RFM is a tool, not a panacea. The girls still have to do the work to repair their reputation or whatever the problem is with them achieving parity. With RFM AND their hard work, the system works. The point is one without the other is not enough.

No, no one said anything about penalizing anyone. I guess I don't see how holding women who accept a bid via COB to the same standards as those who accept a bid via formal recruitment is a penalty. If we tell women that they're bound to their bid for a year, that's what it should be, regardless of how their bids were issued.

I get that some chapters will always struggle, and I agree that RFM has leveled the playing field. But there are ways to even things out in addition to RFM. Valuing all bids the same way seems, to me, a good place to start. Telling women that a formal bid is binding for a year, while a COB bid is binding only until the next formal recruitment doesn't suggest the two types are valued equally.

I don't think anyone here was implying that RFM isn't a positive thing.

And I re-read my comment from yesterday and I think I came off kind of snarky and b****y. That's what a few drinks late at night will get me :p Seriously, there are times that I shouldn't be allowed near a computer…

Sorry if that's how I came across!

I think the solution is similar to this one:

There should be options.

Not all schools/sororities/chapters are equal. I think the COB/year rule should come with exceptions.

All I'm saying is that it seems crazy that a PNM who goes through formal recruitment can accept a bid and drop on bid day, and she has to wait a full year, while a girl at another campus who hung out with a chapter for weeks on end and received a bid can pledge up until a day before initiation and drop out, and then receive a bid from another chapter a month later.

There has to be a happy medium.

Of course it penalizes the woman. Say she goes thru FR in the fall and doesn't get a bid for whatever reasons. And according to 33Girl's rules, she is soooo distraught that no one should approach her with a bid for 2-3 months. So it's November and everyone is just going to wait to offer COB bids until January so they can have a normal NM period. So she gets the bid in January and accepts. Come time to initiate in 6-10 weeks (depending) she decides it's not for her. NOW she has to wait until FR of the following calendar year - not that fall. That's penalizing her when it may have been the GLO's fault for not giving her a proper NM period. Sorry, but no one is ever going to get me to buy into that one.

Assuming arguendo:

If we are going to apply the "wait a calendar year til the next formal recruitment" (or whatever) idea to every single bid issued, then we are saying that formal recruitment is identical to COB/informal recruitment. That's the first problem. They are two vastly different experiences. "Stigma" of COB is the fundamental issue, and thinking that increasing the wait time to equate to FR if a COB new member drops isn't an improvement. From there, the logic goes completely awry.

There are more issues with a "smaller" chapter than restricting a pnm's ability to re-rush in a certain time period will help or solve in terms of achieving parity in membership size. That's been pointed out by others in this discussion.

Think about it. Just think it all the way through. I know what I'm trying to say but I wonder if it's going to come across at all the way I intend it. I'm NOT talking down to anyone. I'm just looking at the logic.

I think maybe I'm confused by this example, specifically the part I've put in bold.

Sorry, I'm just trying to understand your point of view..


ETA:
In addition, I agree that us moving to Indy was a very smart move. In the 10 years since I was initiated, I've noticed HUGE improvements within our organization. And fortunately for me, I'm in an alumnae chapter with a past National President, our current National President, and many others who have been working within the higher ranks of AST; I feel like I'm able to get a closer glimpse into what we're moving toward in the future, and I like what I've seen so far.

THis is the post of hers I am talking about.

Ah, ok.

So… we're assuming that a girl went through formal (let's say in the fall), didn't receive a bid, then received a bid in the spring through COB, pledged for a few weeks, then dropped. She would then have to wait for a year and a half. Correct?

Correct.

Yeah, I just don't think that is the answer to any problem. I would prefer the COB'ing chapter take a breath before offering the bid, make sure the rushee meets several members of the chapter, and goes in with eyes fully open.

Recruitment and retention are two completely different problems and I think punishing one for a weakness in the other doesn't solve anything.

Oh, I have no doubt that formal recruitment is vastly different from informal recruitment. But, I don't see why the bid itself - the invitation to become a member - should be different. That's the inequality I'm talking about. If a bid is intended to signify the chapter's desire for a woman to join, I don't see why some bids are more binding than others. A bid is a bid is a bid...

I like AGDee's suggestion of a different time period - maybe a semester or 6 months or something. If this were applied across the board, regardless of what type of recruitment was involved, I think it would help. (Except from a paperwork POV. I'd hate to have to be the one to track which women were issued which bids on which days. Ugh.)

While I understand your POV, the bottom line items are:

1) Someone has to track all these dates

2) ALL COB bids would not expire until AFTER FR the following year so ALL COB bids would not be equal once again.

We all need to get the emotions out of this and look at the logistics...which are almost insurmountable.

^^^ This ^^^

Regardless of intent, the logistics make the whole point not even worth discussing.

Perhaps I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but why not eliminate the one-year (or any) wait period altogether?

Because PNMs who got a bid to a "lower" chapter would drop when a "higher" chapter needed to COB after total is adjusted following FR.