Lobby for Greek Life

Alpha Omicron Pi is sponsoring two collegiate members to attend the annual NIC/NPC Congressional Visits April 17-21, 2010, to help gain support for the Collegiate Housing Infrastructure Act (CHIA). For the past few years, the North-American Interfraternity Conference and the National Panhellenic Conference have been working on an effort to make Greek housing safer and more affordable through this legislation.

These Congressional Visits allow Greek students and Alumni to visit Washington, DC and to lobby on behalf of issues facing collegiate members. Past participants have found this to be a great opportunity for networking and enhancing their knowledge of the current political environment in our nation’s Capitol and legislative affairs more broadly. Student participation is perhaps the biggest factor helping us to gain recent support in Congress for legislation important to the success of our organizations. The CHIA currently has 166 sponsors in the House of Representatives and 24 sponsors in the Senate. While this is great progress, we are still behind in making our bill a major priority for the committees of jurisdiction.

If selected, you will be asked to participate in preparation work leading up to the Congressional Visits. Click here for an application.

Jingle Bell Run - Malvern

Be there with bells on!
Jingle Bell Run
2009 Jingle Bell Run/Walk®
Malvern, PA
Sunday, December 13, 2009, Day of Registration begins at 8:00 am, Race begins at 10:00 am, General Wayne Elementary School
Get in the spirit this holiday season at the Arthritis Foundation’s Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis®. Be one of the thousands of runners and walkers who hit the nation’s pavements, pathways and parks this winter to fight arthritis, the nation’s most common cause of disability.

Jingle Bell Run/Walk® is a fun and festive way to kick off your holidays by helping others! Wear a holiday themed costume. Tie jingle bells to your shoelaces. Run or walk a 5 kilometer route with your team members and celebrate the season by giving.

CSP update

Taken from Charlotte Smarty Pants:
I am happy to introduce you to this week's Smarty Dad, Boris Bunich. And the timing couldn't be more perfect. Today, Charlotte Smarty Pants celebrates its second anniversary. And we wouldn't be here today, without Boris' wife and co-founding smarty, Jennifer Bunich. We are saddened by the lost of this wonderful mother, wife, friend and daughter, but her legacy lives on in Charlotte Smarty Pants, her gorgeous daughter Claire and wonderful husband Boris. We hope that you enjoy getting to know this special and oh so Smarty Dad, Boris.

What has been the most rewarding part of being a dad?
I don’t know if I can pick out just one part, so I’ll cheat and say everything. I love going into her room every morning and watching her wake up and enjoying how warm and snuggly she is when she’s still half-asleep. I love it when I go to pick her up from daycare and how she drops everything and runs toward me at full speed screaming “Daddy…Daddy… Daddy” at the top of her voice when she sees me come in. I continue to be amazed at the healing power of a kiss when she gets a “boo-boo” and I love that every time I ask her what she dreamed about when she wakes up, her answer is always “flowers, butterflies, rainbows and daddy”. I laugh when she’s telling me a story and all of a sudden pauses and says “Daddy, I lost my words” and I am astonished at how quickly all the stress and pressure of being completely responsible for her 100% of the time disappears when she sighs, thinks for a moment and says, “Daddy… I love you”.

To read more about this "Smarty Interview" please check in with CSP.

friday the 13th

Henry Ford would have hated 2009, and not just because it's been a tough year to sell cars. Ford, as the story goes, refused to do business on Friday the 13th, and this week marks the third time this year that the 13th will fall on a Friday — the most times it can happen in one year. In 2009 this applies to the months of February, March, and November. The next year to have three Friday the 13th dates will be 2015.

Fears surrounding the number 13 are as ancient as the act of counting. Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units, this explanation goes, so he could count no higher than 12. What lay beyond that — 13 — was an impenetrable mystery to our prehistoric forebears, hence an object of superstition. In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in 12 months of the year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 hours of the clock, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles of Jesus, 12 gods of Olympus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper that having 13 people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.

Friday's bad reputation goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It was on a Friday, supposedly, that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit, ejecting them from Paradise. Tradition also holds that the Great Flood began on a Friday; God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower of Babel on a Friday; the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday; and, of course, Friday was the day of the week on which Christ was crucified. It is therefore a day of penance for Christians.

But don't spend the day in the grips of paraskevidekatriaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th): If Wall Street is any indication, Friday the 13th may actually be a lucky day. The stock market, it turns out, tends to do better on Friday the 13th, rising by an average of .04 percent on each of the past 185 Friday the 13ths, according to the Bespoke Investment Group.

honor our veterans

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

The Veterans Day National Ceremony (pictured) is held on November 11th at Arlington National Cemetery. At 11:00 a.m., a color guard, made up of members from each of the military services, renders honors to America's war dead during a tradition-rich ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

Take a minute today and think of our veterans...