• The first step to forming a Local Alumni Association (LAA) is to form your initial membership group.
• There is no specific minimum number of members you must have to begin LAA formation; however, the LAA must maintain enough members to remain operationally viable, fill all officer roles, and achieve their annual goals.
• The goal of an LAA is for TBΣAA members in a local area to get together for social and professional networking, and other activities. Once you have acquired a starting group of TBΣ alumni in your area, all members must join or renew their TBΣAA membership for the current year before moving forward with your next steps.
• Once you have a group of TBΣAA members ready to move forward with the chartering process, contact tbsaa@tbsigma.org for assistance with the next steps.

• Next, once everyone in your group is a member of TBΣAA, you need to meet to determine your LAA name and your initial first year goals.
• LAAs are encouraged to be open to all members living in their area. There are many ways to name an LAA to exhibit openness to local alumni. For example, if a group of University of Miami alumni living in the Miami, Florida area decided to form an LAA, there are many choices to consider for the name of their LAA:
  • Miami Area AA
  • Greater Miami-Dade AA
  • Southern Florida AA
  • Southeast Florida AA
  • University of Miami Area AA
  • Gamma Epsilon AA
• The TBΣAA encourages new forming LAAs to choose names to attract the most relevant members possible.

Note: If the LAA plans to utilize a Chapter designation or school name in their group, the Director of Bands approval is needed each year as part of the LAA renewal. This approval allows the LAA to use the chapter’s name and pursue social, scholastic, fraternal, and musical activities and programming with the local chapter and college/university bands in accordance with the desires and vision of the chapter sponsor and director of bands. There must also be an active chapter on the school’s campus to form a Chapter based LAA.

• Prior to submitting your application to be recognized as an LAA, the petitioning members should meet to compose a constitution and choose interim leadership. This process will include deciding on your LAA’s purposes, officers, and other structure.
• At this stage, prior to being recognized as an official LAA, your constitution is only considered a draft and the primary role of your interim leaders is to lead these initial meetings and communicate with the Executive Council on behalf of the group. Once the LAA is recognized, you can select official officers so the new LAA can conduct business.
• When drafting your initial constitution, remember these key points:
  • You do not have to restate any information found in the TBΣAA Constitution, or the National Constitution of Tau Beta Sigma. Both documents supersede your local constitution; you only need to write out the elements for your local group.
  • Keep things simple. You don’t have to cover every possible outcome, but you do need to include the group’s basic operating principles.
  • Your constitution does not need to be long or use florid language.
  • The basic elements of a local alumni association constitution are: purposes, general information, membership, officers, meetings, and finance.

An example/template constitution is found in the appendices section of the LAA handbook.

• Once you have a petitioning group of members who are current TBΣAA members, and you have completed your draft constitution, you should complete your LAA application.
• Your application, roster of members, and your draft constitution, should be submitted to the LAA Relations Director, or directly to tbsaa@tbsigma.org.
• Once received, your application and constitution will be reviewed by the Executive Council, and your roster will be checked to see if all members are current TBΣAA members.
• Within 2 weeks, you should receive a response acknowledging receipt of your application, plus any questions or requests for edits,
• The TBΣAA EC will review and approve the application if application requirements are met. If your application is not approved, you will be contacted with any requirements that still need to be satisfied.
• Following approval, you can apply for an EIN ID number for your LAA from the IRS.  This can take several months’ time. You can open a bank account and start doing business before the IRS grants you a specific tax status, but you won’t receive all of the benefits associated with tax-exemption until you get your IRS approval.

• After your LAA receives official recognition from the TBΣAA, you can elect officers and begin your planned programming.
• Don’t forget that the LAA renewal report is due every year, as well as a roster update, any changes made to your constitution, and all members of your roster must renew their membership in the TBΣAA.