Sounds like y'all put a lot of thought into having fun parties. Good luck. Hopefully the changes to the rush system make a difference for your group.

OPhiAGinger - Thanks! :] And I'm sure once we find out how many girls rank us number 1 and 2 we'll have a better idea of how many we should take, because I completely agree. I don't think capping our pledge class would be the smartest idea this year even if we have that many girls interested. Not just because there are so few members, but also because too many new members at once will just make us collapse because none of them would know what to do when experienced vets graduate. There aren't going to be very many members from previous years after this so having than many girls who don't know anything about how the club is run would be bad. I think these are just things that we'll discuss when we come to them, ya know? When it's more realistic for us to look at numbers and all that. :]

AOII Angel - Thank you so much! We've put a lot into these rushes and we're hoping the girls get as excited about them as we are. :D

Good luck with your rush! It sounds like you're making a great effort and affecting change on your campus. What's interested me through this thread is that your school has determined that they can't have sororities because of some negative stereotypes but has a system that is EXACTLY what sorority life is. And by the way, almost every sorority has some sort of religious background, even if it's not their focus any more.

I don't know why I mention that, except that you really gain a lot from being a part of an inter/national organization. Someday your groups might consider affiliating with NPC or NPHC (are the Christian sororities part of NPHC?) I think your school might be pleasantly surprised at what they could offer your student body by way of leadership and support.

The school wants to keep a tight rein on the Greeks/Greeklike organizations. Period. It has nothing to do with stereotypes, even if that's the excuse they give. This way a school can shut down a group overnight if they want and the group really has no recourse, where by contrast a chapter of a national group can stay open if the national group is behind them.

That makes sense. If they tried to shut down an NPC, there would be a required hearing, etc. It's just a shame.

Plenty of Christian schools have NPCs, including my alma mater.

33girl - I think that might be one of the reasons, honestly. They probably just don't want to deal with the hastle of a governing body they have no control over. But I guess I'll never know for sure. :P

So we had our paint party rush last night and it was a total success! :D We had about 40 girls come to this rush, which was pretty impressive considering it had been raining ALL day and was still raining when the time for the rush rolled around. It was so much fun though. And a good thing was that a lot of the girls that were there went to our last rush too, so we know these girls are interested. We still have two rushes left and the girls ranked for the first time today so the big clubs will be cutting more rushees this week so our last two will most likely have new faces. Then the girls rank again next Wednesday and bids go out on Thursday. Bid night is Friday so it's gonna be a pretty packed week next week, but it's gonna be a blast!

We currently have 13 confirmed pledges, quite a few maybes/still deciding, and then we'll hopefully win over more girls that get cut from their first choice clubs tomorrow. :P We have a rush Thursday and then we have a rush next Tuesday. Tuesday night after the rush we vote for who we want to extend the bids to, then rushees rank for the second time. So exciting!

After all this planning and talking about this semester, it's amazing that it's finally here and going so well! I just wanna thank all of you guys for the support, it's really meant a lot. It's been a great help to hear from people outside of our university's system. Well, I'll continue to keep you posted!

So tonight was our 3rd rush, the cupcake rush. It was pretty good, we had 32 girls there. And again, most of the same girls that were at the last two rushes were at this one, so that's promising and exciting. :D Invitations to the last round of rushes go out tomorrow so between 60 and 80 girls will be getting the news they didn't get their first choice club. I'll keep you posted when we have our 4th and final rush.

After the rush that night we vote, PNMs rank the following day, and then bids go out on Thursday and Bid Night is Friday. Which is weird, since in years past PNMs rank on Friday and then they wait a WEEK until the following Thursday to find out who they get bids from, haha. It's gonna be pretty packed next week, but it'll definitely be fun!

It sounds like you have this well under control. Good luck through this crazy period coming up!

Can't wait to hear how all of this pans out. I'm wishing your club luck, BeeVee.

I wish this thread had a "like" button. :) Glad to hear things are going well!

So the invitations to the last round of rushes have officially gone out and there's a lot of buzz around campus about my club now... I'm hoping it's very good things and that we'll have a large pool of fantastic women to choose from come tomorrow night. Our last rush is tomorrow, like I mentioned before, so I'll come back with more info on that. Just a warning though, after the rush (at around 11-12) we have to vote on who we would like to extend bids to, so it'll be pretty late before I get back. Never fear though, I WILL post an update for all you rabid fans. ;]

So I'm finally home from voting, my goodness, haha! We had the entire list of about 300 girls that were going through rush this year and we yay or nayed who we wanted to extend bids to. This process was more for Social Club Council to know who we don't want to extend bids to, but we had a lot of good discussion about the girls.

BUT... Before we voted, we had our 4th and final rush, which was Pajamas and Pearls. A lot of the girls that came dressed up and that made it so much more fun. The house we had the rush at was gorgeous and I honestly want to live there, haha. We had between 40-50 girls come to this rush tonight, so that's really great news! :D I mentioned before that we can only extend bids to 52 girls, so to have 40-50 at our last rush was a very exciting thing to see.

So, now it is out of our hands. The girls rank for the second and final time tomorrow, bids go out on Thursday, and then Friday is Bid Night. I may not be on much this weekend because of it, but I promise, I'll upload Bid Night pics when I can! :D This is such an exciting time for my club and I can't wait to see how everything turns out. It's so surreal that it's finally here after all this time we've spent planning everything!

Again, thanks so much for the support throughout this entire process, you wonderful posters have helped me keep my chin up.

That's awesome, BeeVee. Just a minor change in recruitment rules can make such a difference in how placement numbers change. You guys made a big difference, as well, by having fun parties despite low sister numbers. Good luck, a big pledge class can completely turn around your small club!!

I've been following your thread and I am very excited for you!! Even if only half of those 45-50 girls accept bids, that's more than doubling your size, right? That would be a nice healthy number, since growing too fast might be a challenge if your new members way outnumber your current members (then again, what a luxurious challenge that would be!!).

Sending you all positive vibes!!

ETA: is 52 the most that any group can take, or would 52 be the most that your organization can take? In other words, is there a max total of "all members" across the board?