On May 14th, 2022, the signature celebration dinner to mark the 100th anniversary of Sigma Chi’s first Canadian chapter at Beta Omega in 1922 will take place at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. The main event is expected to bring close to 1,000 Sigma Chis together from across Canada and the U.S. to celebrate this historic event. This celebration not only recognizes the beginning of Sigma Chi in Canada, but in doing so it also marks evolution of Sigma Chi into an International Fraternity.

In the works are a special 100th Canadian Sweetheart competition, Canadian 100th Sigma Chi Balfour Award, special recognition of Distinguished Sigma Chis of Canada, and more. That, however, is just the flagship event. The 100th Anniversary Committee is working with all Canadian alumni and active chapters to coordinate satellite celebrations across the country. Thanks to Grand Trustee Alan Williams, Toronto Alumni President Shael Greenberg, Toronto Alumni Past President Barak Queija, and brother Jeffrey Kroeker for their dedicated work on the planning of these events. You will be hearing from them shortly!

To support the 100th Anniversary Committee and the efficiency of all our communications, the foundation has been working with our Canadian alumni chapters, housing corporations, and Sigma Chi headquarters to build a proper, updated Canadian member database and designing the tools to make communicating with Sigs across Canada convenient and reliable for all of us. This newsletter is the second test of these tools (brother Colman sent out a message last month about referring prospective pledge brothers). The goal is to make this service freely available to all alumni and active chapters who, in turn, will best be able to support its updating as their local chapter members move or change their contact info.

Further, in support of our communications, we have rebuilt the SigmaChi.ca website to update the design, improve security, and tie in functions for brothers to update their contact information, submit pledge referrals, and securely submit their scholarship applications. We would like this to be a central hub for all Sigma Chi Canada news and will be establishing a team to define submission and posting processes that all our Canadian chapters can feed into. Thanks to brothers Devon Wright, Cody Hicks, and Dwayne for their work on this.

To update you on the SCCF’s review by the Canada Revenue Agency, we’ve received a confirmation of receipt and subsequently spoken with a Manager in the Appeals Branch. He informed us that an Appeals Officer will be contacting us to review all the facts of the case and discuss the objection we submitted last June to the Notice of Revocation. This would normally take place about 6 months from receipt of the notice of receipt, however, their reviews are substantially delayed by the pandemic, so we’ll be reaching out to the Manager again shortly for an update.

Be assured that the directors will be making every conceivable effort and remain open to both professional counsel and that from our own key stakeholder brothers, to find and negotiate the most advantageous outcome. The very likeliest outcome, whether favourable or unfavourable, is that the foundation will transition to a non-profit organization. This will mean the end to tax receipt-able donations, but it will free up the application of these donations to more directly serve the interests of Canadian Sigs, whether in support of housing, scholarships, or other applications. Your decision to financially support the foundation’s activities will remain the defining element in what we can do, so please keep this in mind whatever the CRA decides.

Lastly, now that we can communicate with most Canadian Sigs, we will be inviting you to participate in a Town Hall event for a live update of the CRA’s audit of the foundation and to solicit your input on what should lie ahead for the foundation. I hope you will be able to join us for this; more news to come.

As a reminder, the current need to support Canadian Sigma Chis is for non-charitable donations to our chapter housing corporations listed below. Please consider a donation to support these chapters.

Brothers, we are in your service and are grateful for your contributions. I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the months ahead.