State Mental Hospital

Psychology Club invited us last semester in one of Trinity's officer training sessions and it happened!

We sang some songs and mostly made things up as we went because we didn't know much about the hospital, what would be provided to us, or what to expect at all.

It ended up turning into a huge dance party. The patients have a DJ come and play music for them on Friday afternoons, and we were interrupting their dancing. They were really excited to dance with us and show off their moves. We taught them the electric eel! Overall, it was really fun and I hope we get to go back soon!

PR is tough stuff

Doing PR for the music department on top of all the president duties (and class work) is tough stuff!
1. Make a calendar for all the concerts for the entire year (this includes dates of events, deadlines for the Trinitonian, deadlines for designs, allotted time for redesigns, etc).
2. Design ads. This takes about 2 hours to make a realllly good ad. It's tough bc it's in black and white and you can't use colors to make words stand out. Tricky stuff. But Word is amazing and there are so many options now!
3. Contact faculty and see what they think of their ad. Make adjustments if needed (a bunch of emails and redesigning will occur)
4. Hang up fliers. Yay wandering around campus for hours!
5. Email CCI to print banners to hang in the student union and the dining hall and add the events to the whiteboard calendar. I'm envisioning lots of fighting with Mabee people to let me in to hang one poster.
6. Maintain contact with the Trinitonian- sign contracts, send them the ads for each concert and tell them the ad dimensions, etc etc (thanks Faith!)

If this was for a one time event, yeah no problem, but sometimes there are two per week or are one after the other and everything happens all at once and life gets crazy!

This is where all my Mu Phi attention has been going instead of planning fun things, so if you want to plan something fun, please do! I'll welcome the break!

Convention: Connected

After spending 3 days in meetings, workshops, recitals, and mingling sessions, I've come to realize what Mu Phi Epsilon is about.
I thought I understood the Music Friends and Harmony and took it as self explanatory.

There is so much more to it!


Did you know that there are
78 chapters?
531 new members from last spring?
1514 total members?

The theme of the convention has been Connected. There has been so much connecting and networking going on! I've met so many different people from all over the nation- collegiates and alums! But while I'm connecting with other chapters, how can you guys get the same benefit?
     Fan the official facebook page of the Fraternity and the Foundation's page.
     Register yourself as a member at http://muphiepsilon.org/ (great things are coming to this site!)
     Join the South Central Province facebook group to meet other Mu Phites in the state.
     Encourage your music friends at other schools to join their local chapter
    Find alum that might teach at your High School's district

I hope that the convention theme will continue through the following years.
Did you know that there are 15 active chapters of Mu Phi Epsilon in the state of Texas? Did you know that there are Mu Phi chapters at Our Lady of the Lake University and Texas State? Those are both so close! St. Mary's University is getting a charter this year! Also, the city of San Antonio has an Alumni Chapter & Dr. McNeil is the president! There are sooo many networking opportunities for us!

I'm envisioning a huuuuge Founders Day celebration on November 13th with all the nearby chapters. It's an event we'd all have separately, so why not have a joint ceremony/recital?

New Mu Phi friends from Michigan, UNT, TCU, Ohio, & Baylor!

In other news, I am ready to get back! I miss Texas, Mexican food, 100 degree weather, and all my Trinity friends that are there getting ready for the upcoming school year! It's going to be a great one!

Convention Day 1

4 am- wake up (and just as a warning, this is the reason for any spelling mistakes or crazed sounding comments that I might type right now...or for the rest of the week for that matter)
4:15am - eat breakfast
4:30am - go to airport
5:45am - finally check my bag and make it through security
6:00am - get on plane (next to mother and her infant...didn't sleep)
6:30am - depart for Chicago (delayed)
9:15am get to Chicago
9: 20am get on new plane to go to Rochester (thank the MOE Convention gods that the gate I just got off of was right next to my new gate, bc other wise i wouldn't have made it)
11ish? (time at this point was blurring together) - arrive in Rochester
At the airport- use my MOE jersey to attract other Mu Phi members- it worked. Five came flocking towards me after I got off the plane
Take shuttle to hotel
Check in to hotel and convention
Spend the afternoon in the hotel room telling myself i'm going to sleep, but instead my exhaustion told me to call Heather, so I rambled to her for a while about Mu Phi, Rochester (it's like 80 degrees and it RAINED- what is this miracle?) while going through my goody bag. MOE Chap Stick FTW!

Mingle time! Hang out with Elda (our district director who came to initiation). All the alum were mingling and chatting and new everyone else and all the collegiates were standing around awkwardly trying to meet people to avoid being all alone. Elda introduced me to the other Texas chapters that were there- the pres and vp from Texas State and the pres of Baylor. We all snagged a table at the back of the ballroom where we had our welcome meeting. There was music and there were awards and there was singing. Lots of Mu Phi songs. I made videos! I'll post them for you all soon. So fantastic. We should sing all the time.

Ok i'm going to sleep now. update later. fb pictures are up

International Convention tomorrow!

Hello everyone!

Tomorrow I'll be heading out to represent our fantastic Beta Kappa Chapter at the International Mu Phi Epsilon convention in Rochester, New York!

I just finished printing out the giant packet of Bylaws from the last convention in 2008 (the conventions are every 4 years with district meetings the two proceeding years and an off year following).

I've been looking at the schedule for the 4 day adventure and there is going to be A LOT of music. Basically every hour, we have a musical interlude. There will be performances during meal times, during business meetings,  in the evenings, basically all the time.

I'm hoping that I'm not the only music minor that just so happens to love Mu Phi more than anything in her major. I'm figuring that there has to be another chapter like Trinity's that is pretty chill with a wide range of interests.

A side goal I have for this trip is to find the representatives from nearby chapters (UTSA & Texas State mostly). How awesome would it be if we had a huge Founders Day celebration with the other chapters and alumni from all over the SA area? I think it would be fun to get to know other Mu Phi members and see how other chapters function.

Ok, now I have to go pack. Which will be a process because I still have clothes in my suitcases from just moving into my apartment, so unpacking, packing... story of any college student's life.

Then I'll get on a plane (at 6am. boo) and the next you'll hear from me will be from New York!

Mu Phi Lovin'
Alexa

The Calendar is coming together!

I am getting excited about Mu Phi for next year!
We have a huge club (largest our chapter has ever been) and there are so many wonderful members/leaders/ performers/musicians among us!

Here's a little glimpse at what goes on behind Mu Phi (for those who might want to be an officer in the future):

An officer has to know what's going on with the Chapter at all times.
This includes Chapter events, but before we can plan Chapter events, we have to know when the Music Department events and the University events are (which usually aren't set in stone until we get our Trinity planner the first day back). Then there are always the events that sneak up on you and makes Chapter events unable to happen. "then plan less events" someone might say - "NO!" Is what i have to say! I love Mu Phi and want to hang out with you all as much as possible!

The officers actually have to do paperwork. We don't function independent of the International organization- They're the ones that have to do all the difficult paperwork! We have to report all of our members (candidates, then initiates, then active members, then if they go inactive, when they graduate, etc) and then there are all the forms to get membership manuals, pins, certificates, all that good stuff. It's actually not difficult at all. The forms are easy to read and there aren't really that many of them. For most of them, when money isn't needed, I just email whoever needs the information.

Most of the time, we try to be two steps ahead of the chapter and the university. It takes a lot of planning to make sure deadlines are made to keep the International office happy, CCI happy, and events are at convenient times to keep members happy.

I love it! It's so rewarding to put in all that hard work and planning to have a successful event, semester, and year! And I get to work with fantastic people. I'm talking about other officers and members, duh! Seriously, you all are so fantastic!

Ok, now i'm ready to get back to Trinity bc i miss you all!

Officers are going to have our summer meeting Sunday, so you all will definitely hear from me soon with all the important dates for next year!

Here's a choir meme for funzies-

Nyan Nyan Nyan

For those of you who are enjoying summer, but find you don't have a lot going on, let this video fill the void. Playing this video at all times will make your life much more interesting.

You know a video is important when YouTube gives it its own custom progress bar. If you want, you can also combine the song with just about any video and it will make it better. It even makes Slipknot worth watching (zing?) as seen below.

You know you loved this.