COB ideas
 

Anyone have any really good COB ideas that attract a lot of women and are also really fun?

I would to love to hear some ideas too - COB seems to be the thorn in our side.

COB events my chapter has done in the past: Winter theme - basically sat around and talked and served hot chocolate (it worked like a charm); laser tag; bowling; games, etc.

Because we are reorganizing at my school, we recruit constantly!! Some ideas that we use are: pajama party, "Friends" night, "Survivor" night, movie night, ice cream, skating, yoga, crush parties, secret setup/my-tie(for the rushees), line dancing(taught by yours truly:D ), picture frame making, pumpkin carving (in the fall), luau-at a nearby park, socials,philanthropy event-such as making bags of candy for kids or cards for a holiday.

Its also a good idea if you met the girls before to take them out in a smaller group. Get together a group of sisters and take one or 2 rushees out to dinner, to the movies or to a fraternity party. That works really real because the girls get to see the sisters in a relaxed atmosphere and get to have tons of fun.

Email me if you want more info about any of my ideas..Hope this helps

Jillybean441@aol.com

Jill :)

one of the most succesful events we ever did at Calgary was "Grab a Java" - we would have a standing 'day of week' where we would invite women to one of the student lounges to have a coffee. Lots of sisters were coming and going, so PNM were able to meet and see

We also did going to university hockey/football games. When we did dinner before meeing at the Student Union (we didn't have a house), that was always nice.

We also did 'gym rats' - PNM's would join us for a workout - doesn't get anymore real than that!!! but a lot of fun .....

Pretty much if we had an outside event, PNM's were always invited (exchanges/mixers, study tables, philanthropy events).

This is my 200 post so I wanted to have it in the D Phi E Forum. :D

You can do the "One Voice" ceremony. It's lovely and very moving. I don't know if it is an international thing or specific to my chapter, but we did it at the last round invitation party and COB. Everyone who participates is affected by the ceremony. I must have seen it seven or eight times, and it never lost its impact. Let me know if you want the details, and I will e-mail you privately.

Cream-Please email me about the ceremony. It sounds really interesting.

Thanks-Jill :-)
jillybean441@aol.com

I have the "One Voice" ceremony. By far, my FAVORITE part of rush. We do this at our second round of parties (night before prefs), and it's VERY catching for PNMs. I'll send it out :) Cream, you must be older, because MANY groups don't know about one voice anymore :) By the way, you need some singers for this one!!!

Thanks for your COB ideas...send them to me via email :) First COB event is January 17th at Kappa!

Hey, I am not that old! :mad: just a couple of years older than you. :p
I don't know why you would need singers. We read, played a CD, and passed around candles. Was it the same for you?

Oh yeah, we also had Delta Diamonds and Lovely Purple Irises.

Oh no!!!! We have singers. Basically, we do the reading part, then the first woman lights her candle from the middle and starts the song...after first verse, a second joins her. This continues through until 6 women are in the middle singing. Then they go back to the circle and pass the flame until each person's candle is lit, and then EVERYONE sings the last chorus.

Cream, you ain't old, I was just teasin ya :D

do you have the reading part of this??

For those of you who don't know, a Delta Diamond is a sister who is matched with a rushee and guides her through rush.
I'm pretty certain that I don't have the reading/speech part, but I will double check. I can't believe International doesn't have this. If I recall correctly, the chapter President, VP, and Rush Chair read the speech. We turned on the CD and the music played as we turned on the candles one by one in a circle. (Actually, we didn't use real candles after a couple of years because the campus had rules about dripping wax so we used battery operated candles. It wasn't that different.) When the music ended, the Delta Diamond gave her rushees a 'pearl' to put into a bowl of water, said "Make a wish" and escorted her out. Sometimes we gave them an iris. Almost every year, we had rushees crying because they were so moved. I think that all chapters and colonies should do this memorable ceremony at rush.
I am so glad we didn't have to sing because that song is hard. Funny side note, one year we couldn't find our copy of the song so as the rushees lined up outside two of our sisters drove to the mall to buy the tape/CD. My housemate asked where they had gone and I told her. She said that we didn't have to buy it because she had a copy of her own in the car. She said, "You know me, I love Barry Manilow!" ;)

I was an ACTIVE sister in the late 80's and early 90's. My last rush was a decade ago! Pin an iris on me! :D

See, now we have one of those pearl "wishing well" ceremonies too, but that's done only on pref night. I think I will have to find that whole reading part, because it's pretty good. We always had a senior, a middle sister and a new sister read them.

We had "One Voice" at the invitation only last night of Rush. For us, COB was a one night only party after formal rush bids were distributed. Is that the same for you and your colony? At COB, we had a regular rush party with food and songs and getting acquainted. We incorporated "One Voice" and the wishing well at the end of the party. The Delta Diamonds were usually newer sisters in charge of making sure that we had all the important information about the rushees.

Oh here's another rush theme that worked. We had a big jigsaw puzzle of a unicorn. Every rushee was given a piece of the puzzle which had the name of a sister on the back. The sister and rushee had to find each other and put the pieces of the puzzle back together.

To everyone - Good luck with your rush parties. :D I hope that these posts contributed to a successful rush!

For my own chapter, we have COB whenever we want after formal recruitment. The purpose of COB is to take women until you reach total, and our chapter was never close to total, nor were any of the other sororities on campus. In any case, we had COB for at least a week after formal rush.

For the colony, normally they have informal recruitment in the Spring, but this year they aren't having that. So, it'll be all COB. We are planning events once a week through the end of March. We need to get 25 more women to charter!!

I did that whole puzzle theme with the Beta Mu chapter last semester, and it was pretty successful :)

My opinion: Active sisters, if you could share with us your recruitment stories for this semester, that would be awesome! I'd be happy to share those of my own chapter and of the colony!

Good luck with recruitment!

Could someone please send me that One Wish ceremony, it sounds really cool, plus my chapter is looking for a new recruitment ceremony ;) . My email address is siobhanpoole@hotmail.com.

Thank you

I know that Siobhan and Jill expresed an interest in "One Voice." Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the speech, but the search is on! I sent out an e-mail to my chapter, and I hope to hear from them soon. As soon as I hear anything, I will pass it along via e-mail. I know that rush is coming up soon so I'll outline what you need:
1.Candles- as stated earlier, we used battery operated candles since the campus didn't want us to drip wax on the floor and carpets. I recently saw purple wax candles which were very pretty.
2. A copy of Barry Manilow's song "One Voice" and something on which to play it. I know it sounds obvious, but we would always forget things.
3. A bowl with water or something that you could use as a "wishing well" and enough "pearls" or little white beads for all the rushees and their Delta Diamonds.
4. A lovely purple iris is a nice gift for the rushees, but it can get very expensive so it's not necessary.
Now all you need is the speech. From what I can recall, our chapter President, VP, and Rush Chair would read, but I think that your chapter can decide this for itself. We usually wore dresses for this ceremony.

Heather, how is your search for "One Voice" going? I hope that you do it at your colony. It's so nice. I think that they will love it.

Good luck to everyone going through rush! Keep building those bonds of sisterhood! :D

Alright, I've got my contacts looking for the reading part of One Voice. Cream's chapter and mine do things slightly different, so I'll send out my version to all of you via email when I get the readings. I know that my chapter has the readings, but it's a matter of finding them. Not the most organized girls, but sweethearts nonetheless :)

Keep your eyes peeled...I'm working on it! Now I just need to find my Standards Board workshop and PEARL workshop and make up one for Chapter Management.

Heather

I haven't heard a thing from anyone. My chapter doesn't start classes for two more weeks so it seems unlikely that I will hear anytime soon. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Hey guys, I just talked to my friend at HQs and I think I'll have the One Voice ceremony on Monday, and if I do, I'll send it out :)

Did you get it?

Alright ladies, I got a message from HQs today, and they don't have the written part of this ceremony either!! I can't believe it, but they are going to provide me with chapters that use it, and hopefully I can get it that way. So hang tight kids :) I'm doing my best!

I haven't heard from my chapter yet.

Did anyone ever get One Voice? How did COB/Rush go for everyone?

we sang One Voice at rush - I don't remember which semester it was but it would be in the 1991/1992 era. We had one girl who had the most amazing voice, she's actually singing in a professional independent band now.

Did anyone ever get this ceremony? What's the status guys? do you need some help?

fire

Hey fire, your chapter has done this ceremony!! Linnette told me that Eta may have it. Could you check it out??? :)

Hey girls on here from Alpha Gamma. Can you tell us about True Colors??? The colony in Indiana is going to use it as their pref ceremony, because they heard it from you all :) So tell me about it!!!

We use a ceremony called true colors, which I believe came into being somewhere during Linnette's time in the chapter....lol...she has soo many good stories from when she was a sister, but I digress.
I have also **seen** a pref ceremony in our ritual book that I thought had something to do with an artists pallette. I can see if they have it. If you guys want our true colors, I can probably get it for you. It's very moving, I've never left it without crying though so beware!!!
Just as a side note, our leadership consultant was there for recruitment one year and she cried like a baby. Same for rho chi's that aren't even from our house!!!

hello?? I guess that is a no???
in the words of dphies00
"crickets, crickets..."

fire,

you must forgive my lack of posting. I was at USI putting the finishing touches on what promises to be a good recruitment. Linnette was with me :) We told horror stories over a drink, so it was great!! I want both ceremonies!!!

Heather

lol..it's okay, they start school this week i think so I will try to make it up there.

One question, where is USI?? Am I being dumb?? lol

You haven't lived until you've seen Linnette's NM class scrapbook. I'll have to get some of the photos and send them on the world wide web!!!

USI is the University of Southern Indiana. It's a small school in Evansville. They have four sororities...ASA, DZ, G Phi B and D Phi E. Can't WAIT to see those photos!!!

crickets. crickets
 

All right, as one of the sisters who found the old New Member Photo Albums, it's pretty interesting to see your advisor as a teenager. Espeically when her album was one of the most interesting of all twenty plus albums since 1983 that we have.

Re: crickets. crickets
 

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Probably as bizarre as going back for alumnae weekend and seeing your senior photo in the very first composite for the chapter.....and all the composites in the years to follow of girls that I never knew.

really really really bizarre.

Hey I'm from alpha gamma...but I don't have the copy of the ritual you are referring to :( . We had an incident at convention where our ritual book was cleared out and part of that ceremony was thrown out, but not to fear, we found a lost copy among our files! (We cried wen we heard the news!) If any of you are still interested in receiving a copy of the ceremony, please PM me and we will more than happily fax it to you! We began using this ceremony last year as our pref ritual...when the PNM drops her pearl in the "wishing well" we whisper gently into their ear..."We hope your wish is the same as ours" (guaranteed tearjerker!)

As for a COB idea, we have DphiE Snapshots: You build a huge Polaroid frame out of cardboard/foam....then you proceed to narrate the still life. Make individual popcorn bags for each PNM. (make sure the lights are dimmed between each "scene")

EXAMPLE: Two sisters laying on beach towels in bikinis...while two sisters are standing with (empty) buckets directly over them...."Here you see DphiE's amy, jo, beth, & marie at the beach, we regularly have sisterhood beach days...blah blah blah
Incorporate your individual events, be creative silly and most of all convey the fact that DphiE's always have fun!

COB event?
 

Maybe a good COB event could be a bowling party? If your university has a bowling alley on campus it could be a fun way to get to know potential new members in a relaxed setting.

Hi Heather
I sent you an email!!!!!:D

bump!!