
Founders Day 2014
Dear brothers and friends: Our annual Founder’s Day dinner was held April 4 at Spirito’s restaurant. As you all know National Founder’s day celebrations take place in February and this year mark’s the 169 year of Phi Psi but in true “independent man” traditions of R.I. Beta we celebrate in April. If you remember the havoc created by the blizzard of 2012 it makes sense to hold our celebrations when the odds are in our favor that the weather is more temperate and our turnout confirms the decision. We had 46 attend the event with representation from our own undergraduate RI Beta colony members and a contingent from the Rhode island Alpha chapter from Brown Univ. As always the team at Spirito’s out did themselves with a great meal and again this year we all enjoyed the product of Br. Pat Rossoni’s hard work to recreate and digitize all of our composites with a slide presentation of our college pictures flashed up on the big screen. Thanks Pat. Lowest consecutive number goes to Gerry Miller #22 with Eric Hall at the top end at #1005. Thank you to Bruce Tavares as master of ceremony this year introduced two distinguished guest speakers. From the ranks of R.I. Beta alumni our very own Russ Jeffrey who provided an educational presentation of the world according to hedge funds. In addition we were honored to have National Fraternity President Emeritus Jim Blazer provide a motivational speech of the paths he has taken in life and the history of Laurel Hall. Thank you to Russ and Jim for their inspired presentations of how you can accomplish truly great things in life with hard work and with the help of your brothers. The RI Beta Colony reported the current colony stands at 17 with spring rush expecting to add more members to its ranks. Bruce Tavares and his advisor team have been meeting weekly with the colony in sustaining the growth effort needed to re-establish our chapter status with National. If anyone is interested in helping Bruce please reach out to him at tavaresfamily2@verizon.net Thank you to Team Tavares for your efforts and keep up the good work! During the annual AHC meeting of the evening’s festivities, Br. Conti delivered the AHC year in review status update. We continue to lease 4 Fraternity Circle to Zeta Tau Alpha for another year with a mortgage owed of $740,000. The AHC continues to manage the property in the best interest of supporting the future undergraduate brotherhood. As we reach the end of our lease and now with the resurrection of the colony the difficult decision turns to the economics of continuing to occupy 4 Fraternity Circle. The University continues to develop a Fraternity Circle improvement plan and planning for a second “Fraternity Circle” to expand the available property for future Greek housing. Thank you all around to the brothers who served on the AHC over the past year. These are very exciting times for RI Beta and the year ahead will continue to bring hard work for the AHC. We look forward to the challenges that await the new AHC board. Elections for the AHC were held and once again I am honored to write this letter on behalf of the new board of directors of our house corporation. The following brothers were elected and the selection of officers held at our first meeting on April 21; Chris Conti #400 – President, Eric Hall #1005 – Vice president, Joe Hart #431 – Treasurer, Paul Lombardo #946 – Secretary, Bruce Tavares #250 – National chapter advisor, Ray Marshall #171 – IAC building committee chairman, Patrick Johnson #979 – Member at large, Glenn Stratton #168 – Member at large, Tom Linhares #142 – Member at large, Walter Augustyn - #258 – Building committee chairman, Patrick Rossoni #260 – Historical committee chairman, John Spagnolo #126 – Member at large, James Norman #8 – Honorary member at large, William Bowers #15 – Honorary member at large, and congratulations to our newest inductee into the “Honorary” hall of fame, Lee Arnold #28 – Honorary member at large. Please congratulate each of these brothers for their willingness to serve our brotherhood. For all those that attended this year’s event thank you and for all those that missed out please put April 3, 2015 on your calendar for next year’s dinner. Thank you all for your continued support for the mission of your AHC and R.I. Beta. I look forward to seeing you all at the Pop-top golf event September 13. Fraternally, CC#400…