A Group That I Am a Member Of

Question: Describe a group you are a member of (online community, church, job, etc.) and how it is organized. Is there management? How is information distributed within the group?

Answer: I am in a fraternity here at JMU that consists of roughly 30 members currently, but we expect about 10-15 new members this semester. We put on many events, such as parties and philanthropy, and doing so takes a lot of work and planning that require communication among all members. We have an executive board that is elected every spring for one year terms, consisting of a president, VP, treasurer, scribe (secretary/recorder) and several other positions. These are the people that we literally call "management." They are in charge of ultimately making decisions and dealing with both the university and our nationals in Charlottesville, but they consult the entire fraternity daily on important issues.

Our main tool of communication is through Gmail. Gmail is not only e-mail, but the best way to do e-mail because of how you can do threads. We communicate multiple times daily through Gmail as it gets to every members' eyes so rapidly when we use this format. Another way that we communicate and make decisions is our weekly meetings at the main fraternity house on either Sunday or Monday nights. At these meetings, our exec board will take turns bringing up the important issues for the week under their office, and then we will all together discuss the issues behind every upcoming event and then ultimately come up with a decision - usually by vote.