2008 Auburn Club Year-In-Review__________
Name of Club: St. Louis Auburn Club President: Nelda Lee ‘69 Please provide a brief review of a special club event your local Auburn Club held: Annual Scholarship Dinner The most special club event in 2008 was the Annual Scholarship Dinner and also the 25th Anniversary for the St. Louis Auburn Club. The scholarship dinner is special because the club has been consistent in awarding a scholarship to a St. Louis high school senior who plans on attending Auburn. The St. Louis Auburn Club first met in 1982 and became an official club in 1983. It is not known when the first scholarship was awarded; however for the past 25 years, the club has given an annual scholarship when funds have been available. In 2008, the club awarded a $2000 scholarship to Courtney Phillips, a graduate of Parkway North High School, who is now a student at Auburn. Why is this event special and outstanding? The club is located approximately 650 miles from Auburn with a general roster of 133 alumni. Not being located in the south and without a large alumni base, the consistency of awarding a scholarship is outstanding. The St. Louis Auburn Club may be one of the few clubs outside the state of Alabama and the south to award a scholarship with this history of consistency. Also to the best of the club’s knowledge, no other SEC club in the St. Louis area awards a scholarship to a local high school graduate. The exact date for the first St. Louis Auburn Club scholarship dinner is not known but pictures are available from 1982 and this is considered the first dinner. In 2000 the dinner was renamed in memory of founding club member Bill Sullivan. The 9th Annual Bill Sullivan Scholarship Dinner was held at Sheraton Westport Chalet on Monday, July 28th and approximately 43 members, family, and friends attended along with Courtney Phillips, scholarship recipient and graduate of Parkway North High School. A $2000 scholarship was awarded. Guest speakers were James Willis, Linebacker Coach and Scott Greenwood, Office of Alumni Affairs. A special recognition was read in remembrance of St. Louis Past President Bill Sullivan. Bill was one of the founding club members and served as President, Secretary/Treasurer, and Secretary/Treasurer of the St. Louis SEC club which has since disbanded. Silent Auction A Silent Auction was held in conjunction with the Scholarship Dinner. Special thanks were extended to 23 contributors who made the silent auction very profitable and successful. In addition a Raffle was held. Items raffled were an autographed Tommy Tuberville football, the cookbook “There’s a Tiger in the Kitchen” signed by Dean Foy and Aubie, and a Weber Smoker Grill. For both events approximately $ 1,540 was raised for the scholarship fund. In addition
autographed copies of the book “Hard Fighting Soldier” by Chette Williams were available for sale. Another special event was the recognition of St. Louis Auburn Club Past Presidents. Fourteen were recognized by displaying their names on a blazing orange rocking chair. Another activity that was initiated by Linda was a 50/50 raffle at all the football watch parties. Her initiative generated approximately $ 178 for the scholarship fund. Club Restart In recent years the St. Louis Auburn Club had lost its momentum and enthusiasm as a club with its membership declining and no participation and no goals or growth identified. The St. Louis Auburn Club needed a “restart”. In 2008 new officers were elected and new committees were formed and new initiatives and goals were put in place. It was a very active and productive year. The newly elected President attended the Leadership Conference in February 2008 and learned about other clubs and the Club Program expectations. Until this meeting very little was known or communicated to the club regarding goals, awards, and membership. The membership only had the Alumni website as a source of info regarding other clubs and activities and communication. St. Louis Auburn Club Website The St. Louis Auburn Club developed a website with multiple purposes of serving Auburn University, Club members and the local St. Louis community. Goals for the project included: 1) Enhance awareness about the St. Louis Auburn Club and Auburn University to existing and new audiences. 2) Provide a new and alternative method of communication for St. Louis Auburn Club messages. 3) Provide opportunities for existing and new audiences to interact with St. Louis Auburn Club with communication flowing both ways – from the Club and from the audience. The website pages are: Homepage – to provide content which explains who the St. Louis Auburn Club is and why they exist. President’s Message – to provide President’s communications on the Club activities and goals Schedule of Events – to provide logistics for a full calendar of club and community events Support Us – to provide information on the many ways that members and friends can get engaged by offering their time, talent and treasures Contact Us – to provide ease of access to the Club’s Communication Director with a direct link as well as information about the Club’s Officers Guestbook – to provide an interactive element of communications with members or friends being able to communicate to the Club and to other members Footer navigation – with connection to Auburn Alumni Association, Auburn Athletics, Tiger Troops, Shopping Link to Tiger Rags, and Tailgating Recipe Website statistics tools – for tracking visitor traffic. The website has had almost 40,000 hits and 6,000 page views. Scholarship Dinner – to announce plans and results of this most outstanding club event Eagle and Tiger – to make members aware of this community sponsor opportunity Archived President’s Message Photo Album – a Flickr account featuring photos and mages of Club members at Club events and activities.
Community Service St. Louis Auburn Club members all believe in the Auburn creed which has taught us human touch and love of country…which we apply to the community where our members reside. Because of this, community service is not one project for the St. Louis Auburn Club, but rather an ongoing spirit which is part of the Club’s identity and purpose as it participates in and supports the St. Louis community. Our community service efforts in 2008 included: February – Katrina Relief and Mardi Gras Party hosted by the Riley’s, 25 attended. May – St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Game, 50 attended. June – Adopted an Eagle from the World Bird Sanctuary for $150 and a Tiger from the St. Louis Zoo for $150 (same website pages below). August – Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site Night Walk, 12 attended. October – St. Louis Walk for Autism, 8 attended. November – Canned Food Drive for Local Food Bank at the Watch Parties. Additionally, the Club website is used to post arts, cultural and historical community events for awareness and participation. See http://www.auburnstl.org/ on the Schedule of Events page for these event details. Auburn Watch Parties and SEC Activities There were two club activities that were strengthened during 2008. One was to communicate with members and local businesses and hold weekly Watch Parties for Auburn Football Games. Five parties were held in local St. Louis restaurants, four were in member’s homes, and one was a Club trip to Nashville for the Vanderbilt game. All of the details for these parties were posted on the club website. Because of the focus on this activity, the St. Louis Auburn Club has maintained record number of watch parties and record attendance at these parties. Average attendance for all was approximately 25 members and friends. This is just under 20% of our alumni roster of 133. Several members also attended games at Auburn and also away and 14 members drove to Nashville for the Nashville Auburn Club Watch Party and Vanderbilt game. The SEC is a conference of tradition with a focus on athletics, education and good sportsmanship. It is in this spirit as well as in the Auburn creed spirit that the Club took on a new Club initiative to engage with other SEC Clubs. All SEC schools in the St. Louis area were contacted with an interest in meeting with their members and holding SEC events throughout 2008. The initiative was a tremendous success due to creative ideas and persistence in contacting the other clubs. Five SEC events were developed and coordinated which included: LSU Crawfish Boil (LSU was the sponsor but lacked participation) SEC Club Picnic (Auburn was the sponsor and new in 2008) SEC Softball Game (Arkansas was the sponsor and lacked participation) SEC Football Kickoff Party (Auburn was the sponsor and new in 2008) SEC Golf Scramble (Auburn was the sponsor and new in 2008) Regretfully the SEC Golf Scramble was rained out due to Hurricane Ike. All other events were a success and the only SEC Clubs not making contact with our club were Mississippi State, Kentucky, and South Carolina. In 2009 many of these events will be repeated and an SEC Trivia Night is being planned.
Club Membership, Branding and Promotion Growing our membership was a 2008 goal of the St. Louis Auburn Club. Currently there are 133 names on the alumni roster and 167 names on the e-mail distribution roster. Regretfully the club did not find the “spark” that helped increase our membership as we had hoped. However, our efforts were not in vain. A stable base of about 25 active members helped generate a lot of activities for the club and also contacts with a lot of new potential members and this resulted in new younger alumni joining us. The younger alumni have attended events on an irregular basis but have paid membership dues and are willing to attend events when they can. Our club views this as a good start to reaching our membership goal and this will continue to be a priority in 2009. The club worked the membership challenge in several ways this year. To support attendance at monthly meetings, several business meetings were held in the homes of Directors Tommy Gordon and Carolyn Sullivan. To provide information about the Alumni Association and current events at Auburn, the Auburn News was distributed to the entire distribution roster and members were encouraged to join the Alumni Association and participate in events. To better serve the St. Louis Auburn Club, the incoming 2008 President attended the Leadership Conference in February 2008. To help brand and identify the club, a club logo was created with the help of Tiger Rags. This logo is attached at the top of this report. Tee shirts with the club logo were ordered as soon as possible. The club also purchased stadium cups and business cards with the club logo from Waters Advertising. To better help the club operate and serve the members, an annual membership fee was implemented in 2008. Also to better serve the growth of the club, the 2008 committees in place are membership, communication, website, scholarship/silent auction, watch parties, SEC, community events/sponsorships, and fund raising/marketing. In 2009 a bylaws committee will be added. Last but not least, to better inspire the Auburn Spirit, the Auburn Creed was read at every meeting by all attending because the St. Louis Auburn Club Believes in Auburn!
Please provide feedback/comments/suggestions on the Auburn Club Program as a whole. Successes and Failures: In respect to the Auburn Club Program, the website is great help but having a contact person is the best help of all. When help is needed a quick phone call will bring immediate response because someone is readily available and follow-up will happen if needed. Also emails are received from the Alumni Association on a timely schedule with pertinent and current Auburn news and also reminders for club reports. Communication is at the heart of the Auburn Club Program success and communication with the Alumni Association is greatly appreciated and the key to our success. If there are failures I suppose it would be because the St. Louis Auburn Club is approximately 650 miles from Auburn and not close to any Auburn activity or other clubs. The alumni in the St. Louis area are scattered and are either not dues paying alumni members or do not have the interest or time to get involved in the local club. I suppose not being located in the Southeast is a part of this non-interest. The local TV news and newspapers are more focused on Big 12 and Big 10 conferences. The St. Louis Auburn Club membership is small but certainly could be larger because there are many Auburn Alumni in the St. Louis area. How to get these alumni involved in club activities is the biggest challenge our club has to overcome!
Are there any ways the Alumni Affairs staff could have been more helpful, etc? If so, please elaborate: A contact person from the Alumni Affairs office typically attends the St. Louis Auburn Club annual scholarship dinner in July. This is a quick one day trip and the alumni person is one of the guest speakers at the dinner. At this dinner information about Auburn is available to the members who attend but there is not enough time for good conversation or information exchange. The club needs to have more contact time with someone from the affairs office who can help with club operations and goals and alumni membership. If Alumni officers travel in the St. Louis area, it would be good to know so that our members can plan time with them. Also if the Rapture Program travels in this area, it would also be good to have them bring an Eagle as a means to connect with Auburn and to also promote membership growth in our area. It would also be useful to know of Auburn Alumni or friends of Auburn who are key company and community leaders in the St. Louis area. It was recently learned that a professional musician with the St. Louis Symphony is the father of a current Auburn student who is President of the Plainsmen. There are many connections with Auburn in the St. Louis area and just need to be found and contacted. The Leadership Conference is a big help to connecting with Auburn and will certainly help if club officers can attend.
Other comments: The St. Louis Auburn Club goals for 2008 were: Increase Membership Strengthen Connection with Auburn University Full club scholarship Goal accomplishments were: Membership growth in 2008 was minimal with 4-6 members. The 2009 goal is to grow membership by 15% - 20 members. Strengthen Connection with Auburn University. Very successful results as noted in this report. The 2009 goal is to continue to grow this connection and broaden the clubs vision and promotion in the St. Louis area. Full club scholarship. Goal not reached; however, an annual scholarship for $2000 was awarded in July. The 2009 goal is to award an annual scholarship at the dinner in July and continue to pursue establishing a full $25K scholarship.