threaddrift, part 2: I bet a lot of GLOs possibly use large churches, if feasible. I've attended one Lambda Chi Ritual held at a church, not at a chapter house, and it was simply incredible.

To continue the highjack, from my understanding, it's pretty common for Acacia chapters to make use of Masonic Temples for rituals.

> it's pretty common for Acacia chapters to make use of Masonic Temples for rituals.

That's true. Also, some Masonic parks have outdoor "lodges" that work for the Acacia rituals.

The CPM lists most of the award ceremonies as being Open Ceremonies, but I also believe it's ultimately up to the chapter as to whether or not it's appropriate for non-members to attend. Lambda Psi's first Sword of Honor ceremony was done with only us in attendance, before a musicale, but the first province day I attended (before we were chartered) included the presentation of an award to one of Theta Beta's sisters, and we were allowed to be in the room. So I've seen it done both ways.

If my school doesn't open for expansion soon, we're going to have to do initiation in shifts. Pledge classes aren't that large but total is and it's getting hard to manage. I always wondered how the HUGE chapters (totals ~400, pledge classes ~150) did initiation. Shifts/different days makes sense.

It's not that difficult. I've been to a couple of charter ones that were around 150-200 initiates. Churches or auditoriums work well. Get more than one "assembly line" going for all the mystic goodies and you're in and out in an hour or a little more.

I would assume how difficult it is would depend largely on the specifics of the ritual. More than one "assembly line" may not be possible in some rituals. And based on comments made on GC in the past, some rituals provide for initiates to be initiated as a group, while other rituals require each initiate to be initiated separately.

True but I've found with us that people assume it has to be done a certain way when it really doesn't. Yes, some do it one person at a time- or so I am told - but not all. Sometimes it's a case of "we've always done it this way" and they just need to think outside the box. I find that alums sometimes assume the way they did it back in the day is the only way. Time and circumstances change things....

Also true that people may assume it has to be done one way just because that's the only way they've seen it done, but we can't make the assumption that just because there's flexibility in our own ritual, others also have flexibility. My fraternity, for example, is clear on this point.

I also think the problem is that there's more than just the ritual part for some groups. I actually wonder what differences there are for different groups of the same organization.

Also, doesn't "we've always done it this way" have its significance? A chapter may not want to change the ways things are done, because they think it's important that the whole ritual as best as possible is identical for each initiate.

My original use of that statement was aimed at the places where they have issues handling the size of the initiate group but don't ask if there are better ways to do it because they've always done it that way. Is a ritual that lasts 3-4 hours due to the size of the class identical to that of the one that lasted only 1 hour because it was designed for a small group? If it's losing something due to the size of the class or the location, then someone needs to be asking the question - do we HAVE to do it this way?