Your Pledges at other chapter Pledge Ceremony?
 

Just a general question for your group. Let's say that your fraternity/sorority has two chapters in the same city. The two schools have very different rush/pledging schedules. Chapter A has rush the week before school starts, Chapter B has rushing in October. Is it appropriate/allowed for pledges of Chapter A (who have been pledges for 5 or so weeks) to attend the pledging ritual at Chapter B?

Also, if your colonizing process has a ritual making those in the colony legally members of the fraternity/sorority but not full brothers/sisters, can those in *that* status attend a pledging ritual and vice versa.

(For Alpha Phi Omega, the answer to all of these is yes as far as I know, but I'm curious for social fraternities/sorority.

If I am remembering correctly, no for the first question. Only fully initiated members take part in pledging ceremonies even if they had already been through parts of the pledging process.

I have never been involved in colonizing so I have no clue about that one.

In my region (I suspect it's the same with other regions within my organization), there wouldn't be THAT huge of a gap between Chapter A starting and Chapter B starting. Both chapters would have members coming in within a week or so of each other.

If there was a 5 week difference, I don't know that Chapter A pledges would attend, as they would be busy with their own process.

ETA: The colony thing is moot in my organization, as members of colonies are "full" members.

The rules for the first scenario are pretty straightforward - the new members of Chapter A could attend the pledging ritual for those at Chapter B just as they could if there was a later pledging ritual at their own chapter. (For example, after a COB if they were below total and wanted to add a couple of girls to the existing pledge class rather than create a discrete second group.)

The colonizing question is harder. It is my understanding that - in most NPC groups - the part at which the colony members attain membership status is at initiation, and thus the new members from the second group could not attend initiation prior to their initiation. The charter is usually conferred upon the colony (making them full members) at that time - but not always (in which case they would be initiated members but not full members.) That is the part that would vary by group.

The two groups could elect to do a combined initiation? That might require special permission or reserving a larger hall - but that might be lots of fun and provide an opportunity to bond for both groups.

Our pledging ceremony is open. So for a colony, it is not uncommon for guests to be present during the pledging ceremony. So it wouldn't be a problem to have pledges from another chapter present- in fact I think it would be great show of suport.

You should probably direct ritual questions to folks who are members of your organization. Privately.

Kevin, I'm not sure if the response is directed to me as OP, but I'm asking generally, as I put in my comment, I'm pretty sure for APO and to get a *definitive* answer for APO, I know where to ask within APO...

Then I'm not sure with respect to most of our organizations that answering your question would be appropriate.

I am just wondering, why you would want to know this information about groups to which you do not belong? It's a pretty specific situation, and I am not sure what you would do with such information.

If answering the question would not appropriate for any particular GCer, I assume that GCer won't answer.

Though like ree-Xi, I'm not sure I see the point of asking.

Trying to figure out how common or uncommon it is. I'm perfectly happy with answers like WCSweet<3 or HQWest , who didn't even give their Greek Letter Organization.

There are lots of newly initiated folks out there or others who don't know better.

Do you mean a pledging ritual or initiation?

Our pledging ceremony is open to invited guests, so I suppose it would be okay, but most likely kinda boring. I can't imagine adding one more thing to the long list of things that pledges have to attend.

True. But is it really divulging ritual info simply to say who may or may not attend a ritual? I guess even that could depend.

WCSweet<3's is in her sig. ;)

I don't see why not. The new members, as attendees, are not experiencing or learning anything they haven't already experienced and learned at their own NM ceremonies.

My chapter did quite a bit of COB. When we offered a COB and it was accepted, "existing new members" (for lack of a better term - women who'd already started pledging but who were not initiated yet) in the chapter were welcome at the "new new member's" NM ceremonies. So I don't see why AEPhi NMs from chapter A wouldn't be welcome at chapter B's NM ceremonies.

Initiation, of course, is another matter. The only people allowed at initiation are initiated sisters and the women being initiated.

I don't see saying who may be in attendance part of ritual. If any of my sisters disagree, I would gladly accept their PMs and edit my post. However, as a past ritual chair, I'm pretty sure this is a safe thing to say and does not divulge any of the actual ceremony(s) or anything that could be considered as part of it(them).

No and yes respectfully. Our pledge induction is closed and thus only for brothers and inducted pledges

Pledging Ritual. This is basically whether Pledges at Chapter A can be in attendance at a Pledging ritual at Chapter B, while they are pledges...

Yes. I wouldn't see why not. They have already been through it.

Initiation is another matter and I think that's what got people confused...they thought you were asking about initiation.

New members from COB go through formal pledging, and the already-pledged members (=from recruitment) attend that ceremony. So I don't see why pledged members from one chapter would not be allowed to attend FP at another chapter.

What would be more meaningful, though, if the new initiates would go to the crosstown chapter's initiation. I was home on break several weeks after my initiation and went to initiation at a nearby chapter. It made a tremendous (positive!) impression. A post-initiation review is helpful ("this is what you heard, and what you said, and the mutual obligation"). But it takes a couple of times of being a spectator (or one of the ritual team) to really appreciate the beauty and the scope of the service.

This is the part where I don't quite understand what's being asked, naraht. Are you asking about some kind of an intermediate colony-member status between pledge (by whatever name called) and fully initiated brother or sister?

It also probably wouldn't be appropriate to answer that question either.

I'm still wondering WHY one would take pledges from one chapter to another's ceremony. Let them bond as in their own chapter first, then build on the togetherness.

Of course, this is my humble opinion, and I approve of this message.

Well, as some have noted, pledging ceremonies for some groups are open, so non-members can attend. I think that this falls into a category of people in some groups can talk about it (as quite a few seasoned members of their GLOs have), people in other groups can't or won't.

The publicity of pledging ceremonies can greatly differ between organizations. For example, for mines, guidelines for running our pledging ceremony is actually available on national's website. Details are unique to each chapter.

At mines, we have this thing where members are ordered by seniority, so in such a situation, the yet-to-be-initiated pledges are simply junior to those who are most recently initiated.

In Alpha Phi Omega, the colony-member status (called petitioners) is equivalent to pledging (petitioning ceremony is similar to pledging ceremony). No idea if that is true for other groups...

I don't know anything about our colonies or their members.

But, when it comes to members-only Rituals, you can attend anything that you've been through.