Ways to take attendance at chapter?
 

How does everyone take attendance at chapter meetings? Our chapter is about 300 girls and it takes FOREVER. Hopefully someone has an idea or already does something that can make taking attendance more efficient! Thanks y'all!

the largest chapter meeting I ever attended had about 210 and they actually called roll! I was surprised that it didn't take any longer than it did,

We have one representative from each pledge class take attendance while we're lined up outside (we file in by pledge class in alphabetical order), then the executive assistant calls the names of the girls that weren't there before during unfinished business after the officer reports.

My chapter has taken roll three different ways:
1) Every girl had to check in with the secretary or one of her assistants before or after chapter.
2) The secretary wrote everyone's name on a sticky note and stuck it to a posterboard. Everyone had to remove the sticky note with their name in order to be counted as present.
3) Every girl had to write their name on a dollar (!!) and turn it in. All money went to our philanthropy.

We had the assistant Secretary (this was in the stone ages) sit up a little higher than the rest of the chapter (on a countertop on the side of the chapter room) and she checked off people as she saw them. THEN...at the end...she called names of the people she didn't see there. Less names to call out! Chapter size about 200.

We had someone standing at the door to get into chapter as we filed individually in alphabetical order. If she got overwhelmed, we paused until she was finished...but by a few weeks of the new person doing it, you'd be set to go

I am sure there is a scanner/barcode system out there set up for attendance for large orgs. Either one could swipe a card or have the person in charge of role use a hand-held scanner. Not a terrible one-time investment.

What if each sister had a card with their name on it and someone collected it at the door as each sister
entered? Then you could later match this against the roster. Of course, the person collecting the cards would need to make sure each sister only turned in one card. Or could you have a seating chart and visually match that at chapter to see what seats were empty and who was absent?

We have all the sisters line up in relatively alphabetical order as the EVP reads off names one at a time. You say "here" if you're here then go into the chapter room. Works for a chapter of about 230, but we don't usually have everyone in attendance at chapter.

The Grand Lodge of Idaho has barcodes on our dues cards, and if you don't have a good bar code, you can't get into Grand Lodge. If a bunch of old men can figure it out, it should be workable for a group of college women.

There are attendance apps out there that people are always trying to sell me (I teach a large lecture section). I don't know all the details, but it's something to do with students checking in on their smartphones/laptops.

I was going to suggest something with checking in with phones or QR scanners or something

If you are a Pi Beta Phi (which I guess I assume from your username being PBP), you have to take roll at chapter...mind you, ours topped out at about 90, and it was still a ridiculously long roll. I shortened it by just using last names, but I still had to go through them all. Your regional team might have some suggestions specific to your chapter...I suggest reaching out to your AAC counterpart for any ideas, then to the region team through them.

This is actually how my college panhellenic checked party attendance during formal recruitment--for each party, you had to give a card with your name on it into a basket at the door, and that was how they ensured you attended all of your parties

This was something like what we did at Clemson-you got a bunch of pieces of paper, then wrote your name and recruitment number on them. I imagine it also helped the actives remember who they had talked to at the end of the night.

at my school they just go through saying Ms. ___ and you say here or not, but then again my chapter is about 130-140 girls

Chapter of 200 would call out last names in alpha order. It worked fine. If there were girls with the same last name, they would be called out by last name, first name. It was fine. Sometimes, to make it fun, instead of saying here, we would have to name our favorite city, favorite place for a date, favorite fraternity, etc. Always a good laugh.

Roll call may be tedious, but it is a good way to get to know the members' names. I can appreciate that it's a nuisance, but there are benefits to the old fashion way.

Attendance with phone
 

Chapter size 180. Arrange tables near room entrance & place poster board on the table. Color coordinated for each year in school. Draw a grid with each member's name on one block. When they enter the room they place their phone on their square. Easy & quick way to take attendance. It also eliminates the distraction from phones making the meetings quicker & more efficient!

Our chapter uses clickers assigned to each woman to take roll. They also use them for voting - much easier and faster than counting hands/paper ballots. These are the I-Clickers that the women use in many of their classes. They are all familiar with the way they work. There was an investment by the chapter for the technology but it works well and is easy to install.

I believe i-clicker has an app now, although that kind of invites phone distractions during chapter.

We use an app called n-class at school, although it's a startup so the software is a little buggy.

This strikes me as completely genius and I wish I had done it during the last chapter visit I did.

We have a chapter with about 300 girls in it. We have the chapter guard wait at the door and we line up alphabetically. The guard has a list of every girl in the chapter (minus those excused for the semester due to an evening class, etc.) and she checks your name off as you walk in. Usually only takes about 15 minutes to get everyone inside.

One of the other chapters has a velcro board
Each girl has a velcro strip with her name on it. As they come in, each girl pulls her strip off and puts it in a basket.
The secretary knows the names that did not get pulled are absent
She might call just those names to see if some one snuck in late

Another group did the same thing but with their magnetic name tags
As you came in you grabbed you name tag and put it on
This would cost more - but be really easy if you needed name tags for recruitment anyways and easier to make sure no one pulled someone elses tag.

Not my chapter:

When the girls walked into the chapter room in the house, there were two guards. One did the secret handshake with the girl and was told the password. The other had an iPad and had some attendance app that she just checked off each girl and when everyone was inside, it said who was missing.

Divide your chapter into "Founders Groups" or similar Family Groups and have one person in each group count the 15 or 20 girls in her group.

I really like this way!

Just for kicks, how we did it at my school (Total was 55) was the Secretary calling out the names, and each sister had to respond with the name of another chapter. The favorite one to use (but is no longer active) was "Alpha Delta, Colby College, Waterville, Maine" which for some strange reason we all said, using a country-style accent. I know, weird.

My chapter (over 300 girls) uses student IDs to check in. The chapter has everyone's student ID # and their name so they know who we are. The VP Communications (who's in charge of attendance) has several card swipers. They plug in to a laptop in the USB port. Her committee members bring their laptops and swipe everyone in before chapter. It's really easy and convenient. I'm assuming it connects to a document of some sort that creates a list of who was there. We just hand them our student ID card and they swipe us in! The card swipers are pretty common at my school for taking attendance, I've had to swipe in for class events in the past and a required career fair.

300+ members?! I can't wrap my head around that.

I would've never joined a fraternity with that many members; too overwhelming. While I assume most of those girls don't live in the house, 300 was the size of my high school graduating class - and I wouldn't want to attend chapter meetings or formals with that many people.

Tis sorority life in the SEC! Only 70ish of us live in house and I believe it's a similar number in other houses at my school.

The clickers many use for recruitment voting work for this.

Is this the same for SEC fraternities, where most of the men don't live in the house? I think some of those chapters are at 150 to 200 members.

I honestly have no clue, but I believe that more do live in than in sororities. Not sure if that's enough to be majority of guys living in though. I don't know enough fraternity men to know much of anything about fraternities!