Housing Corp Report

8.15.08 HOUSING CORP.

Dear Brothers -
First let me thank all of you who have continued to contribute to the ongoing capital needs of Theta Beta. During 2007, we raised in excess of $13,000 compared with over $21,000 in 2006. Unfortunately the majority of these funds have been used to cover some well-needed capital expenditure items, supplement the operating expenses for the current members as well as ongoing mandatory maintenance. Over the past year the house has received some fresh paint, a few new windows and some plumbing and electrical work – most things you cannot see with the eye. This summer our goal is to install new carpeting, continue with a few new windows, new gutters, fixing up the second and third floor bathrooms as well as some new kitchen and formal room furniture.

We have also continued to pay down our mortgage, which now is around $65,000 with the house appraised in excess of $110,000. Next we need to apologize for not doing a better job of keeping you all informed of ongoing activities. It seems that later in life with work and families that time goes extremely too fast. Anyone interested in assisting with communications we would welcome the assistance to make us better.

Now comes our passionate plea for more money – the money will be used to complete the refurbishment of the house along with paying down our house debt. Last year we kicked off the 40 for 40 campaign with a goal to raise $40,000 per year for the next three years. We continue to hope for all brothers to contribute a minimum of $100 per year to help support our house and active alumni program going forward. But we continue to need to obtain larger commitments from people now over the next several years. We have 6 brothers who have pledged $1,000 per year for five years and continue to lead our fundraising effort.

So again please send money as soon as possible to:
Robert Hollingsworth
6933 N 118th Circle
Omaha, NE
68142

or you can make the donation on the website.

I know the guys would also appreciate any donations of furniture or electronics equipment for the formal room or basement. We also need to get some new dining rooms tables and chairs so if anyone can help provide any of these items please let us know. Feel free to contact Rich, Steve or myself at anytime if you have any questions or would like to help support the cause in any way.

We sure hope to see many of you at Dave West’s annual golf tournament on September 19 followed by the 40th Anniversary Celebration on September 20th in Vermillion. We need your help in getting your brothers that you are close with to the celebration and if you have any ideas for silent auction items or other ideas for the event please let us know.

Robert Hollingsworth OB442
Rich Abild OB433
Steve Schacht OB410

Past Reports

8.15.2007

Let us start by saying thanks to all of you who have stepped up to contribute to the capital campaign which allowed us to achieve about 50% of our original goal to save our House!! We have made some very significant improvements over the past year on the House and here is a list of some of these major improvements:

In addition to the capital raised, last summer we had the first annual alumni work weekend in July. Being the inaugural year, we were a little light on attendance but we had a successful weekend which included significant house repairs, painting and yard work. It included our alumni brothers Steve Schacht(OB410), Jeff Simmons(OB404), Rich Abild(OB433) and Robert Hollingsworth(OB442) along with 6 or 7 active brothers and some good times at Carey’s. Only downside was Simbo throwing out his back on the last run up the stairs carrying the radiators. We will be planning the second annual work weekend for sometime in the summer so please check on the website for these days and any help will be much appreciated.

We made some outstanding improvements to the Big Brown Barn last summer. We replaced some bad windows and all of the interior doors on the house to meet fire code. We also made repairs to the fire alarm and fire exits. A lot of plumbing work was done and we installed a lot of missing radiators and we managed to save our boiler so that was a relief. Furthermore, we installed smoke detectors in all of the rooms, refinished the wood floors in the entry and kitchen and installed tile floor in the kitchen. The house truly looks better that when we lived there. Without the help of the actives and alumni Dave Leonard (OB520) we never would have gotten all of this done with the limited budget we had to work with.

I know the actives would also appreciate any donations of furniture or electronics equipment for the formal room or basement. We also need to get some new dining rooms tables and chairs so if anyone can help in this area please let us know. Feel free to contact Rich, Steve or myself at anytime if you have any questions or would like to help support the cause in any way.

Thank-you……and please make a donation so we can save Theta Beta 163.

We sure hope to see many of you at Dave West’s annual golf tournament in August, at the alumni work week or for sure at Dakota Days which is on October 13, 2007. For some of you who have not been back in many years, we sure hope you can plan to attend the 40th anniversary celebration in 2008 and would ask that you start getting your classmates together and plan your journey back to SD in 2008!!

Fraternally,

Your Housing Corporation,

Robert Hollingsworth OB442
Rich Abild OB433
Steve Schacht OB410

40 for 40 Campaign

Fellow Snakes, Now is our plead for more money to be raised towards our goal to complete the refurbishment of the house; along with paying down our house debt. As everyone should know, our 40th anniversary is next year in 2008 and we expect to have a large celebration which would be supported by our 40 for 40 campaign – which is our desire to raise $40,000 per year for the next three years to complete our goal. We would expect all brothers to contribute a minimum of $100 per year to help support our house and active alumni program going forward. But we need to obtain larger commitments from people now over the next several years. We have several brothers who have pledged $1,000 per year for five years and we also have about $5,000 in remaining uncollected pledges from 2006. We really need urgently to collect some funds to get the work required completed this summer including the major rehaul to the bathrooms, some additional new windows along with work in the kitchen and basement and finally some mandatory exterior updates from the City of Vermillion.

Please send donations as soon as possible to:
Sigma Nu Alumni Association
6933 N 118th Circle, Omaha, NE 68142
or you can make a donation via paypal on the website.

PAST REPORTS

Dear Brothers -

Let me start the Housing Corp’s first newsletter update with a sincere thanks to several of our brothers. For most us it has been a distant memory since we have lived in the house and even thought about those good old times. The former officers of the Housing Corp. are Larry Harden, Bill Marlette and Monte Kramer along with Dave West as the President of the Alumni Association. These guys have literally kept the house together for many years by periodically raising funds, staying involved in various active chapter matters and of course Dave’s annual golf tournament.

Well I guess we should share with you how Abild, Shotmo and Hollingsworth ended up on the Housing Corp. Of course it all starts with the initial phone call from Abild informing us that the house is being sold and that we must step-up to help out. After several phone calls with alumni it was decided to have a quick fundraising effort by starting a new website and spreading the word on the dire state of the house. Historically the Housing Corp has only been responsible for paying the mortgage on the house ($900 month), real estate taxes ($3,500 annual) and insurance ($6,000 annual) and this has been funded by payments from the active chapter each semester. The past few years the Housing Corp has also taken over directly paying all the utilities to make sure they do get paid. So with no one living in the house we have run into a serious cash flow problem. Because of this, last fall in a short period of time- roughly 50 alumni stepped up and we were able to raise over $14,000 - enough money to moth ball the house for a year and pay the operating costs.

The next steps for us are to raise the necessary funds to fix up the house to a sufficient level to get 14-20 of our brothers moved back in. Last summer the house was completely gutted before it was to be sold. We have estimated the cost to get it back into safe and livable conditions to be roughly $40,000. We received a couple of different bids to do the work. The major expenses are to redo the bathrooms that are in total disrepair, due some work in the kitchen, replace or repair a lot of the doors and come up with some patch work repair to the over 60 windows in the house that are mostly down to one pain of glass each.

The boiler is only about ten years old but we won’t know the shape it is in until we turn the water back this the summer. A number of the rooms have had the old heat radiators capped and taken out of the rooms for whatever reasons?? We will have to deal with this on a room to room basis for heat in the fall. The fire escapes need to be replaced to meet fire code which is one of the stipulations by the city before we can have the actives move back in. Along with all this, there is just basic maintenance due to years of neglect and abuse. Carpet, paint, plaster and some good old fashion hard work should also go a long way.

Because we have roughly 14 actives plus 4-6 new pledges that would be able to move back in this fall, this will leave us a budget shortfall to pay the mortgage, taxes, insurance and utilities for the coming school year and beyond. We need a reserve to be able to start and finish 2 years of rebuilding our active numbers in the house without the fear of having to close the doors again. We have this budgeted at 20,000. This will aid with what we collect from the actives dues.

We owe Nationals close to $9400.00— we are trying to negotiate this down some due to disputes in charges over the past few years.

One of Nationals stipulations to keep the chapter open is to start a scholarship fund-this we have at 3,000.

We also need to start a fund for either future repairs and/or a fund that someday down the road might lead to a down payment on a new house. This we have set at 8,000.

This all adds up to roughly 80,000. I know this is a lot money-but we haven’t done any major repairs or upgrades since the late eighties. This is the time to step up as alumni to make sure that we continue to have a Sigma Nu Chapter in Vermillion.

We plan to hold the actives responsible going forward if the alumni step up now and make this investment-this has been a long time coming. It seems we have lost touch with the actives, as they have also lost touch with us. But with this site and a website down the road that will be dedicated more to the actives-we will expect a lot of them. And hopefully will be able to restore some of the old glory days of Sigma Nu that many of us enjoyed and the relationships that we built with each other living at 221 east main.

I look forward to reporting good progress in the months to come and look forward to any help you can give. We plan to have a work weekend early this summer to begin some of the work we can do ourselves. I believe this could be a lot of fun to get alumni back in Vermillion for a few days. Also, we plan a large D-Days reunion to help show support and meet the actives. (Abild always has a BBQ Friday night just a few miles north of Vermillion). D-Days is October 6-8 this year. Book your rooms now!!

I look forward to meeting a number of you in the future and hope that with this new website we can start a number of alumni events around the country. Dave West has the annual EN golf tournament every August in Sioux Falls—hopefully we can start a few more. A Jimmy Buffett concert could be another good gathering—we will get some dates on the website soon.

Feel free to contact Rich, Steve or myself at anytime if you have any questions or would like to help support the cause in any way.

Thank-you……and please make a donation so we can save Theta Beta 163.

Sincerely,

Your Brother-
Robert Hollingsworth
TB 442