Paragon

Newsletter

August 2023

Inside

This

Issue

A Message from the President

Annual Report: Financials & Budget

Annual Report: Donations

Annual Report: Officers & Committees

Annual Report: Membership

Friday, September 15 - Alumni Sponsored Rush Event (email Ken Nagano to RSVP)

Saturday, October 14 - Homecoming Event at the House

Saturday, November 4 - Fall Work Weekend (register here)

Sunday, November 5 - Fall Work Weekend (register here)

Friday, November 17 - Initiation

  A Message from the Alumni Board President

Brothers,

We are pleased to present the annual report of the Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association for the fiscal year 2022-2023. During the period of July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023, your alumni association:

• Worked diligently to improve the chapter house via our alumni work weekends, hiring contractors, and tackling a list of items mandated by our property insurance carrier.
• Raised money to fund our work weekends, sponsored rush events, and other infrastructure needs.
• Sponsored rush events to help the active chapter increase their numbers.
• Worked with the national fraternity to update our database, so our communications are reaching as many of our alumni brothers as possible.
• Re-established the local board of coaches, to provide help for the active chapter where they need it from recent alums.

After two years, the re-launch of our alumni association is bearing fruit. Even while our work weekends help to improve the house, they also help establish new traditions within the active members that they too will need someday to return to the house to help the actives that come after them. Our chapter house is in much better shape than it was when we started, and we have plans to make it better still.

If we have a weakness, it is that it’s mostly the same group of alumni brothers who are doing the work to make all of this happen. I personally do not feel we have enough alumni brothers involved to say that our efforts are sustainable at this point. My goal is to get to the point where we have a 12 member board of directors for the alumni association, with a number of committees each having active members. I implore you, please, get involved. This is your alumni association, we need you to participate in it!

For those of you who have been participating, I cannot thank you enough for your efforts. I am only one person, and I simply could not have accomplished a fraction of the above without everyone who has contributed their time and treasure over the past year. I especially want to thank:

• Patrick Glynn, Chair of our Housing Committee, who continues to not only travel to Cleveland from the Phoenix area for our alumni work weekends, but also do the work of developing plans and budgets for future house improvement projects. Pat, thank you.
• Christian Carson, Treasurer of the alumni association (and chair of the Finance committee), who not only keeps our books but donates property management services for the Treehouse apartment, allowing us to collect rent that funds our operations. Christian, thank you.
• Davey Rowan, who maintains our website, is the technical force behind the Paragon, and serves on pretty much every committee that exists at this point. Davey, thank you.
• Ken Nagano, Chair of our Social Committee, who plans the social components of our work weekends, our alumni rush events, and Homecoming, along with also serving on pretty much every committee. Ken, thank you.
• Maynard Isabell and all of the late 50/early 60 “Geezers.” They have participated in our association diligently, providing us with funding and a needed outside perspective at times. Maynard and company, thank you.
• Nathan Kossover, Secretary of the alumni association and chair of our Communications Committee, who acts as the project manager to keep all of us on track with our work, who also keeps our meetings moving apace and productive, and who edits the Paragon. Nathan, thank you.
• Aaron Mann, who stepped up this year to take on the chairmanship of the newly formed Coaching Committee. This important work keeps our actives moving in the right direction. Aaron, thank you.

My sincere hope is that over the next 12 months there will be more accomplishments that lead to a longer list of thank yous in next year’s annual report. I hope we’ve launched the Ernie Schmidt Club for recurring donors, gotten our house closer to a state of good repair, built the alumni brotherhood even more, and have had a lot of fun doing it.

If there is any information about the operations of the Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association that you would have liked to see in this report, please drop me an email and we can include it in a future Paragon.

Yours in the Bonds,

Nicholas DeCenzo
President, Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association

  Annual Report: Financials & Budget

Brothers,

As your Treasurer, I am happy to report that the Alumni Association is in a strong financial position.
Our alumni association is split into two entities: the Cleveland Phi Kappa Theta Alumni Corporation, responsible for social events, and the Ohio Alpha Beta Housing Corporation, which holds title to the fraternity house. Most donations are received by the Alumni Association, which subsequently supports the Housing Corporation for essential repairs and replacements. What follows is a brief overview of the financials for both these entities, both collectively and individually.

Our fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. For the fiscal year 2022-2023, donations reached an approximate total of $12,150, with the lion's share being directed to the Alumni Corporation. Besides donations, the Housing Corporation has a revenue stream from renting out the apartment over the garage (aka, the Treehouse). After deducting expenses for repairs and supplies, the Treehouse contributed around $7,000 last year.

• Fire suppression system repairs: $1,767
• Supplies for work weekends: $11,107
• Treehouse (garage apartment) repairs: $2,647

Budget for 2023-24
Looking forward to the next fiscal year, we have allocated a total budget of $26,681 to the following committees, who each have made specific requests for funding:

• Finance: $2,600. This includes insurance premiums required by the National fraternity.
• Housing: $19,456.80. This covers a variety of planned projects to improve the house.
• Social: $3,275. The Social budget includes expected costs for our Homecoming event, sponsoring of active rush events and assorted other alumni social events.
• Coaching: $200.
• Communications: $1,150. This includes our web hosting costs and fees for the National convention.

On top of these budgeted figures, we foresee a minimum of $7,000 in net rents from the Treehouse, which we plan to keep aside as a contingency or "rainy day" fund.

The fiscal year 2022-2023 was successful, and with continued support, we aim to surpass those achievements next year. Thank you to everyone who has played a part in making this success a reality.

Yours in the Bonds,

Christian Carson
Treasurer, Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association

  Annual Report: Donations

We raised over $12,150 in donations in 2022-2023 fiscal year. Below is a list of our donors from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.

Those brothers indicated with an * combined to contribute $3,000 used to match all donations from January 28 through February 28. Their match offer helped us raise an additional $3,720 in donations beyond the $3,000 match. Thank you brothers!

Those brothers marked as recurring have set up a regular monthly donation via PayPal. Thank you brothers!

Those brothers marked as multiple contributed two or more times during our 2022-2023 fiscal year. Thank you brothers!

Please note that if you donated via check and did not specify whether or not you preferred to be anonymous, we erred on the side of caution and marked you as anonymous. We had three anonymous donors in this fiscal year. Thank you brothers!

To all our donors, thank you for your generosity! To add your name to this list for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, please donate via our website.

  Annual Report: Officers & Committees

As of June 30, 2023, there are eight members of the board of the Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association.

President – Nicholas DeCenzo
Treasurer – Christian Carson
Secretary – Nathan Kossover
Member-at-Large – Davey Rowan
Member-at-Large – Ken Nagano
Member-at-Large – Maynard Isabell
House Improvements Committee Chair – Patrick Glynn
Coaching Committee Chair – Aaron Mann

Maynard & Aaron formally joined the board on October 25, 2022. The other six board members served for the full 2022-2023 fiscal year.

The active chapter is represented at the alumni board meeting by the active president and alumni chair. Those seats are currently filled by Will Woodfint and Smyan Thota.

The board meets once a month. There are also regular meetings of the five established committees:

Communications
Chair: Nathan Kossover
Members: Dave Rowan, Nick DeCenzo

House Improvements
Chair: Patrick Glynn
Members: Ken Nagano, Dave Rowan, Eric Pinzur, Jason Dolan, Maynard Isabell, Neal Pence, Tony Rossi

Finance
Chair: Christian Carson
Members: Nick DeCenzo, Ken Nagano, Dave Rowan

Social
Chair: Ken Nagano
Members: Dave Rowan

Coaching
Chair: Aaron Mann
Members: Cassiel Yuzik, Daniel Kessler, Hsing Louh, Riley Davis

If you are interested in attending either the board meeting or a committee meeting, or if you would like to volunteer in another way, please reach out to Nathan Kossover.

  Annual Report: Membership

Brothers,

The Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association is open to all initiated brothers of the Ohio Alpha Beta chapter of Phi Kappa Theta at Case Western Reserve University, as well as any brothers initiated into either of our predecessors organizations, Theta Psi Kappa or the Alpha Beta chapter of Phi Kappa.

As of June 30, 2023, we had an email for at least 595 active and alumni brothers in our database. This rose substantially from the 469 brothers in last year’s report, primarily because we have merged in data provided by the National Fraternity. An additional 400+ brothers are listed in our database who are not receiving the Paragon because we lack an email address for them. We are working to identify every brother who was ever initiated into our chapter and to ensure we have contact info for as many of them as possible.

Ten issues of the Paragon were sent out during the 2022-2023 fiscal year. A full archive of past issues can be found on our website. In addition to the Paragon, an assortment of additional emails were sent out throughout the year.

We maintain an active internet presence via our website and Facebook. We also have a group on LinkedIn.

Yours in the Bonds,

Nathan Kossover
Secretary, Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association

The Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association exists to connect the over 1000 alumni of the Phi Kappa Theta Ohio Alpha Beta chapter at Case Western Reserve University through events, newsletters, and other gatherings.

Our subsidiary organization, the Ohio Alpha Beta Housing Corporation, exists to own, maintain, and improve the Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter House located at 11016 Magnolia Drive, Cleveland, OH, 44106.

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  11016 Magnolia Dr
  Cleveland, OH 44106
  United States