Just adding something off topic here.

Do you all realize how hateful and mean spirited you sound? I am completely aware that I do not say everything in the nicest tone, but in general I do not start out completely attacking you. When I, or anyone for that matter, say anything that you do not agree with , the immediate response never seems to be to try debating it civilly. It turns to "oh so i guess you know everything don't you" or something along the lines of 33's comment.
There are girls who are reading this site who are not yet in sororities. They may be reading this at some point thinking "wow, so if i say something they don't like in a sorority, they're going to completely attack me." And what makes it worse is that many of these comments are coming from alums. Grown ass women who should know better and have the patience and decency to at least be civil about everything.
I am 20 years old. I'm a college student who is still trying to figure everything out. I am not the most patient person in the world, nor the most polite. But I have throughout my life improved in both areas. I see what people on this site post to me and to others and it is extremely disheartening. I begin to wonder if it was a good decision to get involved in the greek community. Maybe all the movies about sorority women are right? Maybe they are all dramatic and hateful and never grow out of it.
If I said something in a rude way and someone was to respond politely pointing out that I came across as rude, I would absolutely, without hesitation, respond in an equally polite way and apologize profusely for appearing rude.
None of you know me, and my general way of speaking and my bluntness can seem rude over a computer when it would seem more light hearted in person. I don't even notice it most of the time, so if it is pointed out nicely I will fix it.
Maybe someone will respond accordingly next time they are offended by someone's post.

:rolleyes:

Yes, don't listen to us.. Alumnae don't know anything.

:rolleyes:

Not putting in as much effort for mixers =/= not caring at all. And again, maybe at your school (and even the ones your friends attend) things are different. But I highly doubt you have at least 1 friend in every Greek system across the country, so please don't speak for everyone.

You said all guys don't care about mixers. A couple people told you that's not true everywhere. Then you said you know what "average college guys" want and said we live in a fantasy world, and continued to try and justify the fact that what applies at your school (and the ones your friends attend) applies everywhere.

And WE'RE the mean ones.. O..k...

Will you please quit this attitude? I get it-your campus does things a certain way, and you're incredibly closed-minded about the idea that things happen in other ways outside of the insular bubble you call "school." I'm sorry, but you're far from the only person around here who's a current/recent collegian. I'm pretty sure I can speak for what guys our age enjoy, too.

ZTAmazing, on MY campus, mixers are huge. The frats don't have that many "big" parties of their own, and since we have so many frats, they enjoy mixing with the sororities. The guys get really into it, actually, sometimes moreso than the girls.

[Heads up: my sorority has not had a date party since I joined, so I can't comment on those. If I understand correctly, you have to find a date and a costume? I can see why those would not be as enjoyable for guys. I'd love one because I'm a dress-up person, but I can't imagine guys getting quite as into those.]

How would I encourage girls to go to social events? I'm probably not a great person to ask, but I agree with the suggestion that you should ask girls what they want. Maybe you've been having them on a bad day or an inconvenient time (there is such a thing as a particularly inconvenient time-for example, if they're on weekdays at 6, maybe people are still in class). Maybe the location is not a place where girls feel comfortable (I know I'd freak if someone told me we were going to some locations-most of which are very near campus!). Of course, you can never please everyone, but maybe there are small tweaks you can make to make the event more attractive.

As for the junior class, find out what's keeping them from going. It may be something very changeable.

Finally, remember that you will never be able to please everybody, nor is their any way to guarantee 100% attendance at every event (you just can't. When you discuss attendance with girls, you'll hear some very legitimate reasons. For example, someone's job, IMO, takes precedence over social activities).

Depends on the campus, obviously. My campus had a tradition of "pledge dances", wherein the new pledge class would throw an event shortly after initiation for the whole chapter. Both fraternities and sororities did them, and the level of participation in costumes and such usually depended on the theme. If the pledge class did a good job of picking a theme everyone liked and really hyping it up, the guys would go all-out as much as the girls. One of the best I ever attended was "Psi Up-Saloon", but c'mon, who can't find jeans and a cowboy hat? By contrast, my own pledge class did Ma-Phi-a, and guys aren't all that keen on wearing a suit to go out to a bar.

southernbelle14 - I think you may get the response you get on here because of your tone. I'm not sure you get how you may come across. Bear in mind that campus traditions vary from school to school.

Of course, the "I'm 20 and you're old" stuff doesn't help, either, but to your credit, you didn't start out that way.

Okay. My point in posting on this thread was that you all may be giving completely irrelevant advice. Say she's talking about normal fraternity weekend parties.
You're all like "schedule it on a different day," "ask what they want," etc.
The sorority has no say in these events.
Also, If no one had been like "oh so you know what every guy wants right?" or whatever, I wouldn't have gotten nearly as pissy. That being said, I think I overreacted to the response to my first post on this thread, so whoever that was (I forgot to look), I am very sorry. I was out of line.

lol yeah I definitely realize that I can come across as way harsher than I mean to because I have a rather aggressive, but joking/sarcastic kind of personality and no one can read that through a post. And I am sorry for that. I also tend to type things and not read over them before submitting so I don't tend to realize my tone. I'll work on doing better with that.

This is what I'm thinking. How sad! What are these ladies doing instead?

It's good you're recognizing some things here, but it's kinda hard to take an apology seriously when the apologizer doesn't even know, or bother to find out, who she is apologizing to.

Lane swerve.

Speaking as a guy: At my campus, mixers were a blast and we all looked forward to them. If a sorority had sparse attendance at them, it definitely was not taken well and would influence the future of our mixers (no point in wasting money on a group that doesn't want to show up). We only had one incident of sparse attendance when I was an active, but it was due to a miscommunication on their part and resulted in a big apology from the sorority.

This.

A lot of the posts in this thread just rub me the wrong way (and I'm not talking about the bickering). I certainly understand that it's important for a chapter to have good relations with other GLOs on campus, but I'm getting a vibe from a lot of these posts that having fun with your sisters is secondary to pleasing fraternity men in order to maintain your chapter's social standing on campus. I wouldn't be interested in joining a group for which that was the priority, and I sure as hell wouldn't have been pleased if I was required to attend certain social events in order to keep up appearances.

I never missed a sorority date party or formal as an undergrad, and was at almost every sisterhood event - I figured that's what a large portion of my dues go towards, so why skip it? But I wouldn't begrudge someone who didn't go because it just wasn't her scene, or because she had work to do. And personally, I did skip a large portion of the mixers because they were just a matter of hanging out in a frat basement getting drunk. A) I don't drink, and B) I had (and have) a LTR with a guy in another fraternity and at least at my school, a big part of mixers WAS hooking up, so that wasn't something I was interested in.

So, back to the OP - I like the suggestion someone made that if a sister votes "Yes" to a social event, she is committed to being there. I would also offer a recommendation that one of our LCs made to us, which is to really reassess what sisters want to spend time and dues/money doing. We used to do a standard semester of 2 semi-formal date parties and 1 formal because that's what we thought we were supposed to do, and attendance wasn't fantastic. After digging a little deeper we tried mixing things up, with good results. We tried costume/themed date parties, which continue to be a big hit, and also tried some more fun, less formal venues. We also tried forgoing some date parties and using the funds for events for people who didn't just want to dance or drink - like laser tag, Six Flags, etc. We also experimented with some date dashes and having your sisters pick your date, both of which were miserable failures. Live and learn.

So, maybe try doing a secret ballot to see why people aren't interested in going to socials, and ask each girl to recommend 3 activities she'd like to do instead. Think outside the box - it's ok to do something low-key, off-beat and sans-alcohol, if that's what sisters want.

I come from a chapter that struggled with our campus image in the past, and having tons of formulaic social events no one goes to is not going to help anything. It's also likely to damage morale and your sisterhood if you base a sister's value on how "good" she makes the chapter look. Work on strengthening your sisterhood so that sisters actually want to go do things together, and the rest will follow. No one wants to hang out with or join a sorority in which no one seems to have any fun together.


TL; DR - Sisterhood and social activities shouldn't be dictated by what fraternities want or how you can better your image - that's not why anyone joins a sorority. Find out what your dues-paying members WOULD turn up for and do it.

Things will never change if the people who DO want something other than a hookup fest (like maybe meeting new friends of the opposite sex - wow what a wild concept) continually avoid mixers. Be the change you want to see. Plus this isn't about men & women- it's about honoring a commitment.

That is awesome.
/laneswerve

It was. Obviously, everyone tried to put their letters into their theme, somehow, and that was a really good one. Other times, they were really shoe-horned in. I think my senior year, our pledge dance was something like "Mu-rdi Gras".