Kappa Chi is still young; we’re still coming up with our own service events, and trying out ideas that come from other chapters.

We’ve found a few general projects that seem to work really well for us. One of those is a Music Department Cleanup Day. All of our brothers get down and dirty by mopping, sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, polishing and organizing the music department. We try to do this around Homecoming time so the department looks in good shape for those alumni who are returning.

We also have our annual Instrument Bath Party. Brothers offer band members the opportunity to bring in their uniforms and we will clean and polish their uniform for a member, or help them do it. Band manager and Brother, Brenda Errichiello, also helped with some minor repairs that were needed. That event has always provided an excellent way for us to get our name out on campus and provide some great service at the same time.

Our huge service project that we have helped to facilitate is the Albion College Honor Band. Just recently, we have been in charge of organizing about 90 percent of the event. Honor Band is a two-day event where we bring in between 50 and 60 talented high school musicians from bands all over the state for clinics and a performance. In preparation for the event, Brothers Kevin Ryan and Jenna Caponey took charge and sought out the help of actives and PNM’s in order to organize music, rooming situations, dinner arrangements, and more. The honor band students came on a Friday where they rehearsed for a large portion of the day and night. In between practices brothers showed them around campus. For evening entertainment, we held movie showings and played Bingo and gave away Albion College British eighth prizes to the winners. On Saturday, the weekend of hard work came together with a concert put on by both the Albion College Symphonic Band and the Honor Band. Both bands played the final piece together.

The Honor Band project has been our most original and successful service project and we hope that it continues to flourish and grow as it has been in its five-year running. With Kappa Chi being such a young chapter, however, we are always looking for more service projects to do, especially those that are geared toward smaller bands/schools. If anyone has any great ideas that they would like to share with us, by all means, please do!

We hope that everyone has a great second semester and good luck with all that you are doing. See you at convention!

Respectfully Submitted,

Ashley Sobel
Corresponding Secretary
Kappa Chi
Albion College