but chances are it will be at Manchesters restaurant in the RTP. It's in a shopping center near TW Alexander and Page Rd. TAP has met here before and not only is the restaurant quite accommodating the food is delicious!! This will be out first chance to meet and discuss TAP business, etc. Feel free to contact any officer if you can think of a topic we need to have on the agenda that night. We need delegates to attend but all alternates, presidents, alumnae chapter officers and anyone else who interested in TAP is more than welcome to attend. We will not be using Evite for this event. All delegates, alternates and presidents will receive an email closer to the event along with a copy of the agenda.
** Potential Holiday Event (December/date, time and location are TBD)- we haven't set this in stone yet but we are thinking of having a Holiday get-together to wind down our fall semester. If we do have this event an Evite will be used.
** Looking to Spring: our calendar will include: Duke recruitment (in January), Badge Day (March), Wine Tasting and Elections (May) and potentially one leadership meeting (month TBD). If you have any suggestions as to where to host Badge Day and/or the Elections please feel free to drop us a line!
Dues and Contact Info Form: attached is the link to our contact info form (https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEhnSWIydzU0U1JpT0lXNTFIZC1BWEE6MQ ). It's very easy to fill out online so there is no need to mail one in anymore! Just email us for Jenn's address because we did not put her address on the form. That is who you mail dues too. On the form we ask for your president, treasurer, TAP delegate, 1st alternate, 2nd alternate, rec chair, National Contact and local website. The Rec Chair is a new thing that TAP has never asked for in the past. However each year we get more and more requests for recommendations from PNM's. Having a specific person that handles those requests will help streamline that process. I know it can be a struggle for groups to find women to hold office. This Rec chair does NOT have to be a separate office in your alumnae chapter. If you have enough women willing to serve that you can make it separate then that is awesome! No worries if you can't. Just see what officer already on your team would be willing to be that point person. The same thing applies to the alternate delegates listed on the form. These don't have to be additional officers (however like I said before, if you have lots of women who want to serve by all means sign them up). See what officers are willing to serve as alternates in case your TAP delegate can't attend a meeting. For those groups that don't already have a TAP delegate ask around and see who in your group would like to serve. We really would like to have a seperate delegate from each member group if possible. If you have a website for your local group please make sure to include it. We will link it off of our website. Also don't forget to include a National contact as well.
Dues are $30 for member groups with more than 5 members and $15 for all others. Submit those to our treasurer Jennifer. Please submit dues by December 1st. Paying your dues allows you to vote and be considered in good standing with TAP. Also paying your dues means we include you on our annual report as an active part of TAP and list you on our website as an active member as well. Thank you to the groups that are already ahead of the game and have paid their 2010-2011 dues!!
Updated Emails for Evite- for the last few years TAP has been using Evite to send invitations for events and such. We would like to invite all members in your groups to these events (like our kick off) but we can't do that without your help. Privacy policies will vary from group to group. Some of you will be able to turn over your database of member emails. Others will have to get the permission of your individual members before you do. Either way we would like you to get those to us as soon as you can. That way we can add your members to our Evite system and begin inviting them to events like our kick off, recruitment events, etc.
How to stay in touch with TAP: As communication evolves TAP will evolve with it. We now have a variety of methods for you and your members to keep up with TAP. If you use Twitter we now have an account and you can follow us there @trianglealumnae. Do you blog or like to read blogs? We now have a blog on blogspot that will keep you up on our events. Check it out and follow us if you would like (http://trianglealumnaepanhellenic.blogspot.com/). We also have our Yahoo Group as well (trialumpan). All leadership will receive invitations to join this group. This group is open to anyone so if anyone in your member group would like join the Yahoo group have them contact us and we will send them an invitation to join. We use this group to send out our newsletters, meeting minutes,etc. By joining this group this allows us to share this information with everyone and they don't have to be an officer on the listserv. Don't forget that TAP has a website (http://www.trialumpan.org/) so be sure to check that out. Also don't forget about our Facebook group! Previously our presence on Facebook was someone that you "friended". However after some discussion we have decided to make the plundge to a group. We are currently trying to see which method is most effective so feel free to give us feedback! You can request to join that group by clicking on this link (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=156552327695526). For those of you who "friended" us you will get an invite to join the new group. And once you have joined you should be able to send group invites to any of your sisters that are on your Facebook as well.
Suggestions for TAP: This is pretty self-explanatory. What suggestions do you have for us? What do you want to see? What do you think we should be doing? What do you want to see in terms of activities, locations, etc.? We are all ears!! TAP is now entering its tenth year since its rechartering. What else do we need to do to make TAP grow and make it another 10 years?
TAP Membership: I'm thrilled to say that over the summer TAP has made contact with 16 of the 26 NPC groups!! I hope to see all 16 pay dues and be as active as you can in TAP. Those 16 groups are: Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Xi Delta, Alpha Sigma Alpha, Chi Omega (Raleigh and D/CH), Tri Delta, Delta Gamma (Raleigh/Cary and Durham/CH), Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Kappa Alpha Theta, Pi Beta Phi, Phi Mu, Sigma Delta Tau, Sigma Kappa and Zeta Tau Alpha. We can't wait to meet you and your members at a TAP event in the future!!
Over time groups fold or in some cases never had an active chapter in this area. Members from those groups are still welcome to join TAP as individuals. Groups that are inactive or "lost" : Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Epsilon Phi, Alpha Phi, Alpha Sigma Tau, Delta Zeta, Delta Phi Epsilon, Gamma Phi Beta, Phi Sigma Sigma, Tri Sigma and Theta Phi Alpha. If you know women in these groups please reach out to them! Just because their respective member groups may not be active doesn't mean they can't join TAP. Also some of those group we can't determine if the alumnae chapter is still open or not because previous contacts for the group are out-of-date. These groups may not be lost after all! I truly believe that there are members of all 26 NPC groups in this area. We just have to find them!
Misc. Items: If you would like TAP to include activities that your alumnae groups are doing (fundraisers, etc) please let us know! We would be more than happy to include them on our calendar (which can be found on our website) and include them in future newsletters to TAP members. I promise they will NOT all be this long!
*Whew* now we can all wipe our brows and be glad this marathon email is coming to a close!! I promise they won't all be this long! But thank you all for bearing with me. I look forward to meeting you all at TAP events over the year and I look forward to serving as your president for this year. If you need to contact us please do so at triangle.alumnae@gmail.com. and it will be directed to the proper officer. Also contact us if you have any problems with the links in this email as well. Hopefully they all work but if they don't let us know!
Thank you all so much for your patience and I look forward to meeting you all soon!
Fraternally,
TAP
