Many of our chapters will be celebrating anniversaries in 2015. We want to be the first to express our congratulations to your chapters on the accomplishment of the many years of your wonderful relationship with Psi Iota Xi. We treasure you.
Take time to celebrate with your membership, and stop and reflect on all you have accomplished. What precious memories! 

The Indiana State Meeting

 

Greetings from the Indiana State Association

The 38^th Annual Indiana State Association meeting was held on Saturday, April 18, 2015 at Antioch Christian Church in Washington, Indiana.  It was hosted by Alpha Psi Washington Chapter.

Registered delegates and non-delegates came together to "Cheer on Psi Otes" and that is what we did.  Project proposals totaling $8,000 were voted on and approved.  A bylaw amendment was also made.

The Rotating Grant recipients awarded were (North) Eta Nu, Rensselear; (Central) Zeta Epsilon, Bargersville; (South) Epsilon, Columbus

Advisor Terri Resler and Alpha Psi Chapter member hope all those in attendance enjoyed the day of Sisterhood.  Many look forward to meeting again in June at National Convention.

Michigan Sisterhood Luncheon

Each year the sisters from the Michigan chapters gather together for Lunch. The chapters all donate to the Love Gift fund and take turns choosing a good cause to contribute to. This year Eta Omicron helped Michigan students.

Love Gift 2015  

 The 2015 love gift will provide funding for the purchase of three iPad Minis and cases for use within the special education and speech pathology classrooms at Haverhill Elementary in Portage, Michigan.  These iPads will provide educational support for children with special needs and incorporate technology exposure into their classroom environment in both individual and small group settings. Specifically, the use of educational applications will be used to encourage the improvement of vocabulary, spelling, reading, language formulation, speech sound productions and other academic areas.  Some of the students with more severe communication needs may even be able to utilize the iPads to facilitate their overall communication skills. 

 One specific example of how we will utilize the iPads includes: a small group of 5 and 6 year olds, facilitated by the speech language pathologist, will utilize an application called "Busy Bee Speech" to practice producing age-appropriate speech sounds.  This application has picture flash cards, matching games as well as interactive phrases, sentences and stories that the children can use to engage in practicing their speech sounds and expanding their sentences.  Another example, in the special education room, a small group of students, facilitated by the special education teacher, will utilize an application called "iTrace, Handwriting for Kids" to practice tracing and writing letters and words.  For students with more significant communication needs, and students who cannot produce intelligible speech, we have an application called "Touch Chat" on our wish list that allows an iPad to be used as a communication device with the ability for students to create and "speak" sentences through the device.

As we build our foundation of educational applications, our use for these iPads will expand.  We are beyond thankful and grateful to be given such a wonderful gift to support our students."

National Awards Ceremony

As always, there will be National Awards (certificates) presented at Convention 2015, however, after much discussion your National Council has eliminated a few awards.  Our goal was to keep TOP awards in the main categories of our philanthropic work.  We also have challenged ourselves to honor and praise as many chapters as possible in our District Meetings.  Here is our summary:

STILL TO BE AWARDED:

• Largest Amount Per Capita-All Music Projects
• Largest Amount Per Capita- All Art Projects (Fine Arts)
• Largest Amount Per Capita Contributed to Speech and Hearing Projects
• Largest Amount Per Capita Contributed to All Philanthropic Projects
• Largest Amount Per Capita to Literature/ Literacy Projects
• Largest Amount Per Capita for Other Projects- Community Outreach
• Volunteer Service Hours - Per Capita
• Louise Clark Convention Attendance Award - Given To the Chapter who had the best percentage of Attendees from the last Convention (2014) - Awarded in 2015

TO BE ELIMINATED - WITH RATIONALES:

• Largest Amount Given to Symphonies

RATIONALE-The amount of money given will also qualify for the All Music Projects Award. Council believes there was redundancy. 

• Largest Amount Given to All Cultural Projects

RATIONALE- This award was a combination of Music and Art, which are already awarded separately.

• Meeting Attendance Award - Best Percentage

RATIONALE- This award was originally intended to go to the Chapter that had the highest attendance % at scheduled monthly meetings.  It was inferred that this would be based on original scheduled dates with individuals present; but due to our culture today of rescheduling meetings to meet the needs of its members and new possibilities for electronic meetings, we want all chapters to be creative and flexible on how members participate within a chapter without being penalized.   With this said, this award does not represent the current organizational culture and will be retired.  

Thanks again to all chapters as you work for the betterment of OTHERS.

National Council

National Bylaws

This will be the second year of approving our Bylaws in a different way than in the past.  The National Bylaw Committee has 16 different proposals. We will be considering our Bylaws in their entirety, a "Part" at a time, and approving them a "Part" at a time.  There are only 5 "Parts" to our Bylaws.  If you would like to introduce any discussion or question, please be prepared to come to the microphone prior to the specific "Part" you would like to discuss. 

A copy of the Bylaws, as they were amended after Convention 2014 has been emailed to your Chapter President, along with a "mark-up" showing the proposals to be considered this year. 

Please make sure your delegates are informed as to your chapter's wishes, as they will be voting on them at Convention.  Please also bring a copy of at least the document with the suggested amendments with you to Convention.

(Part 1) The first two proposals (No. 1 and No. 2) bring the biggest change to the organization as a whole.  Please make sure your delegates are prepared to discuss these as the Bylaws are introduced during the appropriate business session at convention.

(Part 5) No. 14, if approved, would mean a fee increase of $5 per chapter.  This is to support the transportation line in the National General Fund Budget.

(Part 5) No. 15 is another very important amendment to discuss.   "The cost of insurance has been decreasing slightly each of the last few years, for the national organization.  The excess has been set aside in a separate "Insurance Deductible" account in case there would be a claim against the national organization.  The amount in the fund surpasses any deductible. 

National Council is proposing to "redirect" the insurance fee assessed to members during the next two years and let a partial cost for the insurance come from the excess in the "Deductible Fund." 

National Council proposes that $1 from the Insurance fee go to the National General Fund, and $1 go to the National Project Fund. $1 will go to the Insurance assessment, along with partial payment from the Insurance Deductible Fund. 

This proposal will allow for the National General Fund and the National Project Fund to see an increase, without increasing National Fees to the members for the next two years. There has not been an increase in National Fees since 2007." 

National Council continues to do its best to remain fiscally responsible in the best interest of the entire organization.

The last page of the Amendment document contains "Non-substantive" changes, which can be made without discussion by the convention body.

If you have questions, please contact Susie Lewis, National Vice President, at 765.4000.PIX (749).

Gamma Beta - Remington, IN

Each year the Gamma Beta Chapter of Remington IN sponsors a trip for the Tri-County 5^th grade students to the Discovery Concert, put on by the Indianapolis Symphony.    As part of sponsoring the trip, members are ask to volunteer as chaperones.     This year we had 3 members attend, Monett Cochran, Andrea English and Barb Harper along with 56 children and 3 teachers.    It was a beautiful Spring day, so after the wonderful concert the group enjoyed lunch on the steps of the War Memorial across the street from the Circle Theater.

Zeta Beta - Anderson, IN

This spring, members of Zeta Beta, local chapter of Psi Iota Xi sorority, created a grant specifically to benefit the speech and hearing programs of Madison County schools.  Therapists from South Madison Community School Corporation, Anderson Community School Corporation, Liberty Christian schools, Anderson Preparatory Academy, and Elwood School Corporation were recognized as recipients of the grant funds at a reception on April 10^th.  In addition, Zeta Beta recognized Meijer and Hoosier Park for their generous donations to this project. Pictured here are three of the fifteen therapists who received teaching aids: Valerie Robertson of Tenth Street Elementary, Jan Boudrot of Erskine and Anderson Elementary, and Mary Beth Brockley of Elwood Elementary.

Gallaudet 

We enjoyed traveling to Washington DC to see the 60th Anniversary Celebration Dance Concert at Gallaudet on Friday, April 3rd.
Our Psi Iota Xi scholarship recipient, Tanisha Russell (pictured here with us) performed in half the songs, along with both current and alumni dancers. The 3-hour concert was delightful, and included a wide variety of music, from "The Lord's Prayer" and "Amazing Grace," to modern songs by Usher and Bruno Mars.
Afterward we spent several minutes visiting with Tanisha, along with Sue Gill-Doleac (director of the Dance Company), the Director of Development and the President of the University.  Tanisha shared with us her goal is to become a special education teacher. 
The University President and his wife are both deaf, and his wife performed as a part of a duet in one of the songs in the concert.
There were three performances of the concert, over Good Friday and Saturday. Psi Iota Xi was mentioned with gratitude in the program, for providing a dance scholarship since 1994.  Ms. Gill-Doleac was excited to share with us which of the dancers would be the next to receive our scholarship.

Metropolitan Opera Winner

Do you remember Reginal Smith Jr. He was one of our winners a couple years ago. Where is he now?

Click Here to find out