August 2023: A Brand New Academic Year!
Get a fresh look at our collegiate members.
Hello Alumni Brothers!
A new academic year has started for our collegiate brothers of the Epsilon Alpha chapter, and they are already off to a running start. The majority of the chapter’s collegiate members are in the Rocket Marching Band (RMB) and as such got an earlier start than most other Toledo students.
Band Camp
This year, the chapter has 14 brothers in the Rocket Marching Band spread across drumline, woodwinds, and brass. 6 of these brothers are section leaders within the band. This means that roughly 1/4th of student leadership within the RMB are Sinfonians! On top of looking forward to this brand new marching season, these members have done an amazing job representing Sinfonia during band camp with these accomplishments.
As is tradition within the Rocket Marching Band, on one of the last days of band camp there is always a marching competition to see who the best marcher in the band is. This year Epsilon Alpha showed up in force and had 2 different brothers place in the top 3. Brother Xavier Robida took third place, and winning the entire thing was Thomus Maples taking first!
This year during band camp the collegiate brothers also brought Sinfonian Sausages to the RMB. To accomplish this many brothers sacrificed one of their breaks to help cook, sell, and serve hot dogs to many members of the RMB. This fundraiser was a great success for the chapter not just financially but also in getting the organization more well known within the RMB.
Goals and Efforts from the President
After talking with EA President Ben Doepker, here are his current goals and efforts for the chapter:
Membership
“Kicking off the semester we have a good outlook for recruitment and membership. Since attending the Involvement Fair, Music Organization Info Night, and already kicking off our fundraising with our first week of Sinfonian Sausages, many people not only new to the University of Toledo, but also returning have shown strong interest in the fraternity and coming to our rush events.”
Music
“Even though our academic year only just began this week, we have already performed two songs at the Music Organization Info Night: On and Ever Upward, and (a crowd favorite) Vive L’Amour. I am incredibly impressed with how we sound as a group, especially since this is our first time singing together in months, and the first time for some of our members to sing with us for an audience. On top of that, we have established a committee that will be focused on all aspects of our music, from finding new music to perform, arranging music, or just rehearsing music. With all of this together I believe we will have a great year of singing and performing.”
Fundraising
“As I stated earlier, we have already brought back Sinfonian Sausages once this year and we plan to keep hosting them bi-weekly (or more frequently as we see fit). On top of this, we are once again planning to sell T-Shirts with a new design during this semester.”
Philanthropy
“One of the most important ideals in this fraternity is our commitment to mankind through our Mill’s Music Missions, however, we have not been able to do any of these for the past few years. This year though, we plan to return to the tradition of doing a Mill’s Music Mission with our Probationary Members on their path towards membership. On top of this, I am hopeful that our current active brothers can do a Mill’s Music Mission of our own since we haven’t had the chance in so long.”
Brotherhood
“…I hope to see many of the current brothers in our chapter coming to as many province events and chapter meet-ups as they can…”
“One of my favorite parts about this fraternity is interacting with brothers on a larger scale than just within our own chapter and knowing that we represent more than just ourselves and that our ideals stretch to the lengths of the nation. Along with this, I hope to see many of the current brothers in our chapter coming to as many province events and chapter meet-ups as they can, which some will have their first chance to do so this semester on September 2nd and 3rd as UT’s marching band travels to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which is home to the Alpha Xi Brothers of Phi Mu Alpha.”