Keep in mind though, that when a local becomes an associate member of panhel, they are then required to follow the unanimous agreements. For us the biggest obstacle is that one local is trying to go national, but the school has decreed that the other must part of panhel if it is created. So now the one local that does want to go national is not being allowed because the other local refuses to follow the npc agreements.

I guess what I'm saying is that first you have to get the local to agree to give up some of its independence before it can join panhel.

was this gibberish? If so, I apologize.

no matter which side you're on, there seems to be a lot of generalizing from memebers of locals and nationals here about each other and themselves.

not every national sorority
-has a huge membership or huge NM classes
-has a house
-has to worry about constant visits from nationals

not every local sorority
-has a small membership
-is a crazy group of hazers

i know all these points have been made, but i see a lot of generalization in this thread, and that's one thing i hate! a certain ms. robbins did it a lot in a certain book.... blah.

yeah she did, lol

anyways, Im proud to be local and I'm thrilled to have national friends on greekchat! Happy Holidays to all of you!

I have got to say this, simply because of a conversation I had with someone (not from GC).

Locals don't exist to be fodder for nationals. Our goal has never been and probably never will be to go national. I would be incredibly upset to lose what makes my chapter so unique. It drives me nuts when people assume that we're always just axiously awaiting a national charter.

I don't know why I'm bugged by the constant "discreet" talk. When I was a pledge, I wanted to shout my affiliation from the hills (if ohio had any). I wore my pin and my bandana with pride (and in jeans!). Not once during 6 weeks of pledging was I forced to do anything. In fact, there were active sisters who chose not to do certain things because they didn't want to. There was always an open door policy. We lost a girl the first week of pledging, and everyone still loves her to death.

</rant>. Sorry.

I'm just damned proud to be local, no matter how ugly my hawaiian shirt.

Wow nicely put lol. I haven't read any of the other posts but I saw yours read it and thought I would say Well put. I pledged a local sorority too. I know that national ones have their perks and so do local ones, the point is I found a group of gals that was right for me on my campus when I was still a student down in Rio...oh and the only thing I must complain about you saying though is the hills. Lima has none where I am now, but honey southeast Ohio has plenty where I went to school! :p ;) Just had to give ya hard time on that part ;)

It is mainly NPHC groups who encourage prospective members to use discretion as to whom they want to pledge. This is because their method of rush/intake is different - you are expected to research the goals and values of each org, decide which fits you best, and THEN make yourself known to the local chapter as someone interested in membership.

Think of it as similar to a job search....if you go to an interview for PNC you sure aren't going to say "oh I have an interview at Mellon right after this." ;)

i agree. i'm currently in a colony of a national organization, but before that we were a local sorority. as of the end of last semester we had 22 women, with some new member classes being as small as 5. local dues were kept the same as when we were a local sorority, and they're actually more expensive than the national dues.

I got 10 shirts for $100 on eBay myself. All custom and all for local.

I wish Nationals would be breathing down our necks. When my frat was national Phi Sigma Kappa didn't do sh!t for us. All a lot of National fraternaties care about is the really big schools. My school has 10,000+ students and were to small for Nationals to care.

Before Phi Sigma Kappa took over Phi Sigma Epsilon we had about 40 members, and when my frat became associated with Kappa we went down to about 7 members. We now have about 15 members 16 rushes and I believe our pledge class will be about 10 strong and all quality men. I'm rush chair and my goal is to build my frat even stronger then what it was back in the 80's.