Minutes of Joint Annual Meeting of
Members & Board of Directors of
Sigma Chi Building Foundation
October 6, 2000

The annual meeting of the members of the Sigma Chi Building Foundation was held on Friday, October 6, 2000 at the Missoula Elks Club, Front Street and Pattee, Missoula, Montana.  Foundation President Richard Thompson called the meeting to order.  The following members were present:  

Richard Thompson, Mark Peterson, Tom Bulman, John Filner, Dave Skilling, Greg Beach, Bob Rowe, Don Oliver, Joe Ford, Ed Shaw, Walt Kero, Dean Stensland, John Rimel, R. J. Brewer, Brad Colberg, Rex Boller, Randy Harrison, and Dan Cederberg.

The members approved the minutes from last years annual meeting. 

President Rich Thompson gave a report on the Foundation's fundraising efforts.  Rich reported that an excess of two hundred thousand dollars has been pledged and that two-thirds of that amount had been collected. 

Rich next reported on work that had been done to the house in the past year.  The porch has been completed, the carport roof has been repaired and rolled roofing has been applied temporarily.  The galley doors from the porch had been taken down and restored.  Peterson was working on some electrical work in the house and also the fire escape.  The roof project is tentatively scheduled for next summer.

Rich Thompson also reported that he had talked to University of Montana President George Dennison about the Greek relations policy.  Rich indicated that he felt that President Dennison was willing to listen to some of our concerns about the policy.

It was reported that a Tom McKay had been rewarded a Balfour scholarship for the 2000-2001 school year.  Tom put on a scholarship dinner.  He was looking into Beta Delta versus Beta Rho scholarship challenge. 

The next item discussed was the Beta Delta money that had been deposited with the National Sigma Chi Foundation.  President Thompson indicated that a request to return the money to Beta Delta had been made last spring and that a follow-up had been submitted several weeks ago.  Rich indicated he would continue to follow up on that issue. 

President Thompson reported that the domain name of betadelta-sigmachi.org had been reserved by the Foundation and Dave Skilling’s company offered to provide some database services for the web site.  We currently have about 100 alumni email addresses.  Goal is to increase that number substantially to more effectively communicate by email.

Rich Thompson reported that about $10,000 had been spent on fund raisers in the last year. 

Brad Colberg gave a financial report.  He deferred to the report that Rich Thompson had given regarding the capital campaign.  Regarding operations, Brad reported that we had a negative cash flow approximately of fifteen hundred dollars for the period of June 30,1999 to June 30, 2000.  Brad provided a spreadsheet for both the operations end of the Foundation and the capital campaign portion of the Foundation.  Brad reported that we owed approximately sixty-five thousand dollars to First Citizens Bank of Columbia Falls and approximately sixty-five thousand dollars to the National Foundation.  Brad reported that the major expenses for the operation of the foundation were nineteen thousand dollars for loan payments, six thousand dollars for insurance, seven thousand dollars for taxes, and ten thousand dollars for maintenance.  Brad reported that we had spent approximately fifty thousand dollars of the capital campaign amount for videos, mailings and other fund raising expenses, repair of the brick work, some tile work, some roof work, a big-screen TV, some work on the galley doors and some electrical work.

The next item discussed at the meeting was work on the brick wall that surrounds the back yard of the chapter house.  It was indicated that complete repair of the brick wall was estimated to cost fifty thousand dollars.  Mark Peterson indicated he thought the work could be done more cheaply. 

A leak in the steam heat system of the House was discussed.  It was reported that the leak was not as bad as feared and was being repaired.  It was noted that the big project left to accomplish was the roof. 

Walt Kero addressed the meeting on policies for accepting gifts to the Foundation for the endowment portion of the foundation and an investment policy for the Foundation. Walt passed out copies of example policies for both gift acceptance and investments.  Both policies were based on the policies used by the university.  It was determined that copies of policies would be mailed out to directors not present and that the policies would be considered at future meetings.

The general maintenance of the House was discussed.  President Thompson thanked Mark Peterson and John Rimel for all the work they have done miscellaneous maintenance projects at the house.  It was indicated that they were working on getting the pocket doors fixed.

President Thompson recognized Rex Boller and R.J. Brewer for all their work on the return of the bell to the House and the installation of the bell in the field house.  It was noted that the dedication was to occur later today.

Chapter Advisor Ed Shaw indicated that he would be leaving as chapter advisor because of a transfer of his job duties.  The need to obtain a new chapter advisor was discussed.

There was a discussion of Mark Peterson rejoining the board of directors.  Mark Peterson and the entire existing slate of board members were re-elected to the board. 

There being no additional business to come before the members, John Rimel moved that the meeting adjourn.  Mark Peterson seconded the motion and it was unanimously passed.