Fun Meetings?
 

We had Sister of the Week. It was an interesting way to break up the drudgery of meetings. The sister who had worked the hardest for the sorority received a little award. Also we had Secret Sister where one sister would give another sister a gift every week throughout the semester. Since the chapter meeting was the best place to find sisters, that's where a lot of us gave our gifts. It was fun to see what everyone received from their Secret Sister.
Every semester the pledges would 'kidnap' the sisters. They would bring food and throw a party once we had finished our meeting of course.

We give awards at our weekly meeting as well. They range from "Phi-nomenal Phi" to "Funniest Phi." I think there are about 2-3 given out per week.

Also, every few meetings, we have a gift that we give away through a drawing. I have won twice. :D I won a super cute picture frame and a decorated badge box thingy.

We have weekly awards in my chapter too. The scholarship chair gives out an award if you turned in your study hours on time and a special gift if you had the most study hours that week. We also have sister of the week, and Most memorable mama of the week. its pretty fun, a nice little moment to share good times.....

We began each of our weekly meetings with roll call. When the secretary called your name, instead of saying "Present", everyone would say something positive. It could be anything like "I made an A on my test", "I get to see my parents this weekend" or (for those having a REALLY bad week) "I made it to this meeting on time". It was a great way to start the meeting on a positive note, and also find out a little something about your sisters as well.

We also had awards that the scholarship chair would give out for good grades, not skipping classes, etc.

(I must add that the roll call was done with only about 30 members. Doing that with 100 members would take a long time, but also be very enlightening!)

Our chapter used to give out this really funny poster that was on a piece of thick tagboard. It had a really cheesey picture of some guy in a swimsuit on one side, with the title "Mr. Right". On the other side it had a similar picture but with a devil mustache and horns, titled "Mr. Wrong". At the end of chapter you could nominate yourself or someone else for either "award", and whomever had the best story got to keep the board for the week.

We also had "bent arrow" awards, where people would tell a story about something funny that someone did during the week.

Chapter was also when the VP Mental (scholarship chair) passed around the Skippy Jar (an old Skippy Peanut Butter Jar). If you had not skipped any classes for the week, you put your name in the jar, and you were awarded "study bucks", which you could then turn in for prizes during the last chapter of the semester.

Some things that have worked:

Doing a brother of the week - you can make it as funny or serious as you want, but it's something interesting. Also, handing out awards for the guy who did the dumbest drunk thing (Lush Medal) and assorted other funny awards help.

Little surprises - maybe have pizza and soda at one chapter, something along those lines. It's small, doesn't cost much, but it's a little bonus that gets things off on the right foot.

Collin

We do all the usual skippy jar, ABCD which stands for above and beyond the call of duty where you give and anonamous (sp?) shout out to someone who did something for you, tale tale where you "told" on someone you saw doing something good for you or others, and sharing time at the end of meetings where you have everyone who wants to share something with the chapter stand up and talk, it can last for a while, but its worth it to know what is going on with your sisters. The funniest thing I ever heard of was from a Phi Sig where he said at chapter meetings they had a blender with a rope tied to it and at the end of the meetings they had a competition for who did the biggest social blunder, get it blender blunder, cute, but a lil harsh definately better for the frat mettings.

We would periodically tape money - $5, $10, $20 - to the underside of the chairs, and whoever was sitting in it got the cash at then end of the meeting. This helped increase attendance a bit, and for the most part, the guys who won the cash would turn around and either donate it for whatever community service project was going on, or use it to pay a bit of dues.

I once dated a guy whose company used to give out the "Geek of the Week" award. The award consisted of a pocket protector with the slogan "Geek of the Week" stocked with pens and pencils. If an employee did something doofy during the week, they come into work on Monday morning to find the pocket protector on their desk. My friend, a sweet but clumsy kinda guy, found the award on his desk quite often. On one occasion, he put a can of Diet Coke in the lunch room refridgerator to cool it down quickly. However, he accidentally forgot about it. It exploded. :)

......Kelly :)

Our chapter is small so we can take the time to do this but durring attendance as each sister's name is called they get to say one thing. Each week the secretary thinks of something new. Sometimes it's one fun thing you did over the weekend or something nice about the sister to your right. It's a nice way to start the meeting and take care of some of the urge to chit-chat right off the bat.

~Emily

our meetings...
 

after all the business is over, and everything is taken care of - we can do several things, depending on the mood of the chapter

everyweek, without fail, we do a rose (active) and a petal (new member) of the week. sisters can nominate a sister for any reason, and can choose whether or not to share that reason with the chapter.

for example - i was nominated as petal (new member) for driving everyday because i was the only pledge who commuted, and i was still at every single event 15 minutes early (though i thought that was the whole point of pledging)

we also do a good & bad sometimes - if it was a shorter meeting - this gives every sister in attendance an opportunity to share a good & bad thing that happened in the week.

we also have a sunshine jar. this is just a candy jar that is passed from one sister to another for any reason (only done if the jar is remembered - twice since i've been a member)

we also tape a prize (usually a coupon for dinner or something) under a chair, and at the end of a meeting, that sister can stand up and share a favorite memory, or why she pledged, something along those lines.


like i said we don't do all of these at every meeting - usually just rose & petal of the week, and the prize


that's what we do

When I was pledging first semester, there was a "Lambda Lotto". Basically, you got one raffle ticket for every dollar you put in the put. Whoever had their ticket number called off,would win half of the pot and the rest would go to a house pot. At the end of the year, the house would spend the money that it earned over the year on something fun like a ping-pong table or buy supplies like paint, wood, etc.

Creed
Old Business
New Business
Officer Reports
Announcements (making fun of somebody generally for what they did this weekend. Awards are given out the "Boot" award for whoever puked the most that weekend, the so-called "Drew" award for whoever was the biggest drunk belligerent fool that weekend.)

We limited chapter business to an hour. When the hour was up, the alarm clock played "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid. That forced us to focus on the important things (and we couldn't add anything to the agenda after the Friday before Chapter on Sunday).

We gave out awards for sisters who went above and beyond, as well as for those who got a little silly. ;)

We had No Skip jar, the winner usually got a bag of candy, and Cookies for A's: if you got an A on a test, you could turn it in and request what kind of cookie you wanted from a really good local cookie place. One year we tried doing "supportive sister" where a member would nominate a sister for something supportive and that sister would get to hang a DDD bra on her door, signed by all the previous SS's. Never really caught on, though. . .

Here are some fun things we do in our meetings:

Smart Cookies - if you made an A on a test or a project during the week, you get a smart cookie from the scholarship director - usually anchor shaped cookies. Yum!

Seat of Knowledge - awarded from time to time when a sister does something academically outstanding - the seat is a toilet seat that hangs on the wall of our study lounge, you get to sign it. [brag] I was the 1st person in the chapter to sign it because I had made a 4.0 with 21 hours!![/brag].

Inspiration Box - a box where sisters can write notes to other sisters who have done something nice for them during the week. We read a few out each week.

From time to time we also give out silly little awards (usually just drawn out on computer paper). It keeps things funny.

The most important thing we do is Sweet & Sours. We do this each week no matter what. At the end of chapter (even if everyone is cranky and just wants to leave) we circle up and go around the circle and share good (sweet) or bad (sour) things that are going on in our lives. Every one of the 100 sisters shares something. It's good to hear what everyone is involved (good or bad). We get a lot of "I am so happy I don't have any tests coming up for a week" and "I have 3 tests, 2 papers, and 1 project due this week, I think I'm going to die." After you hear all of these, you know who to check up on during the week...send Miss. Drowning in Homework a sweet note on Wednesday...

That's about it.

blue boobs
 

I have NO clue abouat how this got started but we do blue boobs at the end of the meeting... its when we get to say something stupid or embarrassing about something that happened to us- or we can call another sister out and tell about soemthing dumb or funny THEY did- its hysterical and after mixers or big party weekends they last forever- also- at the beginning and end of the meeting we do a ceremonial clap thing that we have to learn- its really fun when we get it right- and its fun even when we mess up b/c we all start laughing- the blue boobs are definately my favorite and its nice to do them at the end esp when the meetings are tense or boring:)

My chapter borrowed this idea from another chapter that we had visited a few years back... throughout the week, sisters can write a "pink crescent" to another sister to just say thank you or how much they appreciate what ever it was that was done for them. And at the end of the meeting, the Public Relations VP woudld read them out to the chapter and give them out.

We also had an end of semester auction. Throughout the semester, we earned points for turning things in, getting to meetings/events on time, getting As on tests or papers, etc. Then, at the end of the semester every point you had was worth one point/dollar in the auction. Our standards chair had made prizes, bought some off of ebay, had some donated from alumnae sisters, and even got discounted fabric and heat and bond from where she worked (we make our own letters). Everyone had a chance to look at the tables full of the prizes and then the bidding began. It was a lot of fun, and most sisters "bought" things that they could give to their little sisters when we got the next new member class.

Those are really great ideas. Nothing kills morale more than 2+ hour chapter meeting, week after week.

The best way to shortened meetings involves accomplishing 3 things.

#1 Sort out major decisions in committees. Meetings are for making decisions as a group, not hashing through details.

#2 Educate members in the value of good meeting skills. For example, teach them that when they speak in a meeting, it is important to make sure that what they're saying is something NEW. If they agree with what someone else said, their vote will show that. One of the biggest contributors to long meetings is to have long discourses amongst the members -- usually when you analyze the content of these conversations there are about 1 or 2 viewpoints present.

#3 Use proper parliamentary procedure. This needs no explanation.

-- Meetings aren't for fun. They are for planning what should be fun. They are a business-like environment and something I think gives GLO members a HUGE leg-up on the rest of outgoing college grads.

We give out a yellow rose, it is a laqured rose that an alumna gave us and the person who has it gives it to a sister who has dones something to exemplify AST. They keep the rose for a week then pass it on.

we also do Tau Time during roll call. (helps the women who have class right before get there on time) We basically have one sentance to say soemthing good or bad.

:) I like some of these other ideas how long are some of your chapter meetings?

Every so often we would have a theme for our formal meetings. My favoriate was the formal fromal meeting where everyone came to meeting dressed up in formals. There was also an accessory theme where the sister with the most accessories got a prize at the end of meeting. It sure did help meeting to go a bit better and more exciting. :D

exactly. The business part of our meetings was about 15 minutes tops. That is because of #1 especially. The rest of our meeting we used to catch up on everyone's week and give them a place to vent if they needed to do so. All in all about an hour depending on the non business part.

wow what interesting approaches, right now we do casual meetings at each sisters house. Also we more chat online since some of us live far, this makes communication easier and we dont have to repeat everything in the meeting since they will all be up to date. We are thinking about having a raffle. those who always attend meetings and do a lot of community work, events, etc. will get one ticket and there will be bunch of misc. prizes and one grand prize will be the coverted Sac State parking permit....its really expensive over here and we are a "Commuter University" so everyone drives lol........

We have "sunshine notes" at the end of meetings that are read. Everyone just writes little inside jokes about stuff that has gone on that week or whatever. We also have the "you rock" award. This award (a rock spray-painted and decorated with the persons name and "you rock" on it) is given to someone who has done something outstanding for the chapter recently. Lastly, we have the support bra award. This is a sports bra that is passed to a different sister each meeting that may be needing support for that week (a pet died, brokn arm, or whatever). Each person who recieves it signs it.

I'm a Pike, and something fun that we do is Pike of the week and TKE of the week. There are nominations for both. Pike of the week is for someone who did something that really helped out the chapter or another brother, or someone who took one for the team. TKE of the week is generally hillarious. This way we get to hear all of the funny and embarrassing stuff that brothers have done that week...
We also have a random fraternity-history trivia question for a prize at the start of our meetings.

In the middle of the meeting, our song chair (when its her turn) stands up and teaches the whole sorority a new song each week. She gives us the words and we try to sing it a couple of times. This breaks up the monotony of the meeting and usually we get a good giggle out of it.

Also, we do sister of the week, we pass around a stuffed turtle puppet.

One other thing we do it pass a bracelet. We bought a square shaped bracelet (you can get them on any of the greek merchandise sites) and it has a "DZ" on it. Each week, the sister who has it, passes it on to another sister for whatever reason (i.e. doing a favor, helping a sister out, working really hard within the sorority, working hard in classes, surviving a tough week of class and so on)

Also, out academic chair gives out awards like "Smarty Turtle" (for good grades or such), the "SmartAss Award" (usually for something dumb or not so smart) and the "Brag Book Quote of the Week" (each meeting we send around a "Brad Book" and you brag about studying hard, or a good grade.)

:)

We do several things at weekly chapter meetings.

Sister of the week - Voted on by the Chapter Relations committee each week

BIONIC- (believe it or not I care) goes to someone who has had a rough week, been sick, or needs some encouragement...Lets them know they're cared about.

Silly Sister award- Always has a fun story to go along with the recipient

A-pail - anyone who made an A on a paper, project or test for the week puts their name in for a drawing

Roses & Thorns - Cards made for people roses are things like "Thanks for the ride" or "You're doing a great job with your office" and thorns are for silly stuff like locking yourself out of the dorm or being clumsy.

Those are a few of our fun things! :)

Sarah

My first senior year (I had 2 lol) we had 2 seniors that bought a ZTA jersey and put a really cute slogan on the back that I can't remember. But it was given out at chapter every sunday to the sister that showed the most zeta spirit that week. It was a really good way to motivate the sisters during the week and get them to come to chapter on sunday so they could see who got the jersey. We also gave away a study geek of the week award every week and would sometimes hold a pj chapter meeting on sunday's after spring break and other holiday's.

I think this qualifies as hazing under article 4.93, section 3 of anti hazing laws because some people are upset since other people get things and they don't. They suffer emotional damage.

-Rudey

And THAT means you have a lawsuit on your hands, buddy!

Rudey - please tell me you're not referring to my post. That's just pathetic (if you are). If you're not, then my mistake.

I'm not. I just put you on ignore. Please don't ever talk to me again because I get annoyed when people can't think. Thank you.

-Rudey

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Whatever Rudey, you really need to get over it. Have a nice night. :)

Heh...let's get together the Greek defense dream team. I vote Cochrane in.

-Rudey

And he's a Kappa, so that's a great start.