The Toy Class Curse

First off, thank you to everyone who ran for office last night.  Even when you are the most qualified person with the best ideas for an office, it can be difficult to get up there in front of the whole chapter and present, and not everyone has the advantage of that confidence, especially now that there is a discussion section that you won’t be privy to.

Luongs, I’m proud that so many of you ran last night.  I keep mentioning the sweep not because I want you to blindly vote for yourselves over other candidates but because as new actives, it’s probably the most intimidating for you to get up there, not knowing what to expect from elections.  I was hoping that my prods to your competitive side would widen the pool of candidates, and you guys came through.

And, of course, congratulations to the Fall 2010 ExComm.  I heard a lot of great ideas last night, and I hope that you will all follow through on your promises and continue to improve our chapter.

To those of you who ran and did not win office last night, this story is for you -

At the elections at end of Toy term, the newly crossed actives won 5/10 ExComm positions, including 3/4 of the VP positions for Fall 2004.  I’d like to think that all of us did a great job that term, but at the end of the term, we ran in force again and only won 2/10 positions for the Spring 2005 ExComm.  The same thing happened year after year, and it became known as the Toy Class Spring Curse… we had varying success in fall terms, but simply could not win office in spring terms for some reason.

Every time it happened, we were confused, hurt, and bitter.  We would jokingly band together into “LoserComm.”  While we were all losers in the election, LoserComm actually had two distinct subsets -

First, there was “BitchComm,” who sat around and bitched about how they could do things better, how they should leave APhiO, and how the chapter was going to fall apart now.  They would snipe at ExComm in the back of meetings and to pledges or new actives, essentially trying to erode the chapter’s confidence in and cooperation with ExComm.

Then, there was “NextComm,” who stepped up in committees and worked hard to incorporate their ideas for office with the ideas of the elected ExComm.  They put the health of the chapter and the ideals of the fraternity above their own interest and self-glory to work as hard as they could to make the chapter better and to make ExComm look good.  NextComm was called such because they were often recognized for their efforts and won office the following term.

My advice for anyone who ever expressed interest to me about running for ExComm is the same:  If you’re not sure, run for ExComm.  Even a slight chance of yes means that you’ve at least got a kernel of an idea about how to make the chapter better, and ExComm is the best place to develop and test that idea.  If you lose, then you can always join a committee or apply for a chair position.  You can even take an easy term as “just an active.”  (Which is bullshit because even “just actives” play a huge part in our organization by chairing events and mentoring sponsorees and little brothers.)

But please, don’t be a bitch.