As I write this, we’re just days after Georgia’s heartbreaking loss to Steve Spurrier and South Carolina in a game we should have won. Like all Dawg fans, I am frustrated but I saw a team on Saturday that can and should win their other ten games this year and still have a great season. I do feel it’s key that in my role as President for the chapter, we look at the glass full & let all the Alumni here know there’s a reason to have hope for the rest of this season. An 0-2 start only means there is 10 games to get it right.
This past week’s game signified my one year Anniversary as President for the Austin Alumni chapter, we affectionately call the, “Austin Dawgs”. Here in Central Texas, we have around 800 Alumni in the area, and unfortunately, many of them still don’t know about our great chapter. But in my year as President, I’ve worked extremely hard with my officers to grow this chapter and make it vital, and more importantly, make it last.
It was a very challenging time, taking over as President last Fall, from my predecessor, but it was completely worth the struggle. Our chapter is one of the strongest & more organized in the country. During the previous 15 years, the calendar lay barren for about 8 months until football season. Since myself and the new board were put into place last Fall, we have a strong and active UGA team, we’ve provided monthly events throughout the calendar year, and I’ve personally reached out to a number of local Alums that had no idea we were even here.
In addition to taking over the Austin Dawgs last Fall, there was a greater effort and understanding to organize the 12 SEC Alumni chapters into a more cohesive unit. By October 2010, we formed a formal “Austin SEC Club” and I partnered with Kentucky’s President, Brian Perkins. (who in the process has become one of my closest friends). I became the SEC Club’s President, Brian the Vice President, and we have a formal club that offers monthly events. We also have regular communications between all 12 Chapters.
I’d like to be more specific about the weekly happenings in my next blog/diary entry but for a first entry, I wanted to be more broad. As I write this, horrible wildfires are raging through parts of Austin and surrounding areas and thousands of people have lost their homes. Because community service is such an important thing in life and should be an integral part of any Alumni chapter, we communicated about bringing canned goods to our game watching location, The Tavern, to drop off at the Capital Area Food Bank in Austin, so we could help the victims in a small way.
Go Dawgs!
Alex Ramati
President,
Austin Dawgs
