April/May Officer Report

Brothers,

First of, I apologize that this is a little bit late. I have a lot of data to compile for this report and I’ve just now had some of the time to do so. I continue to be very excited about this opportunity and am working hard behind the scenes on several projects.

Following the close of our district convention, Governor Green and I quickly went to work on getting the new district website up and running. After some research into hosts, we selected a host that I’m familiar with. Hosting fees are relatively low and I will be making a recommendation next year for hosting fees to be included in the Secretary-Treasurer’s budget. After selecting a host we were able to get the website setup and running within a few weeks. While there has not been much posting activity we have had a lot of visitors. We have sixty (60) confirmed registrations and several outstanding ones. We’ve averaged over 1,000 unique visitors each of the past two months and we’re starting to get more returning. I encourage each member of the council to either post their monthly officer report in full or post a summary on the website in their user blog. There’s a couple things left to tidy up including the forums and I’ll be pushing an initiative to increase user activity on the website. But since we’re now in the summer months, we should expect a decrease in traffic until the fall semester.

For my other officer responsibilities, I have approved two reimbursements, one for the District Speaker Fund for the 2008 SED Convention and another for the website registration and hosting. I’ve been working with David Smith to compile all the officer and committee reports to prepare them for distribution to the chapters along with the convention minutes and newly ratified constitution.

As simply a district officer, I’ve been in contact with several chapters and our Jacksonville State colony. This past weekend I attended UCF’s Florida Day and thoroughly enjoyed my time talking and relaxing with brothers from all over. It’s been a little bit jarring adjusting to the fact that so many people know my name but I’m getting much better at remembering individuals that have contacted me through e-mail and Facebook.

Finally, looking forward to June, I’m excited to attend the Leadership Symposium in Pittsburg and have a chance to talk with a lot of brothers interested and already leading our bands, our fraternity, and our district. I’ll be spending part of June tidying up the last bits of the website and making sure that all the brothers registered on the website are also on the district listserve along with recruiting brothers from across our district to be active participants on the website and the district level. Also, I’ll be distributing the district constitution, minutes and reports.

Continually Striving Together,
James Abels