Derby Days preparations begin in the summer, with much planning and preliminary fundraising. This year’s event was no different. The summer began with numerous joint effort carwashes between the brothers of Sigma Chi and several of the UBC sororities.
During the summer many of our brothers also visited B.C. Children’s Hospital in order to appreciate the full value of our donations and invested time. This time expended at the hospital and with the children is arguably a more valuable donation than any cheque as it allows children who miss regular elements in their lives to feel normal and special.
The final event of the summer fundraising effort was a Derby Days bar party at a bar held at location owned by one of our sponsors. This joint effort allowed Sigma Chi to further build on the already strong ties of the UBC Greek system and our community. It goes without saying that, all proceeds from this event also went to the Derby Days fund.
As September rolled around so did the finale of Derby Days, the traditional Derby Days carnival. Amidst the excitement of a new school year, the sororities came together once again to assist Sigma Chis in this great cause. Competing in raffle ticket sales during the first weeks of September the sororities expended countless hours selling tickets and raising money and awareness for the B.C. Children’s Hospital.
During the AMS Welcome Back Barbeque, Derby Days ran a carnival with a dunk tank and carnival games. Each sorority had their sisters donate their time and gathered much courage to volunteer in the dunk tank. During this time the brothers of Sigma Chi were helping out, be it with running the carnival, promoting our party at the barbeque or preparation of the party location. As per tradition Derby Days was capped with a blowout party that night at the Sigma Chi Chapter house. This party drew members from all Greek organizations on campus, making Derby days a truly Greek project
At Delta Omicron the Derby Days Chairman is a separate philanthropic role from the Philanthropy Chair. This is necessary in order to provide the numerous hours required to promote events, organize brothers in fundraisers and solicit sponsors. However, every member of the chapter provided copious hours of help during sponsorship meetings, carwashes and especially the week of Derby Days. Every brother provided at the very least twelve hours of hard yet very rewarding volunteer time in order to further the philanthropic agenda of this immense project.
The Co-winners of this Year’s Derby Days were the Gamma Phi Beta and Alpha Delta Pi sororities. We will be hosting the ladies at the Chapter house for our annual Christmas dinner in December.
A special thank you goes out to all our sponsors and everyone who helped make Derby Days a success. See you all next year. And Remember Derby Days 2004 begins NOW!
The tradition of Sigma Chi's Derby Days began in the spring of 1933 at the Alpha Beta chapter at the University of California-Berkeley, under the name "Channingway Derby." Located on Channing Way, the Alpha Beta Sigma Chis sponsored an event composed of a series of humorous skits. In fact, one publication later cited the "Channingway Derby" as California's most amusing tradition.
In the spring of 1935, after receiving reports of the "Channingway Derby", Beta Sigma chapter at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville made plans for a similar event. But instead of presenting skits, the event was planned around an all-day track and field competition between the pledge classes of the nine sororities at Tennessee. More than
1,000 people were in attendance on the big day, November 1, 1935, to witness the first Derby involving campus sororities. Coincidentally, on that day four Sigs from Delta chapter at the University of Georgia were visiting Knoxville and witnessed the festivities. The brothers took the idea back to their campus and named their production “Sigma Chi Derby,” which seems to have stuck.
Today, Sigma Chi Derby events are held to assist a number of charitable causes, some allocating a percentage of the proceeds to a local philanthropy and part to the Children’s Miracle Network. Since Sigma Chi began raising money for charitable causes, the Fraternity has raised well over $3 million for these groups. During the 1999-2000 year, Sigma Chi chapters donated over $600,000 to CMN hospitals.
