Trivia lovers will have a chance to battle their wits to win a Starbucks gift card tonight in Parent’s Hall. Hosted by Alpha Phi Omega, Trivia Night will begin at 6 p.m. and cost $25 for teams of five or $7 for individual players. Funds raised will help to send 10 of the chapter’s members to nationals Dec. 27-30 in Atlanta.
The tournament will consist of 10 rounds with 10 questions each, with points awarded for correct answers and the top point earners at the end of the night will take home the Starbucks gift cards. Refreshments, courtesy of Sodexo Catering, will be provided throughout the night.
Ten members of Alpha Phi Omega plan to travel to Atlanta in December at an approximate cost of $5,500, which includes airfare, conference registration and lodging. To help send members, the chapter organized Poker Night, which took place Saturday, Nov. 5, in addition to selling Silly Bandz and Community Day booklets.
The conference, which takes place biannually, provides APO members from across the country with a forum for sharing ideas for service, fellowship and leadership: the core values of the service-oriented, co-ed fraternity.
“I’m excited to meet people from other chapters and hear how they run their meetings,” said junior APO member and trivia night coordinator Batiesha Boeker. “We’ve learned from attending regional conferences that the way we do things and the way other chapters can be very different.”
Senior Sarah Tucker, the president of APO, said, “The National Convention is an amazing opportunity, not only for us as a chapter, but for our campus and community as well. We are most interested in ways to reach more of our community and offer bigger service projects, not only for our chapter, but for all Drake students to participate in.”
The membership of Alpha Phi Omega has tripled over the past year, beginning with a nearly 70-member pledge class in spring 2010 and a fall pledge class of nearly 50 members preparing to be activated this weekend. The current membership stands at nearly 150 members.
“We are unbelievably excited for how much our chapter has grown,” Tucker said. “The new members that have been welcomed into the fraternity in the past year bring a new level excitement to Alpha Phi Omega at Drake.”
The increased membership has posed a leadership challenge for APO that conference attendees hope to seek solutions to by interacting with fellow brothers at the National Convention.
“Right now, since our chapter is growing so quickly, we don’t know how to handle a significantly larger group in the best ways,” Boeker said. “We want to learn new ways to accommodate our new members and still feel like an APO family.”
Photo courtesy of Alpha Phi Omega
