January 2014 What's up with the west

What’s Up in the West?

January 2013

Gamma - KKPsi

Volume 1 Issue 4

These past few weeks Gamma has been working really hard! We really wanted to focus on innovative service projects, improving our musicianship, and strengthening our brotherly bonds.

We’re excited to assist with Regional Solo & Ensemble contests and revamp the school of music’s bands brochure. We’re working towards having standing ensembles and expanding our knowledge of different instruments. Mostly, we had such a blast kicking off district season with WAGON States’ Days and were so happy to have spent an entire weekend with brothers and sisters from around the district. Shout out to the Fishbowl enthusiasts, everyone who played in the reading band, and Mike Wazowski and Regina George for their appearances on Saturday Night. Photos from WAGON weekend can be found on our Facebook page, as well as information about District Leadership Conference which we will be hosting in just 3 weeks!! We can’t wait for everyone to come experience Seattle (again) and we’ll see you soon!

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Omicron - TBSigma

Hello Sisters and Brothers,

Happy New Year for all! For this year, Omicron has been making preparations for Utaho State Days, making sure we have everything we need for homestays, profit shares for everybody coming, and service projects for the big weekend. With our big fall semester class, we have returned to our original chapter size and have become our most active participants for the year.

Our new members have demonstrated a huge set of enthusiasm for TBS district season.

Not only have they become members, the Phi Class led a very successful independent Service Project. It became the whole chapter’s priority to help this class’ project and volunteer at the children’s hospital. They had a student group comprised of the chapter play for anybody who dared to conduct them and play holiday tunes for them. It was a great opportunity to watch all members come together and unite to bring joy for this holiday project. It was very successful with very many happy volunteers conducting for the first time and teach them the basics of the craft.

Omicron has also had some new editions to the chapter. We welcome Chloe Bolton as the new Vice President of Membership. She has kindly taken on the role with jubilance as Omicron rushed over this month for Spring semester class. With four promising prospective members!

PsiEK - KKPsi & TBSigma It is a new quarter here at UCLA, and PsiEK is starting 2014 off with a bang. Recruitment season has finally arrived, and both chapters are proud to introduce their new candidate classes: Beta Rho of Psi, and Alpha Sigma of Epsilon Kappa. We are looking forward to welcoming new brothers and sisters into our bond. Candidate business, service projects, and social events are sure to keep us busy this quarter. Go Bruins!

Omega - KKPsi January has been an exciting month for the Omega Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi. We are currently in the middle of our spring recruitment week. We have had a great turnout and we look forward to the rest of the semester. During recruitment week, the joint Omega chapters, along with additional band members, volunteered at Ben’s Bells. Ben’s Bells is a local charity that creates hand painted bells and distributes them around the Tucson community to encourage kindness. Earlier this month, the Joint Omega chapters had the opportunity to play music at Hundred Palms Nursing Home. This playing gig was initiated by one of our sisters and is informally known as Nancy’s Gig. We now enjoy playing for them at least once a semester! We are looking forward to District Season and spending time with brothers and sisters!

Beta Omicron- KKPsi Beta Omicron has done some pretty exciting things in December and January! We held our Delta Nu class’ Second Degree on December 1st. 23 Prospective Members went through this degree to keep them excited about their process through winter break! Beta Omicron also went with the Sun Devils to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego! We got to march in a parade and walk all over downtown San Diego while performing service all the time! The score of the game doesn’t matter because most of us have already forgotten that the Holiday Bowl even existed (because we were supposed to be in the Rose Bowl…right).

When classes started up in January, Beta Omicron got right in on their game. The Sun Devil Pep Band has been supported by all kinds of service from Beta Omicron. BO helps the rhythm and percussion sections set up and tear down every game and rehearsal. Beta Omicron also got to rock out with OAR on Wednesday, January 29th at the WM Phoenix Open. Wearing marching band uniforms one last time, the Sun Devil Pep Band was able to perform two tunes in an encore with the band. If you would like to see our beautiful faces, it’s probably on YouTube.

The first weekend of February, BO is helping with the Arizona Music Educators Association conference in Mesa. We’re working with our Brothers from Gamma Kappa and our Alpha Chi sisters to make this event run smoothly! ITB service is totally what BO is about!

Gamma Kappa - KKPsi Gamma Kappa is back in full swing once again for this semester. We are looking forward to a great semester as we are prepping for our spring class, Beta Tau, as well as to hosting Arizona State Days at the end of February. Our recently added new brothers, the Beta Sigma class, are adjusting quickly into the chapter and are striving greatly so far.

We will be hosting the Ritual of First Degree for our Beta Tau class on February 8th at 9:30am and will be hosting Arizona State Days, February 28-March 1. Besides just hosting these events in February, a lot of brothers here are really excited for WDC. We hope to see you all very soon! AEA

Iota Pi- KKPsi Iota Pi has been having a very busy month. We are proud to announce 13 new members of our Alpha Alpha Class! This is very exciting for us because we have finally gone past our single letter classes. Many of us are also preparing for our trip to San Francisco on Feb 15 (yes, sadly Iota Pi will not be able to attend DLC) for the Chinese New Year Parade. We have been practicing our parade marching by marching around campus and setting of car alarms. We have also just finished our huge event, Run For Music. We had about 120 participants total run the event. We even had alumni come back and run the race!

Lambda Psi - KKPsi

The Lambda Psi chapter of San Jose State University ended the Fall 2013 semester with a bang! We had a fun holiday party with a huge potluck, fun Secret Santa gift exchange, and much Brotherly love.

There was some competition involved too, of course! We play our ownversion of Jeopardy, Continued Membership Education style. Over Winter Break, our Brothers have been diligently planning for the Spartan Marching Band’s annual Band Banquet at a local restaurant, which includes a formal dinner, raffle, awards, presentation of the band video, band t-shirt contest, dancing, and more. We are eager to begin the new semester with a fresh start on service projects.

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