Greetings – House Corp and ASU Report

Greetings Brothers,

First a note of apology to the ASU Sig’s that live in the Phoenix
area since many of them will get this note twice as they are on both
the ASUSig and PHXSig email lists. (If you get this note as a fax and
would like to get it in your email instead please let me now and I
will make the change for you.)

A FAREWELL:

Dan Clements who has served the Phoenix Sigma Chi Alumni Association
as it’s Treasurer for the past few years and filled the position of
House Corp President for the past year will be leaving us. Dan who
has been a Manager in the Phoenix Area Office for New York Life is
being transferred effective immediately to Oregon to run the entire
show for their Greater Oregon Office. Dan will be based in the Salem
Oregon area. Our loss is Oregon’s gain.

CALL FOR HOUSE CORP MEMBERS:

With Dan’s departure I will be assuming the duties of President of
the House Corp (until a replacement can be found). Those Brother’s
interested in serving on the House Corp please contact me directly at
either dave@microworks.net or at 480-610-8234. I would like to fully
populate the House Corp and would need six (6) Brothers to serve as
Trustees on the Board of Directors.

HOUSE PURCHASE UPDATE:

Due to some problems with our Accountant we ran into issues that have
delayed our moving forward with the purchase of the ASU House. We
have switched Accountants and the previous Accountant is finishing up
her work on some outstanding issues that have been a roadblock in our
purchase of the property. She committed to providing us with the
information we needed this past Friday and I am hoping to collect the
information from her today. We will then be submitting an offer to
purchase the property from ASU this week. We will be following Sig Ep
by copying the offer that they submitted and obtained approval on
this past semester.
ASU will then place us on the agenda for the Board of Regents meeting
to be held June 21st. Since our offer will be identical to the Sig
Ep offer we should have no problem being approved by both ASU and the
Board of Regents.
We will also be submitting our loan application to CCI by the end of
this month.
The delay caused by the previous Accountant has severely impacted our
ability to finalize this process and whereas we had originally
anticipated beginning renovations to the property as soon as the
semester ended this has know been pushed deep into the summer which
will in turn mean that the required renovations will now stretch into
the Fall semester and some of the desired updates may not happen now
until next summer or possibly over Christmas break.

ASU UPDATE:

The semester has ended and the guys have split for the summer. If
you go by the property you will see that we have erected a security
fence (as we do every summer.)
The last day of finals this year fell on the same day as the Phoenix
Alumni Chapter meeting and the Active Chapter hosted our semi-annual
Ritual meeting as well as hosted a cookout of Burgers & Brats. Even
though it was the last day of Finals the guys and pledges went all
out to clean the house to make it as presentable as possible for the
visiting Alum’s. The feedback that I got from the Actives was that
they really enjoyed playing host and especially liked the Chapter
meeting and getting to hear from older Sig’s. Brother Bert Snyder
(Denison Class of 1933!) once again showed us all up and set an
example we can only hope to emulate.
On another note I hear that we may have topped the Academic rolls at
ASU this past semester!
The final numbers are not in yet, but it looks like Derby Days may
have raised over $4,000 for the Children’s Miracle Network.

ALPHA DRIVE UPDATE:

Sigma Nu have vacated their house after having their Charter yanked
by their National once ASU dropped recognition of them. The word
from ASU is that it was due to hazing and specifically Paddle Night
was given to me as the hazing incident. I am trying to find out more
details so that I can make sure our guys know if a line has been
moved or if a line was crossed so that we do not fall prey to the
same thing. The Sigma Nu House Corp as I understand it our still
moving forward with the purchase of their property and will then
lease it to an Off Campus House until they are able to recolonize.
Phi Sig too is in trouble. After playing host for the cable show
“Girls Gone Wild” they found themselves facing sanctions from ASU. I
understand that they got past that issue with the University but that
their local Alums want to kick the guys out of the house and pull
their charter for other reasons. This has not yet happened, as their
National does not appear to want to do this. Phi Sig would then
follow the SAE model and recolonize with new guys since it sounds
like they have not been able to clear out a bad element that got into
their house.
Sig Ep (who just finished buying their house in February) also found
themselves in the Dean’s office this past week. Word is that they
were told specifically not to do three things and then went out and
did all three of the proscribed “things”.
Looks like three more houses could be empty on the row next semester.
It is really looking like a ghost town.
PIKE and SAE are also moving forward with reopening their houses once
they complete the purchase. PIKE never left actually, but did not
want to spend their insurance money fixing the fire damage until they
had resolved the housing issue and SAE have finished recolonizing
their house to the point that it is a full Chapter again. They have a
population of 45 guys now and as part of the House purchase they
raised $85k this past semester.
The Phi Delt house is still leased to TEKE and no word on when they
will recolonize.
The Theta Delt house is still empty and ASU’s plans are to tear the
building down once they have received the funds from the other houses
that are purchasing.

PERSONAL REQUEST:

I have the opportunity to sell my company (in business since 1994) to
a friend (and competitor) of mine but before I do that I would
need/want to line up employment. If you would like to review my
resume and assit me in this endeavor please see a “generic” and
fairly updated version of it at
http://www.microworks.net/dave/resume.html or contact me and I can
forward it to you. I have and still do enjoy owning my company but I
am starting to get burned out and want to see what else may be
available to match my skills.

In hoc.

David W. Riddle
ASU ’87