All Active/Alumni Chapter Officers and Volunteers:
Thank you to all of you still working hard with our chapters to deal with this very unique situation. This is uncharted territory for us all, but we have good people committed to help. Our best recommendation continues to be to follow the lead of your campus, local or state health professionals and refer any students who may present with symptoms to contact their doctors to arrange testing.
See the Triangle Statement here: https://www.triangle.org/covid-19-coronavirus-statement/
Triangle is making changes to accommodate the crisis. Here are important items you will need to know to help you plan ahead…
1. The Herb Scobie Leadership School is cancelled. We have no certainty group events will be allowed in June and, since there was no financial penalty to cancel, we decided to do so. We will offer new programs (see below) to offset this change.
2. The HQ will remain open and staff will continue to provide support to our chapters and members. Please contact us should you have questions about programs or keeping chapter operations going. Email: hq@triangle.org; Phone: 317-837-9640.
3. We recommend all chapters continue to operate and to bill and collect fees. If you have housing, there are ongoing costs, and many of you build a reserve in Spring to cover your risk management fees in September. These still will be billed and must be paid by Sept. 15 to allow our insurance renewal. It’s important you take that into account as you set aside funds for summer/fall. Estimates of the amount you will be billed will be sent to you in early April. If you have questions, contact me at tom@triangle.org.
4. For those of you in housing, we encourage you to consider providing space for students, even if residence halls are closing. There are students who cannot return home easily, or may have elderly family at home they do not want to put at risk. Keeping some space open to provide rooms and storage for students to make their own choices seems to be the standard emerging in fraternal housing right now. Should you have any housing-related questions, contact TBHC Executive Director Mike Fouts at mfouts@trianglebhc.org. Mike is plugged in to a nationwide network of fraternity house managers, so is aware of options.
5. HQ Staff is working now to create online recruitment resources to help chapters plan and execute a more successful online/virtual recruitment for summer/fall. We don’t know what fall will look like and want to help chapters identify, contact and cultivate prospects as early as possible. The program will consist of an online resource site with pdf documents, videos and some online courses. We expect first resources to be available in May. Chapters that have a plan and execute over the summer will be more likely to have success in fall, no matter what “rush” looks like on campus.
6. In addition, we are working to create and host several on-campus programs this fall (and spring if needed) focused primarily on recruitment. These would be one-day regional drive-in programs hosted at a chapter campus, where three or more nearby chapters could attend. In this way, we can get more information to more active members in a more economical manner and allow more chapter-to-chapter connections. Dir. of Chapter Services Drew Hopson is working now to identify the locations and a schedule for fall. If you would like to be considered to host one of these events, contact Drew at drew@triangle.org.
7. Please continue communications. HQ has licenses for GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar and Uberconference.com and can set up online meetings for you, if requested. Otherwise, there are a number of good, free services for small group meetings. Get a quick summary of a few options here: https://www.lifewire.com/top-free-web-conferencing-tools-2377241 as well as some remote working tips.
We’re not sure what the future will bring, but expect at some point things will get back to what we know as normal. Until then, we need to continue to communicate and support each other, share information and ideas, and find new ways to accomplish our tasks.
Please contact us at HQ if there are specific problems or concerns on which you need assistance. We’ll get through this and be stronger on the other side!
Tom Pennington, Executive Director
Triangle Fraternity, 120 S. Center St., Plainfield, IN 46168-1214
Tom@Triangle.org | 317-837-9640 Ext. 2003 | Triangle.org
Downloads:
COVID-19 Risk Management Bulletin
Recommendations for Chapter Facilities
Information regarding insurance coverage for Loss of Rents