Oh my goodness! Someone close this thread and put it out of its misery. The poster in question obviously has not been taught etiquette. So, she didn't realize that speaking on BGLOs was taboo. It's great that she's been corrected though.

And, I agree that she doesn't have $19.25 to give. But, she'll learn.

As far as the original question, since by our rules these people aren't new members (barely even associate members), it would be misleading of us to call them anything but pledges.

Please stop the bickering people!!

well to me it take more than you natural knowledge of a fraternity to be a brother, making brother even at the black universities isnt always about hazing, there are certain things that being in a greek org you will never know how to do with out being taught from a brother. Yes the individual has to want and have the qualities but all in all we need to make them see, most people arent going to learn if not taught, i have met those people to that i would be great additions to the org but they still have to learn about the fraternity and they knowledge only comes from brothers. you cannot be a brother without knowing what the fraternity means, secrets etc... no matter how much service you do or how much you love APO your not a brother until a brother makes you one. You need to go through the ceremony, etc... I hope you understand what i am saying. Making a brother is someone going through a process. that we put them through.

be back.......

Brother Casanova, to whom were you responding?

Pledges are members, but not initiated members.
 

Pledge membership is a type of membership in the fraternity. This is made fairly clear in the national by-laws and is definately true from a legal standpoint, for example from a legal standpoint, a party with brothers and pledges with it only is viewed as a members only event. For example the bylaws say: "Without gender implication, all initiated Members of the
organization are known nationally as Brothers of the Fraternity." Pledges are uninitiated members. http://www.apo.org/publications/documents/bylaws.pdf

That having been said, Pledges is still the most clear and obivious way to refer to those who have Pledge Membership. When they initiated, they are Brothers.

YiLFS
Randy Finder

I was responding to brother Naraht. i have more but im at work and i want to collect my thoughts before i go further.

Re: Pledges are members, but not initiated members.
 

I know this, but I must have not been altogether clear. Pledges are not new members, but are associate members. The reason I said "barely" is because their initiation isn't guaranteed.

:) pj

Preciousjeni,

I'm going to assume this is a response to my last message and go from there. :)

IMO, CasanovaAPQ, we both agree that someone is not a brother until they have gone through the initiation ceremony (honoraries are another issue).

However an advisor to a chapter is just as much a brother as you and I, and they go through no process. At least five of the Fraternity's National presidents include the Chief never went through the pledging process as they first affiliated as advisors. I don't believe they were less than they could be in the fraternity because they never went through a process.

I still point to those brothers who started chapters like Eta Omicron to indicate that the process run by other brothers is not a necessity to make brothers that we can be proud of, however the fraternity today does attempt to add pledging-like characteristics to the chartering/rechartering process including the existance of the Petitioning Group Ceremony, Petitioning Pins and when possible Big Brother chapters and Big Brothers to individual Petitioners from the PG from the BB chapter.

Randy

I am in full agreement with you! The original post, however, was talking about New Members vs. Pledges. The examples you gave did not include a pledge process at all and would not be subject to the renaming.

I love my Alpha Phi Omega brothers no matters how they can to be!

Point well made but i have ot come back like this, knowing about adviosr cermonies, rechartering, etc... we still have to "make" that decision, for an advisor the chapter has to vote on that, also rechatering, a futrue chapter has to complete certain reqirements before they are deemed a chapter. so no matter how you put it there has be be some type of brother "making" the decision to make these people striving to be brothers, brothers. I dont know of any Brother was was made a brother without any brother involvement, maybe only frank reed horton. Even the other founders had to get approval from frank to be part of the brotherhood, now do u understand where i am coming from with the "making a Brother" statement?

But even with that said, people that joined in any other way then the usual process saw dedicated brothers that made them want to drive for the brotherhood, or saw a website that caught there fancy, or met a brother who was telling them about the frat or maybe even had a family member who is a member. I give those people who chater or recharter credit cause they have to do alot for over a year to get there chapter and to me that a whole different experience and the brothers are left cause in the 1 1/2 that it takes to charter the people who arent going t take the frat seriously are ironed out with the time.

And what was the incident with Eta Omicron?

Don't be sorry for your words...if you saying it and you mean it then you are not sorry.



you don't have to...i did...i didn't ask for anyones approval nor for anyone to agree with me.



a lot of those chapters are not as BIG AND BAD as you may think...y do you feel the need to seperate the black chapters and the white chapters? i am from two of those schools and have been in close relations with another one so i know how at least 3 of the chapters you just mentioned operate. point is...who cares? she dont go to these schools so what is the relevence?



was this comment directed toward me?

once again were you directing these comments toward me...if so PLEASE let me know

Falls down on me...
 

I think the last two comments you asked about were directed towards me. They have all been so I would presume so.

Hey i think people are taking my comment to another place, i never said that these chapters are hard core but they take the frat seriously, and i been to all those chapters i know what im talking about( no saying she going to get hazed or beat up, please dont take the comments to that extreme but you would not become a brother with that type of attitude, ive seem people no become brothers at certain chapters for less) And its not about a division of black and white schools but greek life in the black community is different than the white community.

Nothing that i said was towards you , and also wasnt towards her really its just mostly general observations of that frat.

Who cares, see thats the attitude that in my opinion shouldnt be in the frat, just because you dont go there you shouldnt care, thats like saying just cause your not from the south you shouldnt care about slavery. as a black person in apo you should want to learn about our history in the frat, this is in no way excluding our white brothers, apo is just like america, just cause you are pro-black doesnt make you anti-white ( think about it) and after thatyou should learn about the asian side of apo, spanish side etc... but learnig about your own people in anything you do is a great thing. It gives you more pride, due to popular believe apo is a Mulitcultural org all races have comtribute to our greatness and all cultures should be celebrated, but unfortunetly in the black culture apo is seemed as a "white' frat. so we need to educate ourselves and others about the frat.

There was a time where i only forcused on the black side of the frat untill i learned that all cultures contributed to out frat. Even with that said i still love the black culture in APO. And will always be proud to be black in APO. We did alot of first:

-The first Predominately White org to intergrate
Detla Phi 1947
-First org on campuses to have a handsign ( handsigns didnt come into play until the 60 with the black greeks
-Most chapters at a black universities in the 60-80. ( i may be wrong about that but thats what the research is saying now).
-More PAN_HELL members that KKY, TBS, etc... only one to rival us is the masons.
Alot of universites they pledged APO first before they did a black greek which is still the same till this day. Alot of ou black members are part of PAN_HELL orgs and still active in APO

I know brother rashid can talk alot more about this than i can at the current moment being he taught me alot

So i hope you understand whereim coming from with my black chapters comments. Sometime when people see someone who is pro-black that they there anti-white which isnt the case, i would have never peldge apo or sigma ( being that we have alot of white members) if i was anti-white.

you obviously misunderstood what i said about who cares...you said if she was at one of these schools...the fact is she is not at one of these schools so y are u even bringing that up...its irrelevent. i'm not saying u anitwhite but u obviously think that black greek culture is better than white greek culture and thats not the case...we might do this and you might do that but does that make either group superior? no. black greek life might be ur preference but dont try to preach it like its the end all say all of APO.