Spring 2014 Newsletter!

The Spring 2014 newsletter is now available.  See some of the exciting events that will be happening this summer!

Download it here:Spring 2014

KKPsi Alumnus-at-Large Introduction

Greetings, Alumni!

I'm Maggie Greenwood, and this year I will be serving you as the Midwest District Alumni Association Alumnus-at-Large for Kappa Kappa Psi.  I had the pleasure of working with the alumni last year as VPSP and am looking forward to all the exciting things this new year and new position have to offer.

For those of you I don't yet know, here's a bit about me:  I'm a Life Member of the Epsilon Psi chapter at Missouri State University where I had the opportunity to serve as chapter Treasurer for one term; additionally, I was Midwest District President during the 2010-2011 academic year.  During my graduate studies at the University of North Texas, I had the opportunity to get to know the Southwest District where I became an Honorary Member.  I moved back to the Midwest in 2013 when I moved to Denver.  It has been an excellent year back home, and I look forward to many more!

This year, I would like to focus even more on our social and professional network as alumni.  We have the opportunity to help each other as Brothers, Sisters, and professionals, so this year we will be planning more social events throughout the district to help connect us.  This month, there will be a Royals' baseball game in Kansas City (details to come), and in July we will be gathering for Drums Along the Rockies (details below).  We are also planning for things like Oktoberfest and appearances at district events like District Days and Convention.  At each of these events, we hope you will join us and get to know one another as well as taking advantage of the opportunity for professional networking (engineers talking to other engineers, teachers talking to other teachers, etc.)

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me or any member of the Alumni Council.

ITB,
Maggie

Drums Along the Rockies

When: Saturday, July 12, 2014

Time: gates open at 5pm, show begins at 6:30

Where: Sports Authority Field at Mile High

Cost: tickets vary throughout the stadium, but we are suggesting group members buy tickets in the $35 area of section 105 (a nearly central and slightly elevated section of the stadium).  Parking in the stadium lots will be $10.  Tickets can be purchased by going to the following link:

http://ascendevents.bknights.org/PurchaseTickets.aspx

Plan:  meet at The Original Brooklyn’s (2644 W Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80204) around 4:30pm for pre-show drinks, food, and socializing.  At about 6pm, we will head to the stadium for the show.  Anyone who is interested can meet back at Brooklyn’s after the show for more fun!

VPM Introduction - Zack Rabarchek

Greetings alumni of the Midwest! I hope you are reading this in good health and free of stress (like that actually happens! Haha) :D

My name is Zack Rebarchek and I’m the newly elected VPM! For those of you I haven’t had the pleasure to interact with, I’d like to share a bit about myself. I’m a Life Member of Tau Beta Sigma’s Zeta Delta chapter at the University of Kansas. In the past I’ve held the offices of President and VPSP for the MWD and chapter President, VPM, Treasurer, and Liaison. While at KU, I spent my free time studying various areas of business. Somehow I dabbled enough to get degrees in Business Administration, Entrepreneurship, and Technical Communications. I’m currently taking classes through various online programs for an MBA.

Enough about me, let’s move on to something much more important… Us. We have the foundations of something great in our midst. To build on this foundation, we are planning many things as an executive council. My personal goals focus on expanding and building our membership. To do this I’m sending informative emails to chapter presidents and as many officers as possible at the end of each semester. To build involvement, I’m working with the rest of the council to provide multiple opportunities for members across the district to meet up. There are several events we are looking into, Drums Across the Rockies, Kansas City Royals/BBQ, and possibility a couple events smaller/more local.

If you have any questions or would like to talk about the alumni association, please do not hesitate to contact us! 

ITB, Zack Rebarchek

VPSP Introduction - Neil Siemers

Hey, everybody!  Neil here, your wonderful Vice President of Special Projects, and I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss some of my plans for the upcoming year.  They are merely plans, after all, so I’m open and receptive to any feedback you might have.  Of course, as I hold my power with dictatorial authority, your suggestions pale in comparison to any slight whim I might have, enacting even the most trivial of ideas with ruthless… err…I mean, I was elected through a democratic process, and therefore I have an obligation to the ideas of those who saw fit to elect me.  *cough*  At any rate.

The first thing I plan to accomplish is a revision of the Graduation Senior Award Packet.  It’s currently set up as a list of questions, which means most of our submissions write lengthy paragraphs for each individual question, resulting in a lot of pages.  Which isn’t a terrible thing, until you consider how many of the questions are redundant.  It’s hard to talk about high musical attainment without mentioning responsible band membership, and I can’t think of any way to promote the existence and welfare of KKY or TBS that doesn’t also involve being active in its worthwhile projects.  And yet, with the current application, these are all separate questions.  Mind you, they’re all valid points, but that doesn’t mean they need to be separate questions.  Myself, I’d rather make the applicants write a one page essay discussing why they deserve the award, hitting on as many points as possible.  Maybe two pages, if I’m feeling generous.  It won’t cut down on the amount of purple prose we receive, but at least we can kick the redundancy down a few notches.

My next plan involves taking the role of Historian, and making it into more of a group effort.  Nic has already talked about having a Picasa album for district events.  Ideally, everyone is equally involved in taking photos, and making sure they all get uploaded for the world to view.  I like physical scrapbooks as much as the next person, but when your organization spans ten states, it’s really not practical to have a scrapbook that you can only look at if you happen to living in the right area.

From there… well, that’s all I have at the moment.  Traditionally, those are the two main things that a VPSP has been expected to focus on.  Rest assured, the council and I are debating several other ideas; you’ll get to hear about those at a later date, once they’ve become more concrete.  Until then, there’s an entire comments section just waiting for your thoughts and opinions!

Welcome to the 2014 - 2015 Edition of the MWDAA

Hello Everyone,

I hope you have stumbled upon this blog because you were looking for an update about the Midwest District Alumni Association of Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma! (Or because I spammed Facebook or some other social media site about this post!)

For the next year the officers of the MWDAA will be:

President: Nic Rorrer
Vice President of Membership: Zack Rebarcheck
Secretary/Treasurer: Rebecca Brittenham
Vice President of Service: Neil Seimers
Kappa Kappa Psi Alumna-at-Large: Maggie Greenwood
Tau Beta Sigma Alumnus-at-Large: Jason Dornbush
Webmaster: Nick Sondag

We had a fantastic first meeting at convention and a great second meeting on Google Hangout the other week. Over the next year we look forward to improving contact with our alumni, and look forward to many hang outs and memories. Over the next year we are going to try and do a lot. Some things you can look forward to

• Weekly Blog Posts from our MWDAA Officers
• A Monthly to Bi-Monthly Newsletter with these Blog Posts and More!
• A Picasa Web Album to share our AWESOME MWDAA experiences 
• The ability to share your life updates with other MWDAA Alumni (Web form coming soon!)

Last year we started Local Area meetups and wish to continue these. Some events where we are going to have a presence of Alumni are:

• DLC Days
• Kansas City Royals Game: June 21st
• Drum Along the Rockies: July 12th  
• And Plenty More!

We hope to see and hear from you soon. If you haven't already, please update your information using this form so we can keep in contact with you over the next year!
MWDAA 2014 - 2015 Membership Update

AEA and ITB,
Nic Rorrer

Pictured: MWDAA Members at MWD Convention 2014

MWDAA 2013-2014 Highlights

The past year has been exciting for the MWDAA.  We started last year attending the Chapter Leadership Conference with current active members of KKPsi TBSigma. In July several MWDAA members attended National Convention in Springfield, MA with some great workshops, mingle sessions, and recreational activities. We followed this up with a  trips to Worlds of Fun and a Royals game in Kansas City!(picture below) Also held were regional events. Several in the Denver, CO area and two in IA. 

National Convention Reading Band

KC Royals

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Hello MWDAA,

Happy November! I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to take a few minuets and give you an update about the workings of the MWDAA Council.  In the past we have utilized newsletters to communicate information, that is no more we have moved in the the world of blogs. This is the place to  go to gain information on upcoming events, and other information you may want to know.

We are planning several smaller meet up groups throughout the district, be sure to check back for more information along with weekly updates and posts.