Thanks sis :D

Since my bf is so much younger than I am, he is still in school. I go to his fraternity house to hang out every so often, and on Friday, I met some pretty interesting people.. who might be interested in joining a sorority.

To start, I had one girl express some interest to me online a few days earlier. This is always exciting. I asked my bf if he knew her, and it turns out she's friends with him and a lot of his brothers. On Friday, we met, and we talked for a little while, just in general, and then about the sorority. I think she's somewhat interested, and I'm hoping I can get her to come to a recruitment event.

Meanwhile, staring at us while we talked was "Crazy Girl". I won't go into too many details about her now, but she has said that she's interested in joining a sorority. She recently started to become friends with all of my sisters on Facebook, all of them were confused by the friend requests, and none of them know who she is.

Then there's "I Need Attention" girl. The way she presents herself when she's sober: fine. When drinking: not so fine. I have heard from the brothers that she is constantly asking annoying questions during parties, and bothering everyone with her petty problems. From what I've heard, she'll only consider joining a sorority if her one friend tries to join.

It's always great to have a large number of girls interested in joining... and this being new for me, I find it entertaining that there is such a wide spectrum of personalities that show through during this time of year. I know that it happens at other schools, but it's never really happened to me here.

We'll just have to see who shows up tomorrow night.

:)

On Tuesday, the sisters had game night. I arrived at 7:30 and a lot of the sisters were there setting up. There were decorations and displays of sorority items on a table, along with some candy and amazing taco dip to eat... yum!

Two sisters were sent to a central location to wait for the PNMs. The girls were hoping for a large number of them to come. They were definitely ready after the large turnout on Thursday.

The sisters walked in, and behind them were PNMs. There were.......... 3 of them. I think everyone’s heart sank a little when they realized that the 25 girls from the other night had turned into 3 just a few days later. But... one of the girls who came was the nice girl that I met on Friday. I thought she might not show up (she seemed really nervous about it on Friday) so when I saw her, it felt good to know that I had made a good impression.

I knew one of the other PNMs, also. She had stuck pretty close to me at the kick-off event, but I was glad to see her branching off and talking to the other sisters while playing games.

The girls immediately started playing Cranium, Taboo, cards... everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and the sisters did everything they could to make the few PNMs feel welcome.

When the party ended, nice girl from Friday asked me if she could do anything to help clean up. I said not to worry about it, and I invited her to the next event. She said she'd definitely be there.

......

For tonight, there was confusion concerning the booking of a room for the recruitment event, so a few days ago, the sisters decided to change it. Instead of having a typical recruitment event, they decided they would go to a date auction put on by one of the other sororities, and they invited PNMs to go with them. I wasn’t able to attend the event tonight, but from what I hear, there were about 7 PNMs that showed up, a few of which none of the sisters had met before. The sisters I’ve talked to sounded really excited about it.

The next event is on Monday

:)

I found out that after the date auction on Thursday, a few sisters went back to their apartment and brought some of the newer PNMs with them to watch Grey’s Anatomy. And on Saturday, some of the sisters went to the mall and invited some PNMs to go with them, as well. I’m so proud of my girls... working so hard on doing smaller activities in order to get to know these potential members.

Tonight was philanthropy night and the girls made some cards for a local children’s hospital. Everyone seemed to be diligently working on their crafts, and the conversations flowed really well. One of the sisters was making her way around the room and saw that a few PNMs didn’t really have anyone to talk to. She grabbed another sister and said, “You’re coming with me,” and made it a point to go and talk to them. I was really happy to see them making a huge effort to make everyone feel welcome.

And the reason that every so often there were PNMs that were without someone to talk to one-on-one... there were 17 PNMs there! I understand that it’s never good to leave a PNM alone.. but without being assigned to specific PNMs, and without these infamous “bumping” systems, it makes it difficult to attend to every PNM (especially when a couple sisters were missing due to unforeseen circumstances). Still, I think everyone had a good time, and they tried to rotate and talk to as many people as possible.

And did I mention there were 17 of them?! :D

And another good note: One of the new members from last semester, for some personal reasons, was not willing and able to go through initiation. But some things have changed for her, and she will be initiated on Thursday! So that gives us one more sister!

While the girls are excited because of the possibility of doubling the chapter, they are also coming up with ways to handle a potentially large new member class. They are already 10 steps ahead of the game, and I’m confident that they’ll pull through... if it comes to that.

Only one week until bid day!

:)

Yay! I'm excited for your girls!

Wow, congratulation to your hard working girls, and good luck with the rest of recruitment!!!

It sounds like things are really picking up for you - that's great! I hope Bid Day turns out the way the chapter wants!

Thanks everyone :D

congrats! everything sounds like it's going really well and I hope you have an amazing Bid Day!

Yay! Cheering you on!!! :)

Wow! That's awesome! One of the best things about this experience is that forever, your chapter sisters will know how to maneuver in a party, how to host an event and make all of their guests feel welcome, how to hold a conversation with anyone and everyone, etc. The list of advantages goes on and on!

Good luck!!

Thanks again everyone for your support! :D

Last night was our last scheduled recruitment event. The Recruitment Director had been told by some PNMs that they felt like they didn’t know about half the sisters, and they wanted to meet and talk to more of them. In order to solve this problem (and also to solve our bumping issue), the Recruitment Director suggested doing a kind of “speed dating” thing, so that every PNM could talk to every sister. It really helped out, and some of the PNMs have already expressed that they thought it was a really good idea. I know that at the very least, it helped everyone to learn names better!

After that, the party turned into an informational night. The sisters posted on the wall a list of everything that we consistently do every year (business meetings, formal, sister lunch, convention, pageant, JDRF Walk, Habitat, etc.) so that the PNMs could ask questions about them... and there were a lot of questions! And they had some about a lot of other things, too. I started to remember how clueless I was about the whole process when I first started attending recruitment events!

We still had a very good turn out... 10 PNMs. Some others had class and work, so they weren’t able to attend, but the sisters feel as if they know most of the PNMs very well.

I was also happy to hear that the sisters are going to the Erie Otters (hockey) game on Saturday, and they were inviting all of the PNMs to go with them.

Bid Day is Tuesday!

:)

that speed dating thing seems like a really good idea!

Yea, it worked out really well.

We actually did it last semester when we were matching bigs and littles. Many times in the past, the new members have said that they only know a few sisters really well, and they'd like to get to know more of them before they pick their big. So we used this method so that everyone could talk for 5-10 minutes, and then make a decision.

Your new members pick their big sister? That seems so backwards to me! We always did it the other way around, where the older sister picks her little.