| December Update Text:
Since I am over 3 months late on my updates, I thought I would
at least get it out of my mail box before 2002 rang in. I
apologize for the delay in getting this out. I was very unhappy
with the decisions made by National and my original response (and
update), drafted in September, needed a cool down period and then
I just frankly got very busy with a client in Houston. Several
items to cover this time:
- What happened with our proposal to the National Council
- Our Financial Status
- 7 Next Steps
The first order of business is what happened with our proposal
to National. Although I am very disappointed in the National
Council’s decision regarding our proposal (see
www.trianglealumni.com for details of the proposal) I believe that
we can still work something out. The bottom line is that the
Council did not accept our proposal but wants to continue with the
current situation and resolve the issue over time. They did offer
to forgive one debt line item (year 2 of the insurance bill),
which is interesting because it was one of the items I had agreed
to pay – go figure. I do take responsibility for this situation
since I was not able to attend the meeting and thus not able to
negotiate/resolve the issues they had real time. The Council wants
us to continue our collection efforts and then once we have drawn
that to a close we can sit down with them and negotiate the final
balance. For me this opens several more issues, not the least of
is if National has opened the door that they feel responsible for
allowing the last year of problems – forgiving the last year of
insurance because they let it go too long – then maybe we should
not have accrued any additional fees or charges during that period
and they are responsible for our collection problem since a
majority of the dollars of our receivables were created in the
last year of the active chapter.
Although I understand the Council's hesitation on setting
precedent, I personally feel they have rejected a more than fair
offer and have forced us to continue to have this issue over our
heads and not get it behind us and look to the future. I am very
interested in your opinions on my next action. Since I feel we
made our best offer which was also a fair offer, I am not
personally interested in changing the overall commitment. One of
my biggest goals was to resolve this and focus on other things, we
must now revisit that goal. We could make an assumption that
National is stretching this out to improve their collection
situation, which I actually think they have hurt, and that they
will never negotiate beyond the one item they have offered, for
fear of setting a bad precedent. If we accept this as our
situation then our most logical financial approach is to close
shop now and cut our losses, leaving them holding the entire debt
problem. We would then just roll ourselves into the DFW alumni
association (or other associations depending on where you live)
and continue the networking and brotherhood activities in that
venue just as we had planned under the UTA Charter. What I do not
want to happen is for the same mistake to be made twice and let a
situation drag on longer than it should. I think that any efforts
to facilitate UTA Alumni networking does not have to be affected
by what happens with the National issues, except the financial
commitment if we remain as a UTA Alumni Group (Approx $500/yr). My
recommendation is to submit our proposal (adjusting for their
reduction in the insurance bill) one more time to National,
explaining that no additional debt collection has come in and that
we do not plan to continue to pursue it in the future. If they do
not accept it then I suggest we formally close the doors on UTA
Triangle to limit accruing any more liabilities. Then, we
reorganize out networking environment in what ever way we feel
best suits our needs.
Many of you have made financial commitments and donations to
help us move forward on this issue. Be assured this was not done
under false pretenses and if we choose to follow the exit strategy
above I plan to return funds to the many of you that have
generously contributed to the organization.
Our Financial Status: We have moved the Alumni
accounts (including the "big 20" account) to Wells Fargo
to take advantage of the online capabilities and numerous
locations nation wide. We currently have a balance of
approximately $1,900. I will continue to accept donations over the
web site to maintain solvency and would still like to get another
$700-$1000 to ensure our stability. Please mail me a check of
charge it online if you can help out. If we close doors I will
return any remaining funds to those who contributed and do not
wish the funds to be used to facilitate networking efforts.
Next Steps:
1) I need to hear from you. I will probably follow my
recommendation above within the next 30-45 days unless I get input
from you to change/improve my approach.
2) We have now had about 40 brothers (actually pretty good
numbers) update their info on the web site, which are the primary
people I am sending this to. Please get brothers you do not see on
the list below to update their info, or at a minimum go to the
website and input their name and email for them if you know it. www.trianglealumni.com
3) If you have not donated anything to the treasury, please do
so if you can, every donation counts given our current funding
level. www.trianglealumni.com
4) Resubmit our proposal or our new decision to National within
6 weeks
5) We will hold a UTA Alumni Board meeting within the next
month, we will attempt to do this in person, but will hold it
virtually if schedules do not permit a face to face meeting. I
will send something out to the full list if the meeting plans will
facilitate a broader audience to attend
6) I am going to suggest that we celebrate Founders Day on
Saturday, April 20 and I will be glad to host it at my house.
Please mark this on your calendars and bring the kids and the
bathing suits!
7) Please send me an electronic picture of yourself (and your
spouse/kids if you have them) I would like to get a montage going
of everyone on the web.
Thanks for being patient and for excusing my tardiness. Please
send me some feedback or your thoughts so that we can include them
in our consideration of our next steps.
In F S & C
Mike Weikert
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If you are not on the list below, then I have sent this to you
from an email source other than an update from the web site -
please go to the site and send in your info again, hopefully it is
not due to an error on my side. (I did use an email list used by
Paul Naylor as one of my sources, that is why you may have
received it twice)
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Robert Baugh djthunderrjb@hotmail.com
Edward Pultorak e-pultorak@tamu.edu
William Weikert MIKE@BIGRIO.COM
Edward Iwanski eiwanski@belo.com
Robert McLain robert@robertmclain.com
Mark Middleton mark-m@tamu.edu
Warren Young III jycrafts@earthlink.net
Brink Robinson brinkrobinson@hotmail.com
Douglas Koehler doug.koehler@nokia.com
Eric Murrell emurrell@nortelnetworks.com
John Rogers berryr@microsoft.com
Scot Haire slh@vk.stanford.edu , scot.haire@lmco.com
Michael Diver michael.r.diver@lmco.com
Charles Bloomer charles.t.bloomer@intel.com
Harry Marshall dbanditus@yahoo.com
Donald Ingerson doning@flash.net
Philip Albenice Philip3@aol.com
Paul Bierwagen PBierwagen@hotmail.com
David Gonzales dgonzales@peoplepc.com
Cesar Deras cesar_deras@altavista.com
David Hillebrand david.hillebrand@sabre.com
Robert Colville robertcolville@hotmail.com
Rafael Serralta rserralta@aol.com
dave Fagerstrom davejoy@hotmail.com
Brian Persichitte b_persichitte@hotmail.com
Jeffrey Simmons jcs@eaze.net
Howard Bell seismo@omniport.net
Jonathan Coutu co21999@aol.com
Daniel Vedral dvedral@ci.irving.tx.us
Daniel Lyons djlyons@flash.net
Carl Droste carl@bigrio.com
Taylor Wilson Taylor@bigrio.com
Michael Hurt hurtster@swbell.net
Merle Newlon merlen@triangle.org
Bob Wilson wilsonb@abinews.com
William Buckalew w_buckalew@yahoo.com
Alan Stevenson astevens@sigsimonazzi-na.com
Paul Naylor pknaylor2001@yahoo.com
Patrick Mitchell vortex@overtheshoulder.net
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