KKPsiAA: The Tempo
A Journey Through the Road to Wisdom: Part 4
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Tempo, the official podcast of the Kappa Kappa Psi Alumni Association. We are your host, SAV, Mark Antori. On today's episode, we're excited to bring a special focus to our alumni with a deep dive into the road to wisdom. This is episode 4.4, so if you haven't heard episodes of 4.1, 4.2, and/or 4.3 yet, pause now and catch up on our last episode for the full context. If you're from the future, hello there! This episode is part of our mini series with four episodes in total. Today we'll be discussing lesson 7, our fraternity matters, and lesson 8, the final lesson, a lifelong commitment. These lessons are taught to the membership candidates when they first seek membership in Kappa Kappa Psi. We will modify some of the questions asked in the road to wisdom to provide perspectives from us, the alumni of Kappa Kappa Psi. We hope you're enjoying this mini series. If you'd like to send us your feedback, please email aacommunications@kksi.org and we will reply as soon as possible. Coming to lesson 7, lesson 7 is our fraternity matters, so in this lesson, the membership candidate will develop an appreciation for and embody the elements of Kappa Kappa Psi, and as well describe the national and district structures. Part 1 are about your responsibilities of membership, so this is where you'll learn about the 7 active or 7 membership statuses, and they are active, associate, conditional, inactive alumni, life, and honorary. I pull that all from memory. The following few points are derived from the Kappa Kappa Psi National Constitution as well. We'll be talking about the two main memberships here active and alumni. There are a couple of responsibilities of an active member that are specifically discussed. Obviously, you have to be a registered student and a member of your college or university band program who've been formally initiated after the completion of the membership education program of the fraternity, and then all annual dues have to be paid up-to-date to be able to maintain both active and associate memberships. Then the duty of each member is also to attend all meetings of the chapter and to pay promptly all financial obligations to both the chapter and the fraternity, they also have to become acquainted with the national constitution, district constitution, whatever local constitution, and overall history of Kappa Kappa Psi, and as well just to support the efforts and purposes of the chapter and the fraternity. Membership status in Case I may not be terminated by the member through resignation, but as stated in multiple places, a member may be suspended or expelled for due cause by the chapter of his or her affiliation. The question here is, when we were active, did we know that these were the duties of an active member in that detail? I think that was pretty common knowledge, right? Yeah, like maybe not in those exact words, but like the general overview, like you knew what was expected of you. Yeah. Typically, chapter would try to help you through that too. It's not like you're going in cold tricky and it's like, figure it out. What year is we, what year is we, you guys active, 2021 to 2023, no, math, 24, yeah, I went 11, May, there you go. Same for you right before then, no, I'm going to do a little move on back in time. Because you're old, so that's just the running joke of this podcast is that Mark is old. All the other old people are like, that's not old. I'm like, yeah, I'm talking my perspective. I was active 2020 to 2021, which sounds so short because I, you know, 2020 COVID year, and then I graduated undergrad in three years instead of four. So it would have been till 2022, but then I had to go and overachieve. And then I became a life member in 2021, but I was still associated with my college band because I was in grad school online. So I still was a grad staff member paid through the marching band out of you. So I still did everything an active brother would do essentially until 2023. So I don't know, pick your years because it was, I don't know. I feel like 2020 was like this big like start of a new chapter or like ending of an old chapter and starting a new chapter. So hearing like 2020 and after that for me feels like, Oh my goodness, it's like still fairly recent enough. I'm just wondering what for years isn't too much time. I was active 20 spring of 2013 to 2016. I was in high school. I was in high school while you were 2013. I was in eighth grade. That's not that bad. Wait, 2013, you were in eighth grade math. Yeah. I was 2014, 2015, so it's like five years. It's nothing. Yeah. Inventory must have graduated at the same time, 2018, 2019 from high school. Oh, okay. I graduated 2018 from high school. So yeah, 2012. So that's six years. Anywho. Before Mark curls up and cries in this in the corner. Yeah, we know what the responsible is of being active is basically do your due diligence and just be a pay your dues pay your dues pay your dues pay your dues pay your dues pay your dues pay your dues, let's talk about responsibilities of an alumni member. That's a little more relevant. Yeah, because that's us. Yes. So active associate or conditional members of a fraternity who have completed their education or who have terminated their affiliation with their college or university in the event that an alumni wants to reactivate with a respective chapter, said alumnus must be registered as a student, be an active member of the band and meet requirements as an active or associate member of the local chapter. And alumni members have privileges that are at the discretion of the local chapter. These privileges include but are not limited to attending chapter meetings, participating in ritual, participating in chapter fundraisers and attending chapter social functions. My members shall not at the chapter or district level hold office proposed candidates for membership, introduce business, vote on any matters or act in the capacity of a big brother. And so let's talk about it. What do you feel makes a responsible alumni member? Pay your dues. Oh, no, no, that was the last one, honestly, just being respectful because we all know that we'll have a bit of, I don't know if this is the right way to say, but like a little bit of separation, anxiety, like you're so committed for whether it's one or two years or three or four years, as soon as you actually or more, as soon as you actually cut ties, it's like, no, my next responsibility lies with, you know, taking care of a different, what do you call a demographic of people, right? Just being respectful of that and making sure that you're not crossing over any lines with your chapter or any other chapter and just knowing where you lie, like knowing where your place lies, your importance is maybe somewhere else rather than you think your importance lies within the chapter, if that makes sense, like your importance may not have to be at every meeting instead, now your importance is making sure that you keep it on my group together so that you're always around whenever something like that rises up, it's just picking your lane, staying your lane. I don't know, that's the harsh way to put it. No, that makes sense though, I was going to say, like still showing up as an alumni because I feel like it's so common that brothers graduate and then you just like never hear from them again, you know, like they just, they complete their education, like cut ties with the university and then you just like never hear from them again, but I think like a responsible alumni in whatever capacity is possible for their life will still show up, like whether that's, you know, if your chapter allows like going to a chapter meeting or supporting fundraisers, you know, as an alumni, we're supposed to be making the big books out here because we have adult money, the big girl, big boy, yeah, we have the adult adult, adult money, we have the adult money, so like if you can support fundraisers or like monetarily like your chapter, like do that or just showing up and like making face, you know, seeing people, because like I know for me, there's so many new brothers that I'm just like, oh my God, I don't know any of these people, but like I still want to like, hi, this is me, you know, like just try to show up in whatever capacity that is like best for you, you know, obviously we all have lives, we're stressed, you know, but like just show up when you can, I think that makes a really responsible alumni, like just because you graduate, your work's not done, it doesn't end there, you know, continue it, yeah. I will say recently it did make my heart really happy, my last little she, they were doing a fundraiser that involved like it was, I think it was like a food fundraiser, but whenever you bought one of the food things that they were selling, you also got a ticket and you got to vote for who got pied in the face and she was winning, unfortunately, so she panic texted me and said, help, I don't want to get pied, so I like Venmo'd heard to Venmo the chapter to get extra tickets so that she didn't get pied and the chapter was like, where did it come from, even nowhere, it was me, yeah, I protected Diana, it was great. I think it's crazy to think about, like you mentioned like littles and grand littles, I have, I have grand littles now, I finally got one, I'm like, oh man, Mark's like, I'm a generational grandpa, I don't want to talk about how many greats there are, I just got my first great, or not great, my first grand little with the class that they have right now, it's crazy, absolutely crazy, it's super funny because like we do, whenever we do the degrees we always do like family pictures, yeah, Dino's family is two thirds of the chapter, split off, well okay so there's Dino's family and then there's Isaac's family and Nathan's family, I'm a Nathan's family, Nathan's my big and his family is I think the second biggest after, after Dino, Dino's is still like three times bigger than Nathan's, talking about responsibilities here, responsibility, someone has to step up and split off, I know we face similar stuff at our chapter, my family used to be one of the biggest ones too and it kind of like went like this, it was like it would pass around the chapter, but been there, we still haven't split off, we're still one solid chunk. In part two, we talk about the National Organization Structure, including one of the things that includes is National Convention, the National Organizations of Catholic Alpha-Sci and Talbot Isigma host a biennial national convention, at this convention new national officers are elected to govern the two fraternal groups, two, the national constitutions are revised, and new awards and programs are created. The National Convention is planned by the National Councils and the National Executive Director, each biennium, the location of the National Convention, rotates through a regional system of districts, one or more chapters within the given district will be selected to help host the event. The National Convention that is supposed to happen soon as to this episode being recorded is National Convention in 2025 in Lexington, Kentucky. Yeah, Victoria is ready for nap con. Yes. Oh my gosh, EP. Yeah, the dates are July 15th through the 18th, 2025. And a lot of information has already been released, I believe, like hotel rates and I believe the music for NIB has also been sent out as of now. Yeah, I might totally be with full of it. I don't know when registration opened. That is a great question that I don't have the answer to. I was like, what is it, last convention, it opened up like a month and a half, a month before a convention? I want to say last nap con because it was in July and registration closed in April, I think. Or maybe on-time registration? I think maybe. I don't know. Absolutely. You haven't slept since then? I have. I haven't been slept since then. I'm excited for nap con this year. I think we're going to have so much fun. Hint wink wink, we might have a little live action tempo business going on. I don't know, we'll see. But I'm excited to like- It depends if you like and subscribe between now and now. If you give us a reason, no, I think it's going to be super fun. I'm also just excited to be able to drive and not have to fly because the last convention I flew from Seattle to Orlando and that was a time, that was a adventure to say the least. We drove to Orlando, that was great. I think I speak for most of the western district that they would love a convention on this side of the country. Yeah. Well, it was a 26 hour drive that we just did straight in one night. Absolutely not. Yeah. I got it. Yeah, it was great. We had, so it was four brothers from mine chapter and then another brother from a chapter in New Mexico, she rode a bus from where she lives to Amarillo and then we stayed at my house overnight and then we skedaddle in the morning. I'm not that Capacaba committed to drive a bus across the country for a convention. Oh, it wasn't a bus. We rented a minivan. Oh, I thought you said like- No, she got on like a greyhound from where she lives to Amarillo. And then that, yeah. And then I've also rented the minivan. I've said this before. I've said this before and I stand on it that it takes five to seven business days to drive across the state of Texas, so like that was like the majority of your drive was just through Texas. Yeah, half of my trip to a 2019 convention was through Texas. The drive from here to out of Texas I think was eight hours out of 26. If I drive from like my hometown to New York, it's less than eight hours and I drive through four different states. The drive from here to Dallas was six hours and I did that by myself. Oh my God. I drove from here to Dallas having never driven longer than 45 minutes in a car prior. Jesus Christ. And the only reason I got cut off was because I misread a license plate. And they're like, "It's okay. You can go nap with Phillip in the back." And I was like, "Okay." Yeah, we will not be driving to this convention. I think Kentucky's only 16 hours from here, so. I think we would have less than 26 for me, probably longer for you, so. Well I'll be in Missouri by the time it comes happening, so yeah. But if you were to come from Seattle. Oh yeah, there's no way I'd drive. I'd be flying. Yeah. If you were to drive through Texas, you might hit my area of Texas in the distance. Even more, even more reason to fly. All right, let's talk about it. See how it is, Mark? I mean, hey, I visited Seattle, and I didn't even say how to sell, so. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I forgot that. What are you doing in July, say July 11th? Maybe we can meet up at 12, 13, 14. I don't know. We'll see if we're in the same one. We'll make up for that. Yeah. So we also learn about districts. So the current districts are named according to their geographical location. Each district is also governed by an elected corps of officers. Each district also has an appointed advisors known as governors with a cap of cap of psi and counselors for Tabe de Sigma. Districts allow local chapters in a region to develop a closer relationship fostered through various district functions and an annual convention as well hosted by chapters within the district. These conventions allow chapters to generate programs and policies, and often the ideas that are shared at district conventions are then discussed on a national level. In 1987, the districts were realigned from the original 10 numbered areas to seven. So this is done in order to better facilitate district meetings and eliminate those districts having only one or two active chapters. I don't think I've ever known that. I would love to see what it looked like or what I have seen before. I remember seeing it on the OMRS, like how the districts were numbered before, but I didn't really, I'd never knew what it had pertained to. I believe I saw it in a history presentation at maybe NatCon and Grand Rapids. I'll see if I could find that presentation and share it with you, because yeah, I think there was like a map of the previous districts and then how they changed them. But shout out to the Northeast District did question where has either of your chapters ever hosted a district convention? It's about 2025, but it's a bit young, so I don't think that really the opportunity has come up yet, like logistically for us to be like ready to host something like that you know? Well, I think in the past, it used to be like a thing that you could legitimately apply for, but I don't know if that's still a thing now. I think it's- Yeah, I don't. Things changed for the Western District a while back, because I remember it used to be location-based first, and then the chapter that was closest was just kind of like slid into that spot of, "Hey, by the way, we're hosting," and I think things have changed a little bit over the past few years. I mean, again, I'm talking a long time ago, but things have changed, and it's now more of an application process, because the location is still kind of like- it's tries to rotate as best as can around the West, because we've got a large area, so we're trying to make it fair every other year, but I think it's more application-based now, potentially. I could be very far removed, but- The next part of the Road to Wisdom talks about our National Council, so we want to give a shout-out to our 2023-2025 National Council. We have our National President, Bon Co, National Vice President for Membership and Expansion, Dr. Nicholas Rohr, National Vice President for Programs, Daniel Miller, National Vice President for Student Affairs, Arupa Gopal Campbell, and National Vice President for Professional Relations, Dr. William L. Lake Jr. Following the list of the National Council in the Road to Wisdom, there's- we have the list for the Board of Trustees. Kappa Kappa Psi is a- is legally a corporation incorporated under the laws of the Sovereign State of Oklahoma as of November 27, 1919. The corporation, Kappa Kappa Psi, has jurisdiction over all the component parts of the fraternity, which are one corporation, two national chapter- chapter, three districts, four chapters, five Kappa Kappa Psi, Alumni Association. The list of people on the Board of Trustees include the chair, Dr. Melinda Matney, she also serves on the National Council, Evan Thompson for Vice Chair, Dr. Kevin James, Eric Morrison, Jessica Lee, the immediate past president who also serves on the National Council, and Bon Co, the current National President, ex officio. In the last section in part two is the Chapter Field Representative Program. So the National Chapter Field Representative Program began in 1992. The program was created to provide a direct link between chapters and the National Leadership Team. The Chapter Field Representatives, or CFRs, serve a two-year term as both a member of the National Headquarters staff, as well as a member of the National Leadership Team. In 2006 the program expanded from one CFR to two to accommodate the needs of the growing fraternity. Currently our CFRs are Ari Wright, a life member from New, and Mason Thomas, a life member from Lambda. The CFRs are currently traveling, and we want to wish them the best, especially if you're listening. That'd be really cool. Ari has visited Beta Sigma Gamma Omega Delta Psi, Beta Gamma Rho, Iota Mu, and by the last, or by the time this episode airs Alpha Omega. And Mason has also visited Kappa Iota, Kappa Nu, Nu Pi, Gamma Pi, Aida Delta, Theta Rho, and will be attending Lambda Lambda virtually this week. Similarly to what Tori asked earlier, have you known anyone from your chapter to be a CFR in the past? Nope. I have. Aw yeah. That's why you asked my question. Yeah, it is. No, I'm kidding. When I was a senior, me and our current chapter, our chapter president at the time, were looking into the CFR program, and she was very much more passionate about it and interested to see where it would lead. And I was just curious, and I remember we were always talking about it, but shout out to Elena, who was the CFR right after we graduated. So I think it was somewhere around the 2016-2017 range, and for next couple years. So that was really cool, that she ended up getting into the program. Yeah. At this point in the road to wisdom, you move on to district level, including officers, governors, and conventions. And so let's share some upcoming district conventions for 2025, shall we? So we have the Northeast District Convention, March 7th through 9th 2025 in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. The Southeast District Convention, March 21st and 22nd in Atlanta, Georgia. The Southwest District Convention, March 28th through the 30th in Midwest City, Oklahoma. The North Central District Convention, April 4th through 6th in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Midwest District Convention, April 11th through 13th in Wichita, Kansas. And the Western District Convention, April 11th through 13th in Phoenix, Arizona. And on to lesson eight, the final lesson, a lifelong commitment. The membership candidate will be empowered to live a life guided by the ritual and the core values of Kappa Kappa Psi. They will synthesize the fraternity's motto, create fraternal code of conduct, purposes, and national brand into a unified understanding of its core values. Additionally, they will foster meaningful relationships with active brothers through team building activities. At this point in the process, the membership candidates will have been exposed to the core values of the organization, including the lessons learned in first and second degree. Without discussing any secrets and/or the ritual, what was your experience after these ceremonies? I would say that, without spilling the beans. I would say that I have, I'd say after ritual and these, these, experiencing these ceremonies as we put it, I think I felt closer to my brothers and I think I also had a greater appreciation for the fraternity and for music in general. And I will leave it at that. It always felt like pretty celebratory after something that finished like every step of the process, everyone was so supportive and so like welcoming and understanding. And like you said, having a better appreciation for the fraternity, I felt like it was also, I felt it like the other way too, like I felt like everyone loved us more. You know what I mean, everyone was like, you guys are learning so many cool things, like just like we all know, yeah, like we all know like what is in store for you guys, but it's like we're almost fully, I mean, we're already accepted, but like we're almost like, you're almost there. And it's a really cool experience and then in my chapter, all the families have different traditions after every ceremony and tomorrow is our first degree and I was caught off guard. My family chat is talking about it right now, but like talking about what to do afterwards. It's a one of the things I look for. Yeah. It's so cute. I was just going to ask you guys if you have a large family, but like, you know, I'm messaging my big immediately after this and say, start the family chat right now, start the chat. No, but it was also for me, like when I was going through the first time, not knowing what to expect for what my family does or what kind of traditions we hold, I think we were still kind of building that as well at the time. And then now on the other side of things, knowing what to expect and like seeing how they plan and how they prepare for it because we have like this our whole, how do I say we have our own constitution, we have our own family history, we have our own like colors and all that, you know, we have a whole bunch of crud that we go through, but it's just really cute seeing everybody like carry on those types of that type of passion. And so the entire process of ceremonies and rituals was always just like a very reminiscent and a fun time to see like other people like still going on, you know, through the organization. Yeah, I was going to ask you guys, if you had like a post ritual ritual, like with your chapter or something like something your whole chapter or in this case, your family does like after rituals, that's always such a fun part because it's like the bonding experience after. Yeah, exactly. There is a specific water burger that the whole chapter goes to eat after first degree and after third degree. They just opened up. It's Texas, of course, is water burger. So the the first so in Canyon, there is not a water burger. There's also not a canes, even though Kane sponsors the football team, but that's unrelated. There was not a water burger in Canyon. So we always go to the water burger on Hollywood, which is like 10 minutes away, give or take. If you're being responsible driving adults, it's like 10 minutes away. But they opened one in Canyon and they opened it up before our their first degree this semester and they were like Hollywood. So we we've already had first degree. I think their second degree is in like two or three weeks, but it was normally you go to water burger after first and third, but after second, we your phone gets flooded with like, Hey, I'm here if you need me text messages, but there wasn't really like a thing that the whole chapter does after we usually save the the celebratory thing for after third. Yeah. Ours was always I hop. There's like an I hop right by ODU and we would always like that's where we would go after rituals. Complete side note, the OG water burger is in the city I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. I have been there and I would love some water burger right now. I haven't got water burger since first degree. I remember like, I remember when we would like ride to Texas for like the conference USA basketball tournament when we were still C USA and so, you know, it's a long drive from Virginia to Texas and like everybody only ever looked forward to the water burger stops and the bucky stops and that was like the highlight of the night. I didn't go to a bookies for the first time until we were driving to Orlando. They're actually building one in Virginia, right? They're building one in Amarillo like they've started hiring for it. I love that. Speaking of lifelong commitment, the Kappa Kappa Psi Alumni Association. We are dedicated to supporting the fraternity. That's a sentence. A sentence is recognizing that the college band experience should continue after graduation. The National Alumni Program will focus its efforts on connecting and enriching members from the past, present and future of college and university bands, promoting lifelong involvement with the band and enhancing the long-term growth and financial viability of Kappa Kappa Psi. That's us. So what would you tell an active brother that wants to join the Kappa Kappa Psi Alumni Association or is unsure? I really like this topic. I was actually talking to my little who's the president of my chapter right now, crying. I was talking to him about coming and speaking to the chapter about alumni world because I feel like there is a lack of information about the alumni world for the actives. It is mentioned in the road to wisdom but it's very brief and I don't think it's as detailed as it could be. This kind of ties into both of those questions, I guess, but I want actives to know that there are multiple options as an alumni. You don't have to straightaway go into a life membership. It's costly. If you don't want to fork out that money at the time, totally understandable. You can be an alumni member. There's also programs where you can give money to the fraternity to build up credits to get a life membership, which is another option you could do. Also, one option that's not talked about enough in my opinion is LAAs. You can be a part of a local alumni association and it is the most affordable tier of being an alumni $15 a year and you can still be a part of the alumni site, whether it's based out of your university, your region, whatever it is. Those are the things that I always tell actives. There's more than just one option and also as an alumni, you can be a member in whichever way suits you the best. There's different options, like I remember as an active, nobody brought up the ways to serve as an alumni. We're all in communications committee, but nobody brought up that there are so many different committees that you can join. You can serve communications, programs, membership. You can help with the encore. You can help with graphics. You could be on a podcast. That's just the Cape of Capacile Alumni Association too, not including whatever your local one might offer. Yeah, exactly. There's so many options and the committees are not listed out. We have our directors and each of our directors on the Alumni Association have a committee and probably have subcommittees and so that's the big thing I try to get across to actives is that there are multiple different ways to serve. It doesn't have to be super time consuming if you don't want it to be. If you want to take on a lot, go for it, but you don't have to. You can serve to your capacity, what's comfortable for you. It doesn't have to be super expensive, doesn't have to take all your time. That I think is not really talked about a lot in the road to wisdom. It's just briefly mentioned be an alumni, be a life member and it kind of stops at that. I could talk about this for a while. No, because as you were talking, I was thinking about how, since there isn't too much known about being alumni other than just having the title of alumni, it's important to note that if you're active for two, three or four years, that's not the entirety of your existence. If you really like this thing and you really want to keep doing stuff, there is more afterwards. It's not like I'm going to be done in three years and that was my time. If you want that to be the case, absolutely. There are plenty of people who are satisfied with embracing that idea of this was the chunk of my life where I wanted to commit this stuff and then they're on. For those who really wanted to just keep doing more stuff because that's what they love and that's what brings them a lot of joy, there is a lot more like you just talked about right after that. It's not like this hard cut off, you just jump into a void and everyone's swimming in the pool of alumni. Going to district conventions or even national conventions, you're looking around like these a lot of the people that run the whole fraternity are alumni. They're not active students. People that are involved are here because they want to stay involved and it's really cool to see that. Yeah, I've heard Dino say it many times that you are an alumni longer than you are active. It's one of my favorite things to think about. Because I feel like personally I've done so much more as an alumni than I did get the chance to as an active. I've been able to make more of a difference on the alumni side and it's really something to think about. I love that saying. Yeah, it's extremely important but it's not, it is what you put into it, right? You get out what you put in and so if you want to be involved on a small level and do a couple of things, cool. Because we are adults and this is not our primary purpose in life ironically, right? When I was an active, the thing that my grand big use always say is you're not here to major in case I, so like don't be taking it, I mean don't be taking it so seriously but don't be like stressed out about it. We're just here because we love music and we love to make a difference and so it keeps going after that too. I'm not here to major in case I'm working on my life goals but I also really enjoy this stuff and that's why I'm still around. You just really like talking to us. Exactly. Um, Victoria when she's half awake, or fully awake, not getting any sleep last night, you wild monster. Well, I got plenty of sleep, just not when normal people sleep. See, I went to bed at 3pm and I woke up at midnight, so that's nine hours of sleep. Yeah, put, put the, put the comment, put in the chat box, uh, what, uh, when do you go to sleep? What time do you go to bed? I went to my, I went to my nine to five but I had extra time so I got to leave early. So I skedaddled on home, into my PJs, into bed and I went Mimi's, I'm like an adult. No idea what's going on. I was distracted because we were talking about life membership and I found, so we, in our cages, I went spelunking through our, um, our like filing cabinet that has all kinds of randomness in it, including but not limited to this form that I found that I just sent into the chat if you want to take a gander at it. In the bottom left hand corner, there's a little price tag, it tells you how much a life membership is and I think this form was in the 1983 to 1985 biennium. You could get a life membership for $30. Oh my god. Oh my god. It's going to be like pulling out one of those like old redemption tickets and be like, I, I should get a free drink because this ticket was from 20 years ago, but it still says I can come and bring it back. Like hi, submit this application for life membership and pay $30, please. God, that'd be so funny. Imagine like sending that in as a prank too. It doesn't say that it expires though. It just says life membership contribution for the 1983, 1985 biennium is $30. This entitles donor to receipt of a life membership certificate and card. Annual subscription to the podium is $5. To be eligible for the life membership status in the furnished fraternity, you must be an alumni member. Lou Paul, I'm the kidding. Lou Paul. That's pretty funny. I love that you brought up a life membership story because... Segue! Segue! Segue! Oh my goodness, let's talk about life memberships, yay. Life membership shall be granted to any alumni member upon payment of a life membership contribution, the amount to be set by the national chapter along with an application to the national headquarters. The privileges of a life membership include a lifetime membership in the Kappa Kappa Psi Alumni Association, a life subscription to the podium, discounts offered by the national headquarters on selected merchandise or events to be announced as they occur, eligibility for appointments as deemed necessary by the national council, and all privileges granted by the national constitution. The price of a life membership in 2024 is $500. So not $30 anymore, but $500. It's crazy what the difference one time. One time. One time. Years, makes. Right? Crazy. I love that in our script. It says discussion in parentheses, question for staff. So my question, thank you, Dino, is why did I decide to become a life member? And my answer is, um, I would say I decided to become a life member because as I mentioned earlier, uh, I was only active from 2020 to 2021. And I didn't feel like my work was done there. I felt like I had just gotten into the fraternity and, um, I wanted to continue serving. Also at that point, you know, the fraternity had already given me so much, you know, brotherhood, experiences, leadership. And I wanted to, I wanted to give back to the fraternity, um, for those things. And I, you know, I said life membership full send. Let's do it. Um, you know, for me, Kappa Kappa Psi is a lifelong thing for me. I, I love this fraternity. Um, I love serving on committees and taking on projects and, um, yeah, I mean, this is a for life thing for me. I was never, I never went into the fraternity thinking like, Oh, I'll do this during college and it'll be, it'll be cute. Very fun. Very demure. And then I'll get out. Like, I, I always felt like I was in this for the long haul. Um, and so life membership was just, it felt right at the time. And so I, I did it. And I paid that money. Um, do you know how much Dr. Pepe, I could buy with $500? A lot of Dr. Pepe, a lot of Dr. Pepe. Yeah, have a, have you, have either of you considered being a life member? Yeah. I thought about it really hard, but I have so many other things that I have to worry about fiscally, like to be fiscally responsible. So it'll have to wait, um, unfortunately, but it'll happen eventually. Yeah, me too. The way that I looked at it, right? Like it's $500. Well, if you're an alumni member, you pay $50 a year. So within 10 years of graduating, you'd have a life membership. And so it is definitely a high upfront cost, but you know, I'd be $100 away right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like you, something to think about. And you know, of course there's like the benefits, you know, with the podium and, um, you get the really cool things on your nap con, your nap con name tag, you know, um, or your district. Or your district. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, you get like a little, I don't know, you get your little, your little card, you get your, uh, your paper. You feel nice and warm and fuzzy and soft. Uh, I think the biggest plus is that you, you do get free membership into the Alumni Association each year. You have to do. As a reminder for life members, you do still have to fill out the form to renew, but you don't have to pay anything, which it pays for itself after 10 years, which 10 years creeps up on you because I graduated undergrad three years ago, almost, or I mean, 2025 makes four years like that. Slow down. Yeah. Mark is like, yeah. I work. Mom said something, uh, cause my birthday is in two days, um, and I'll be turning 24 and my work mom, she asked me when my birthday was and I said, Monday and she's like, welcome to your mid twenties. And I was like, shut up, evil, it's all fun until after 25. And then it feels like 26, 27, 28, 29 is just like a blur year. I'm just waiting for this funny little thing in the front of my brain to develop. And then I'm going to be unstoppable. Yeah, it's funny. They say that happens. And then you're like, wait, I'm at that age where that's happening. And I'm like, really? This, this is, this is peak life right now. This is, I'm, I'm an adult anyways, announcements, announced, yeah, segue. Well, looking ahead to the national convention, our programs committee is now accepting workshop proposals. So if there is a specific topic that you would like to hear at the conference or at the convention or discuss during a fireside chat, please check out our link tree for the Google form or contact our programs director, Greg Boykey at boykey b-o-i-k-e at kksi.org. Yay. We did it. If you've made it to this last episode, you have traveled the road to wisdom with us. If you'd like to share your thoughts or answers, connect with us on Facebook or Instagram at kksi tempo, that is K K P S I A a tempo, a big thank you to the National Alumni Association and Kappa Kappa side national honorary band fraternity for making this podcast possible. Have a wonderful day. And as always, A, E, A. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING]