wow that is terrible to get no girls on bid day and very strange too. are you sure there is not some sort of conspiracy going on here? maybe whoever is in charge of matching doesnt like your sorority. i dont know but something smells fishy here.:cool:

Oh, something smells alright, but it is not this thread nor the school and chapter referenced.

We all know that you are a troll. Go away.

Did you tell the PNMs at this school that they shouldn't join this chapter because it's the "worst chapter" because you're *such* a good Rho Gamma?

I like the spirit your chapter is showing. Positive attitude and working together will get you through this rough spot. I have worked with chapters in this situation and my own chapter was in a terrible rut at one point, with numbers down to 22 and the other houses at 50, when we graduated a large class. Then, only 7 accepted our bids and quota was triple that. Heartbreaking. Even harder to bear was knowing that the recruitment chair for one of the other chapters went out on bid night and publicly smeared our house for having a small NM class compared to theirs. I kid you not-she was SINGING about it to all the fraternity guys.

It seemed insurmountable at the time and there was very little respect for Panhellenic rules on our campus, which made things even harder for us, and our campus sorority system was young. We did NOT give up, and neither should you. We just kept working at COB, to build upon our successes and in the meantime we worked even harder on strengthening our sisterhood. It took a while, I won't lie, and we some wonderful advisers to help us. But we turned it around and by the time I was a senior, we were a larger and much stronger chapter. We went from probation to winning national awards.

You have gotten some great suggestions from the other GCers. So work with that. Although you don't have to pull out all the stops, you can still do some theming to make it fun, special and welcoming for your guests. There may be women out there who did not go through FR and want something different from the experience the other chapters can offer. So try to emphasize the unique things about your house. Perhaps you have some great scholarship programs. Or you do a lot for each individual sister. Maybe there's something fabulous about your (inter)national GLO that makes you stand out. Now you will have more time to share your displays, your scrapbooks, and your videos and more one on one time with these women.

Those attributes might not have come across during FR when it was easy for PNMs to compare and say, hmmm-why do they have so few whereas the others have so many? I'm here to tell you-EVERY chapter out there, I don't care how big or invulnerable they might seem, is at risk for hitting a low point in membership, and it only takes about 1 or 2 recruitment cycles for disaster to hit. I have seen it happen--chapters with top reputations and great members tanking from 100 to 50. Climbing up the hill takes a while, so just hang in there. When you are at the top, you will be so empowered!

We use to do this at my school. In fact that is why I came down to rush otherwise I wouldn't have had any idea about it, to be honest I never even noticed the chalking or signs for formal or informal on my campus. Though you have to be careful our campus has a policy that you arent allowed to do door to door soliciting. It's not really enforced if RA's catch you though and you dont room in that hall they will kick you out of the building ... I think its a good idea personally. :)

Once again thank you for all of your support and ideas.

Our COB last thursday was a resounding success, and was really inspiring to alot of the members.We had 8 potentials and plan on extending bids to all of them when they come to our recruitment drive next week. They were a refreshing group of girls, and all of them are friends of sisters already.

They are quality girls and I'm so excited.

In the mean time, we are eating with potentials and girls from classes everyday, keeping them involved, inviting them to our service project on Sat and then the rec. parties next week.

They are all very excited about it as well.

The dorm swarming is like something we do here, except we put flyers under doors and in mailboxes, etc. We have a small campus and I don't think they would be opposed to us visiting open rooms.

Thanks again

Greek Love

I think you might be right on with the small campus distinction. While I particularly don't think this is the best way to recruit women because in the end women don't feel as "chosen" as they should (I think that randomly chatting with girls at campus functions is slightly more natural), this was something done by groups quite frequently on my campus, also fairly small where random people often would talk to you if you left your door open. We called it "dorm storming" though. It didn't have quite the door-to-door salesman connotations on our campus (nor does it sound like it was taken that way on your campus). Like I said, I don't think it is one of the best ways, but it certainly isn't perceived as completely weird on every campus.

We did dorm-storming also but it unfortunately did have the door to door feel because we'd actually knock on closed doors to talk to the girls.