Biggest Problem in your house?
 

SO I just recently was at an IFC meeting involving every house recognized on campus. We were asked a question. What is the biggest problem your house has? Our house is dry. We have around 50-60 members. Were probably a average size house. Granted we aren't the party house but we still have parties, a full social calendar, big events about twice a year, etc. However, we were surprised to find out that almost every house on our campus said either drugs, fighting, or parties was the biggest problem. Our response was people from our house blowing
S#%$ up in the front yard. My question: Whats the biggest problem in your house?

The weekends... so many girls went home on the weekends that attendance for trade parties and other events held on the weekend was always low. It wasn't just our group- the whole school was like that. I never understood why... weekends were the best time! But you'd have 20 of us go to a trade party and have to take the heat because the other 40 weren't there too.

scheduling
 

I think my chapter's biggest, or rather most consistant problem was always scheduling conflicts. Our members (as most greeks) tend to be involved in a lot of other activities as well.

Since we're an arts fraternity, and located on a campus with a conservatory of music, you can guess there are always loads of music majors. Who have rehearsals and concerts and classes from 8a.m.-6p.m. most days.

And even the non-music people had art shows, or play rehearsals, or ....(fill in the blank).

Striking a balance between philanthropy work, social stuff, new member education (BOTH semesters), brotherhood building, meetings, and everyone's schedule was always difficult, and there would always be a small group of people who would have conflicts with events they wanted to participate in, but couldn't.

xo-sue, everyone on my campus always went home on the weekends, too. Most of them are from the central Ohio area, so it wasn't too far for them. I thought they all needed to cut the apron strings a bit more :rolleyes: I only went home on long breaks, and a few of my friends were the same way. We'd always end up going down the street to Ohio State for stuff to do.(Although, I always defend my roommie, who went home to WORK on weekends, because in 3 shifts she'd make an average of $250-300 serving pizza and beer. And she was paying for school with that money).

I don't know how much things have changed, but my daughter has talked about a similar situation we had in our chapter.
A weak social chair can start a cycle that is hard to break.
We always had seranades and mixers with the upper classmen actives' boyfriends' fraternities. (Did that make sense?)

As pledges and new actives, we wanted to mix with ALL the fraternities and sororities, but it was always the same old ones.
This resulted in lower attendance at some functions that should have been closer to 100% participation.

I really think the social chair is one of THE most important positons. It affects how you are perceived not only within the Greek system, but by rushees and GDI's as well.

The new social chair. for my daughter's sorority has high expectations placed on her. They are hoping to have a creative mind that will inject some imagination into their plans rather than sticking with the "same old, same old".

When I was active, going in, everyone seemed to get along. Within a year or so, we had major problems with cliques, and that put major strain on the chapter. Then, we had a president who set attendance requirements in motion. Understandable, but we were expected to do a lot of stuff last minute. Last minute doesn't work if you have other commitments. In my senior year, I shared a house with 2 other members of my chapter, and we all had jobs, plus full time class loads, plus chapter meetings. There were times when we couldn't make the meetings because of work, and that was really hard on us. It didn't seem like the others understood that, much as we might like to be in chapter, we had bills to pay, including membership.

Understood. Weekends for our fraternity are a little slow due to no food being cooked on Saturdays and SUndays. Usually people who can go home will go home, and for those of us who can't, we just go to the bars or something. Not a whole lot of group activities on weekends. Except for workdays, which we do once every quarter. As house manager these are really important to me so I can get things clean and Tidy for the rest of the quarter. I really don't cosider this a major problem, everyone needs away time to handle old friends, family and whatnot. Im talking more about major problems associated with Fraternities.

APATHY seems to be a problem 1>

Members are all to busy working on committees on campus instead of point to building the Chapter back up!

Giving the House Manager S*%^ and not keeping the house clean, so when an Alum comes by, he is appalled!

Granted, our house is old, but it has taken 30 years of young men to tear it up and not keep it up!

Alums cannot build over night what has been ripped up over a long period of time! So Actives of your chapters take heed!:(

Like some of you have mentioned, scheduling conflicts seem to be our biggest problem. Everyone is so super-active that it can be a pain to fit everything in. So...what's considered "work" in the house has to be attended to first and everything else is squeezed in if possible. This ends up resulting in sometimes the only times we see each other are for the "work" type events. All work and no play...... :(

Second semester is always better though, so our scheduling conflicts are looking a LOT less hectic! Hooray!!

Everybody hates eachother basically. IT is so bad for the girls living in the house we have to have fireside tonight with HOUSING CORP. and talk about everything pissing us off etc. OF course no one wants to come, but it is mandatory.
my stomach is clenching thinking about it- since I am house manager. I don't even want to go. I just hope this national exchange stuff works out. I have let so much build and i finally told me roommate off- well I wrote her a note on our board since she is sick again and was in bed all day. I am also pr chair and she did cards for all the houses and dropped them off. That's my job- pr doesn't do much by itself as it is my job doesn't work without working with philanthropy etc. My roomie has 3 other positions. She never asked me if she could. It really irked me nad there are a lot of other issues that have built up so I told her," Next time don't do my position do your own damn position." I never asked for help bc I didn't need any. Yeah I'm busy but don't take over my job- focus on your own. Plus I think it is taky to go to each house and ring the door bell and give them a card unless there is somehting with the card that is why all houses have mailboxes at the university center. Maybe I'm way offbase, but I was pissed. :mad:

I think one of our problems is negative reinforcement. If you don't turn something in, you get fined; if you miss an event, you get fined; etc. We're trying to include positive reinforcement like gift certificates for the people who do the most study hours, etc, but most of the time that just doesn't work. If people know they'll have to shell out money, they're more likely to do it...and complain about it as well.

The AOIIs stalking us. j/k :D

unfortunately, our chapter has a problem with gossip. we have quite a few gossip queens who don't seem to realzie that what they are saying hurts the people on the recieving end. they also tend to talk about someone behind their back and then be their best friend to their face...ouch!

To AlphaSigLana, LeslieAGD, and phisigQT...
 

My house is pretty much having the same problems as your all's. (Oh, no, my redneck accent is coming back!) I'm not going to air everyone's dirty laundry because this is a public forum, but I know what you all are saying because it's going on here, too. First there were the conflicts between groups like the partiers and non-partiers, but now it's more on the individual level with people not liking each other. And the fines...oh, God. One of my sisters came to my room crying last night because she missed an event and got fined for it after she had already gotten permission not to attend because she was sick. She's basically going to have to pay it because someone later decided that her reason wasn't good enough. It seems like we get fined for looking at someone funny! I'm already stretching my funds just paying dues and stuff, but these fines are a real pain in my a**. I would understand if it was big stuff, but most of us (including me) have good attendance to most everything and when we do get fined, it's a nasty surprise. That's all I'm going to say because I don't want to stick my foot in my mouth, but the problems seemed to have grown along with the size of our chapter. :( I just keep reminding myself that this is just one chapter, though...I still love the sorority itself.

i think my chapter, and the surrounding glo's on my campus have a competitive nature that just gets a little out of control. everything from rush, to greek week, to homecoming, to who is throwing better mixers and such. it gets really rediculous. also gossip. i think bad things happen to all the glos sometimes, and it just really sucks when it is blown WAAYYY out of porportion. not to say that i didnt participate in this when i was there, but now looking back i see what the real problems were.

specifically in my house, we had a division problem. the girls who wanted to hang out with XYZ fraternity and the girls who wanted to hang out with ABC fraternity. so this always made conflicts of date parties, mixers, formals, ect.

Yea I have the same problem. Some guys have a tough time getting laid, I on the other hand have a tough time NOT getting laid. Its a tough job but someone has to do it.

My chapters biggest problems is having small numbers and lack of alumni interest.

We have 35 actives, including the most recently initiated pledge class. Sometimes this isn't so bad, but when campus events start coming fast the shortage really shows.

Plus we have to deal with the fact that our alumni doesn't help us out that much. I personally, haven't met any of my chapter's alumni. We recently had a charity event and tried to get even a few alumni to show up and just be there, but none were interested...

We are certainly making headway though. Our numbers are filling out with each rush and the idea that 'good people hang out with good people' is really working. We have some great guys coming in.

Glad to hear that you guys are making a comeback. Just a little note though, don't give up on your alumni. If you snag one here and there, eventually they will come around. Then by the time you are an alumni, there will be a bunch of you there to support the chapter.

The 3 handles = Pledge, Active, Alumni

Our biggest problem is we don't do so well with recruitment. We are not your typical "cookie cutter" sorority. I mean, we have a lot of girls who you'd never guess would even be in a sorority. Most of the girls who go through recruitment, however, are... well... let's just say we can tell as soon as they walk in that they won't choose us. It's hard to get motivated for recruitment when you know that in the end maybe you'll get 5 girls, if you're lucky. 107 girls are going through this semester... last night started 2nd rounds, and only 16 girls came back to us. We're supposed to be getting 14 more tonight. And we cut 20 girls ourselves... So let's see, that's already 57 girls that have cut us? Depressing. I've completely lost faith, and I am glad this is my last semester. I am tired of putting myself through all this stress for a week and not getting much out of it at the end. I got over my superficiality during my recruitment and saw the good things about my sorority... I just don't understand why other people can't do that too. :(