​This quarter, chapter was able to participate in various Western District Monthly Active Challenges (MAC). The themes for the various months were Outstanding Service October, Thankful 4 Music November, and Secret Santa December. These challenges included writing what service means to you for October, attending three concerts for November, and participating in a district-wide Secret Santa for December. Our chapter’s participation in these activities allowed us to be more involved in the District’s events, in addition to appreciating various aspects of our fraternity’s values.

​As we continue to do the challenges for the rest of the year, we hope to promote fraternal values to as many brothers and sisters as we can. It has been a great period of correspondence; the opportunity to collaborate with other chapters and share our own experiences has been a great way to get more involved with the district. Brothers appreciated the chance to reflect on their ideals of service, the emphasis on engaging with music, and the opportunity to spread some joy across different campuses. We look forward to future MAC’s and Western District Correspondence.

Welcome to Get to Know a Family, which will feature a different Psi Family and it’s members each quarter!

This first spotlight will feature Wu-Tanj. Small but mighty, its current members include Emily Liu (BΦ), Emma Davis (BΦ), Sofia Alemania (BY), and Tia Liu (BT).

The name Wu-Tanj comes from a combination of the name of its founder, Christian Tanja (BH), and Wu, the lovable blue plush penguin who joined the family as a result of the efforts of Eric Kveton (BΛ). Since joining the family, Wu has been passed down from generation to generation of Wu-Tanj littles and has been incredibly well loved throughout the years. In addition to their mascot, old and new members of Wu-Tang alike are most recognizable by their iconic navy blue letters.

​Apparent in its strong connections and rich traditions, Wu-Tanj is a family that is built upon genuine appreciation and love for one another.
(PC: Tia Liu Photography)

As is usual during marching season, the Psi chapter did almost all of its service either for or regarding the band this quarter. The first thing we did was fix the steps leading up to Gordon’s tower. This actually started back in Spring, but some logistical issues meant it got done over the course of the summer as well and was completed in early September. We didn’t touch the metal frame, but Gordon spent this season walking up all new planks to the tower. Some other things we did before band camp were more aimed at welcoming new members to the band. These included sending postcards to all of the incoming freshmen in late August and then stationing people on the hill during their move-in times to help with any questions they might have. Our big summer project, however, was mostly unrelated to UCLA’s marching band: volunteering at local high school band camps. Towards the start of break, we sent some people over to Venice High to help out with their newly restarted program; and later, in August, we had some brothers and sisters help out at Long Beach Poly’s camp.

Once school started, our service focus continued to be mostly on the band. Starting with band camp and running all the way until daylight savings time ended, our organizations provided the band with water coolers at almost every rehearsal. Even before band camp, though, we got started on snack packing for visiting bands. This year, bands from Fresno State, Washington, Utah, USC, and Stanford visited the Rose Bowl, and all of them (except SC) got goodie bags courtesy of Psi and EK. Most of those schools have chapters of KKPsi or TBS, too, so we got a lot of pictures with their chapters. We also sent snacks to our band at the USC game (which may have propelled our team to victory), and to Yell Crew towards the end of the Stanford game just as a thank you for their strong respect for our work and a gesture of our respect for theirs. Our final band-related activity was the second annual band food drive, led on our end by Nathan Cai (BT). After a month of collections, we ended up with over 50 donations to take to a local women’s shelter.

Outside of band-related service, we still managed to have a productive quarter. We performed at the Lab School open house once again, and ended “Mighty Bruins” while a pair of stilt walkers juggled over the head of drum major Jacob Hambalek (BT). We also operated two concert receptions for the School of Music wind bands, and two brosters led a campus tour for a high school band visiting UCLA for a clinic with Dr. Cross. Our one off-campus project was volunteering at the Bands of America SoCal Regional. Brothers Tia Liu (BT) and Harry Mitchell (BY), and Talia Fossa and Daniella Hernandez of EK, left campus at 6 a.m. for Van Nuys, then arrived to find minimal other help and all did the equivalent of 3 people’s work each. We had to leave early for a gig, but we hope to be able to send a larger cohort next year. Now that marching season has ended, we look forward to another exciting quarter of service in the Winter!

​Throughout this fall quarter, we have kept up many traditions from years past, with a couple of added activities as well!

Carrying on the tradition of passing on Geoffrey T. Goat to a new brother in every meeting, Brotherhood Relations Officer Daniel Adea comes up with a Geoffrey Question every week for people to answer. Whoever provides the winning answer get the honor of taking care of our mascot. This brother also takes pictures of Geoffrey and their adventures together throughout that week, and presents a few to chapter at every meeting!

Director of Music Emma Boone has continued In-Meeting “rePSItals this year, and we have seen both video submissions and live performances that remind us of the value and importance music has in our lives. She has also continued a portion of meeting called Song of the Week, in which a theme is chosen by the previous week’s winner, and members of chapter compete to see who can contribute the most fitting song for that theme.

President Tia Liu has kept the energy of chapter alive through Color Wars competitions, where chapter has been split up into four teams. Each team must complete certain tasks in order to earn points, from planning events and interviewing other brothers to participating in weekly challenges, like taking pictures with brothers on campus! At the end of the quarter, the team with the most points wins a dessert prize! Events like this help encourage brothers to be even more involved in our chapter and events.

Additionally, Vice President Joey Auer has kept meetings educational by promoting PMEs, in which members of chapter can talk about and provide information on subjects that they are passionate about. We received Sergeant at Arms Jacob Hambalek’s famous explanation of football this quarter; everyone knew much more going into the upcoming football game that week! Not only does Jacob rock those PMEs, but he has also implemented a new part of meeting this year! Every couple weeks, he hosts a Constitution Kahoot, where members of chapter fight to answer questions about the constitution as quickly as possible. The winning team gets Color Wars points, so there is high motivation to win.

Meetings this quarter have been filled with activities to bring us closer together and to allow us to fire up our competitive nature, and we’re looking forward to continuing this trend through 2019 and onwards!

​In October, after a long day of fun and excitement at Band Alumni Reunion, alumni from both Psi and TBS gathered
at UCLA for an afternoon of food, laughter, and bonding. Altogether, nearly 50 current actives and alumni came
together to enjoy each other’s company. We even had a great time playing the ever-popular Move You Booty, an
icebreaker that had everyone on their feet and learning more about each other.
​
Thank you so much to everyone who came out to this event, we all had a lovely time and we hope you did as well! It
was amazing meeting and getting to know so many of you, and connecting to the larger community of our chapters.
We hope to see many of you at the next Band Alumni Reunion and Joint Alumni Reunion in 2020!

During the Spring of 2018, Brother Michie Leccese won the IAAA (Ideal Active Achievement Award) for her amazing work as Director of Service! Whenever Michie spoke at a meeting, whether it was a normal chapter meeting or at a joint meeting, she always came prepared with information on a huge variety of service projects (she held over 40 in total). In addition to proposing projects, Michie did an amazing job at engaging the chapter in service, as the attendance for service events was consistently high throughout her tenure as Director of Service.

Though Michie has consistently done an amazing job with all of the service projects she has led, anyone in PsiEK during Michie’s term as Director of Service would likely agree that her greatest achievement in this role was leading and organizing the first ever Day of Music and Leadership. In this behemoth of a service event (arguably the most ambitious project is Psi’s history), high school students from various schools in Southern California were invited to UCLA to learn skills such as marching, playing music, and public speaking from members of Psi and EK. Michie had the idea for this event for years, so she was very excited to finally be able to execute it and was very glad to see it succeed the way it did. This event most definitely set a new standard for service for the Psi chapter.

In short, instead of simply doing her constitutional duties as Director of Service, Michie truly strove for the highest and engaged the entirety of Chapter in service both inside and outside the UCLA community.
​
Honorable mentions were also awarded to Brothers John Malchar and Sukhi Bassi.

Over the course of this fall quarter, our chapter engaged in another successful recruitment season. While the candidate process has changed with the passing of the Road to Wisdom national curriculum, our recruitment has remained consistent over the past few years. Recruitment began during band camp, where we coordinated days to wear our gray and navy chapter shirts and wore nametags welcoming band members to ask us about who we are and what we do. A few weeks into the quarter, we held our joint information session with the sisters of EK and walked interested members through the logistics of what our organizations do and how they can join. The event was largely successful thanks to brothers Josh Horita and Chris Routh and alumna Amanda Albini. Josh was my voice for the night when a sore throat made talking difficult and Chris and Amanda gave testimonies about their experiences in Psi.

​Recruitment continued with Day in the Park at Sunset Rec, Joint Speed Dating after a rehearsal, and Joint Game Night
up in Hedrick Hall. At these events, brothers were able to interact with potential candidates in a variety of settings. As we prepare for noms and bids, I am confident that the recruitment process will help us make informed decisions about
who to extend offers of membership to. We are excited that the Beta Chi class will soon embark on the journey of the candidate process, and we look forward to seeing many of you at their degrees!

If you’d like to get more involved in the upcoming candidate process for our next class of candidates, here are some
ways you can!

• Interested in interviewing a candidate? Add or update your contact info and availability here!
• Interested in participating in an alumni panel during a candidate lesson? Send an email to [email protected]!
• Live nearby and are interested in hosting an event or dinner for actives, candidates, and/or alumni? Send an email to [email protected]!

This is also a good time to mark those degree dates in you calendar if you haven’t done so yet!! If you forgot, those are:
First Degree: Saturday, January 19th (note this date might change, time TBA)
Second Degree: Saturday, March 2nd (Time TBA)
Third Degree: Saturday, April 13th (Time TBA)

Keep an eye out for emails with more information about degrees and events for this quarter! And as always, if you have any thoughts, comments, or suggestions about the Encore, events, or anything else, please shoot me an email at [email protected]. We love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading everyone, I’m looking forward to seeing you all soon!!

Hello Alumni!

Welcome to the Fall Edition of the Encore! Another quarter has drawn to a close and with it another football and marching season. We got to see some exciting games at the Rose Bowl, including a very exciting win against SC!!! The summer was full of the usual bustle of band camp activities and welcoming a wonderful new class of freshmen. As a chapter, we got back into the swing of things with many amazing service events and even participated in a few district-wide social media challenges! Perhaps most important, we put on some fun recruitment events, and the great turnout allowed us to get to know many wonderful people from the band who could be members of our next candidate class!

On that note, here are the degree dates for next quarter! Please note: there has been some issues around the date for First Degree, so it’s possible the date will be moved (possibly to Friday the 18th, or something else near the 19th). As soon as I get more info about this and knock-in times I’ll let you guys know, so keep an eye on your emails!!

First Degree: Saturday, January 19th (could change, knock-in TBA)
Second Degree: Saturday, March 2nd (knock-in TBA)
Third Degree: Saturday, April 13th (knock-in TBA)

Thanks everyone! We hope you enjoy the Encore, and I’m looking forward to a wonderful Winter quarter with the candidate process (and a new Degree-centered event for all of you)! Have a happy and healthy New Year, and I hope to see many of you soon!
​
AEA,
Haley Nelson, BY
Alumni Relations Officer 2018-2019

Hello all readers of the Encore! As you all know, every year the band conducts a Band Camp before school startsin order to prepare everyone for the upcoming season. Nothing really beats the 12-hour days and the massive inflow of new, young faces which make Band Camp a truly different time. We members of Psi helped to plan and run several events during the season, which helped welcome new members and get them used to life in the UCLA Marching Band.

We began the year by hosting a Drumline/Guard breakfast to try and help support those who had to come to school extra early for band camp. This event was a true test of determination, as brothers John Lasseter and Jacob Hambalek were the only brothers available to run the entire event. (yikes!) That same night, Psi and EK hosted the Pizza Social which helped welcome all new members to their sections before their first day of Band Camp. As the week went on, members of PsiEK continued to help transition new band members into life within the band through the Hail Learning and Hemming party. This event helped new members adjust their uniforms to better fit them for the season while also teaching them our Alma Mater.

Of course, there were also several social events meant to make everyone feel more welcome into the wonderful community that is the UCLA band. Two such events were the Diddy Riese Run and Ice Cream Social. During the Diddy Riese Run most of the band met up at the De Neve crosswalk and, as a collective mob, overwhelmed the Diddy Riese with far too many hungry band kids. This event was, like usual, a great outlet for new members to meet returning members and vice versa. The Ice Cream Social was the last event PsiEK hosted during Band Camp and worked as a final hurrah for surviving Band Camp. During this event, band members played several icebreakers such as extreme rock paper scissors and human knot. This year was special in that there was a human knot which took roughly 2 hours to unravel!! (How did that happen??) No one knows, but it certainly was a time for those involved to get to know each other better! Now that marching season has come to a close, we’re looking forward to more events to keep the band close until the next Band Camp. It’s sure to be a great one!