This burns. It's almost as if you're saying "I want the privilege to be in the sorority, but I dont want the 'extra' work that being an exec member involves."

80% of the people want credit for what 20% of the people do.

guess what? if you go the extra mile, by being on exec, you SHOULD get extra privileges, such as a single room. Don't complain that you cant have the privileges just cause you didnt wanna deal with the drama. It's selfish.

A House!
 

Yes if You have a House, there are certain responsibilitys that go with it!

1. Having The House Full. Why? Da well making payments.

2. You dont feel ok about living in The House and supporting it, get out.

3. How important a Member are you? A 20 % or an 80 % ?

If you are required as an Officer to Live in the House, there is a reason. You are "ass"eable to Your Members.

If You do not want to live in The House, dont be an Officer or a Member!!!

Harsh, Yes, True, Yes!

If every member felt like this, How long would the Chapter be open and functinal?:(

This is not aimed at anyone person, but a truism, isnt it?

Not everyone is exec material. Our Organizations wouldn't be able to run if everyone wanted to be a "chief."

The way our sorority solved this problem is that every girl had points. You got points for how many semesters you lived in the house, how many semesters you have been an active member, your GPA, and how many semesters you lived in the "10 girl room" (i.e. the room with the least amount of privacy). Our house manager kept track of all the info and whoever had the most points got to pick their room first at the end of each semester. The only exception is that Pres got her own room, and VPM, EVP got doubles. It worked out really well because whenever someone had a problem, all they had to do was look at the points.

Did you also notice that the person you called "selfish" is one of your sisters? Just an observation.

I love our house but sometimes it really does get tough, even for exec board members, to live there.

I held the NMC office for my sorority, effective January - December 2003. My first semester, I feel like I did a much better job, because I could go home after chapter and NM meetings and work on my stuff for the next week.

As NMC and all of exec board are required by our bylaws to live in the house for the second semester of their term and the semester after (we can't move in the middle of the year because of housing agreements with Gannon) I moved in last August. Our house sleeps 9. I was real excited when I moved in, and lucky enough to get my own bedroom which I made use of in preparing things for the New Members (I felt like arts and crafts chair a lot of the time and it spread out all over my room).

However, and this is not typical by any means, I was having trouble keeping up with my New Member paperwork and organization, even though for most of the meetings I just had to walk downstairs. I ended up faxing a lot of paperwork in to IHQ because I didn't have enough time to send it by snail-mail. I think it has to do with your preferences and also whether or not you have a thick skin. I was (and still am) fully capable of carrying out the duties of my office and doing a good job. However, I found myself overwhelmed and depressed most of the time.

A lot of it had to do with the rest of my schedule the semester I moved in. I had a heavy courseload, and my studies really suffered the semester I moved in. I also was trying to re-vamp the new member program, and it was creating a lot of drama in my chapter because it hadn't been changed in at least 5 or 6 years, and with new hazing rules and laws in place, we needed to cut out a lot of things that are now considered hazing.

To be honest, I think it was the changes I was making that was causing me the most heartache. The house was split 5 to 4 in favor of hazing, and my roommates and sisters were slamming doors in my face even if I went to ask them for a piece of tape or something.

There were fun times, too, though, especially when the dust settled from the new member changes, but overall, while I love my sisters (even the ones that hated me), I was left with a horribly negative view of living in the house and I would never do it again.

I think I'd rather live on the streets, to be honest with you... When I say you need a thick skin to live in the house AND hold an office where there is a lot of work, it's true, especially if you only can house 9 out of 40 members. When sisters come to the house, you take the heat for it not being spotless (of course, I mean, they did spend a whole hour of a saturday morning cleaning it, didn't they? so of course they can come over and trash it then whine because it's not clean). When something goes wrong or someone doesn't like how you're running your office, you take the heat. There were days where I would go from a chapter meeting in which the entire general discussion was basically about how crappy a person I am and how much they regret giving me NMC, and then I would go home and someone (who didn't live in the house) would be standing in the living room whining about how my homework was on the coffee table and aren't I a jerk because I made them spill their drink all over it?

That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about.

alphagamzetagam,

I totally understand what you mean. My big was president and didn't live in the house - which was good because quite a few of the girls in the house were super critical of her. She was trying to get new types of girls into the chapter and there were a lot of "old fashioned" people who didn't want any part of it - they wanted the same safe type people we'd always rushed, even though those were dwindling. If she'd had to live in the house, she probably would have given up her office. Our house held 14, a made-over family house, so it's proably similar to your situation.

Some people are just not meant to live in a communal setting period, let alone with the duties of office. I don't know, this just seems like one of those things that there's never one good solution.

That was one of the first things I noticed, actually. I'm not going to change the fact that I still think it's selfish to complain about lack of privileges because you choose to avoid the drama.

But I DO agree with you that not everyone is exec material. But a decent person who knows they aren't exec material, shouldnt be too upset about not getting the perks of doing exec. I've avoided circumstances that I knew I couldn't handle properly, but I didnt complain that the people who did engage in those circumstances got bonus perks.

At my university, I would say chapters without a house were at a competitive disadvantage at recruitment, based on the perspectives of the PNMs and their unsubstantiated view that house=status. I observed a previously un-housed chapter move into their chapter house and was interested to see how the campus's overall perception of them rose, as well as their increase in numbers and, in-turn, how their new status shifted the rest of the sororities. ZTAngel, would you agree?

Anyway... My chapter is housed. Although there are nearly 200 members, only 32 live-in. The chapter president is expected to share a room with another sister, and our local by-laws specify who must live-in (this includes the exec board and other key officers.) In cases where there is too large an interest in living in the "mandatory live in spots have filled" GPA and other chapter offices are used as a tie-breaker.

Because there are so many members who can't live in the house due to lack of bedroom space, many members do tend to block out apartment buildings, rent houses together or apartments. It isn't unsual to drive by an apartment complex and see various sorority letters spelled out in Christmas lights from the balconies!

One thing I like about ADPi House Corp (I'm not sure-- maybe all NPC House Corp is like this)-- you don't need to have a house or a suite to have a house corp.

Many (most?) of the large houses - the ones that house over ten members - are really just gussied-up dorms. Especially the houses specifically built to house members/students and not those reclaimed and or rezoned from the local community.

While many include various amenities, the main difference I have noticed is that most of these large houses have at least a good sized dinning room and a full kitchen.

edited for grammar

haha I just hate that brothel rumor!! There was also another one that some sister/daughter/female relative of SOME sort of the Ball sisters didnt get into a sorority so she forbad the campus to ever let them have houses. That of course is also ridiculous!

We have both a house and two halls in a greek women's dorm b/c so many girls want/need to live in Chi O housing. It has its ups and downs. But I think for the simple fact that we have a place to meet for chapter every single week without scheduling conflicts or miscommunications or anything like that makes the house a good idea. It's also a place where we can plan rush, homecoming, and initiation without worrying about being overheard or what not. And, since we have a meal plan at the house, I know that the fact that I probably ate at least 7 meals a week at the house brought me closer to my sisters. People bond over meals, it just works. Yes a house causes drama, yes people get mad about rules and mortgage etc. But I think in the long run, a house provides more good than detriment.

Living in the sorority house for 3 years was the best decision and experience of my life. As people have said, we had a cook, who made lunch and dinner for us M-F. It was so cheap to live there (considering how expensive it is to live in San Diego). The only bill we had to pay for that wasn't included in our rent was our phone line into our bedrooms. Plus I got to park behind the house, so I didn't have to pay $110 a semester and could walk to school.

It was so much fun. All the late night shananigans (sp?). I wouldn't trade it for the world. I feel kind of sad for the girls who never got to experience that (my sister included, who was a DG at Northern Kentucky, which doesn't have houses).

Living in the center of thigs was most important to me.

But there are things like quiet hours to study, the main reason Students are there, well supposedly!:)

A place to go when you are sitting there and doing nothing, see your Brthers/Sisters who you are a part of. There is always something going on, whether it seems like play, there always conversations about The GLO and can be discussed in an informal manner.

As an Alum it was nice to have a place to go to when you got back into town. For the last two, there really hasnt been a House (We Demolished it )and it does get disheartening!:(

My chapter does not have a house, but none of the fraternities or sororities on our campus are housed either. It kinda pisses me off, because when we were chartered, we were even offered the loans to build a house...however, our university refused. They don't want Greek housing. We're still a minority on campus, though the Greek system as a whole is growing every year, along with the university. In the future, I'd like to see my chapter have at least a small house - maybe 8 brothers housed. I think the biggest thing we all want is a center for social activity & for meetings...just a good-size living room with a nice TV and video games and stuff, convenient to campus, where brothers can come "chill" between classes and in the evenings and stuff, and then a nice meeting room maybe in the basement or something.

My alumni dollars to my university will depend on if they lose their religious affiliation and if they allow Greek housing, and I anticipate my alumni dollars to be substantial :cool:

*bump*

Well, I don't know any official details yet, but supposedly, Greek housing is actually in the works for SPSU to open Fall 2010. From what I understand, it's going to be university housing, but that is the extent of my knowledge. We didnt have a housing corporation....until now. Myself and one other alumnae are working on getting a housing corporation started for the chapter - which now has 20 members (much different from when I started this thread several years ago!)

My nose is buried in our housing corp manual. I have NO IDEA what I'm getting myself into by agreeing to be on corp board. I just want the absolute best for my girls.

Anyone on here started a corp board from scratch before? Any words of wisdom to share?

I graduated May 2007. By the time Fall 2010 comes around, all the girls I was active with, will be gone.... there's only 6 left. One is graduating this Spring, and the rest will be done by next spring, i believe.

*edit* And financial.....definitely not a problem. :D

I think I remember you posting that you were your chapter's VP Finance at one point. So I guess you've been in tough situations with sisters before. It's kind of similar (as you'll be responsible for handing out the conseuences when girls violate house policies). Some people are really aren't ready for that and can't handle it.

Where I go to school, the city does not allow any type of Greek House. So none of the chapters have a house. I hoestly wish we did sometimes. However, one positive about living in an all girls dorm is the chance to recruit PNM.

Amanda, I didn't start one from scratch but helped to rebuild one from the bottom up. I also helped revise AOII's Corporation Manual a while back. I'll be honest, it's hard work but extremely rewarding. Feel free to PM if I can help with anything.

The Greek Village lots at SPSU have been selected. AXiD, GPhiB, Sigma Nu, Sigma Pi, PKF, Kappa Sig, and SAE are all participating. From my understanding, they are using the same architects that built the Greek Village at West GA, and using the same 12 bedroom floorplan for the houses.

I posted this link is the West GA thread, but here are what their houses look like, so that's what we have to look forward to.

This is going to be a VERY exciting turning point for Greek Life at SPSU! The school has recently added a whole bunch of new majors that are attracting more women to campus - so hopefully we'll have more PNMs going through recruitment. Yay!

I think one of the major pros of having a house is its a great place for any private events (like initiation and ritual events). Even if you have a designated chapter room in a place like a student union, I think there are still privacy issues that can occur.