Hey Hey!
 

yeah I haven't posted here in FOREVER but thats ok!

I just wanted to share -

I live in Dallas, but my recently on a trip to Little Rock to visit my parents I met another AGD from the Jonesboro (sp?) chapter. Well, come to find out they had over 100 members in their chapter.....compared to our 40 tee hee.....which got me to thinking....

how many are/were in your chapter? Do you think the size of the chapter is better/worse for having more/less members?


*I know this might have been asked before but I wanted to post anyway since I hadn't in awhile :)*

When we recolonized and I pledge we have about 35-40 members in the house.
However, AB's usual size in its day was about 65+ members.

I think they're pros and cons to both and large and small size house. I personally like it large though. No pun intended.

good things come in small packages!
 

You really made me think with this question too...My initiated chapter had 70+ and my affiliated chapter has 45. I LOVE having the chapter smaller. The bigger chapter made for more controversy and cliques. I feel everyone can be themselves better and be more like a family with the lesser numbers. Of course, IHQ doesn't agree..but I love it small!

Loyally,
Heather

If I were queen of the world I'd set a mandatory chapter size for all campuses, everywhere, of 60, with new member classes of 20 maximum. That's a workable number: big enough to fill all the offices without requiring everyone to have an office, but small enough so that everyone pretty much knows one another. Big enough to have a nice-sized house but small enough that the house doesn't cost a fortuen to operate.....And when there's enough interest so that all the chapters on a campus are at 60 and they keep recruiting 20, the campus invites a new group to colonize.

Alas, I am not queen of the world.

(And while I'm wishing and hoping -- of course all the chapters of all the groups would be at quota and total, so that recruitment would be on the basis of "these are the women we really like" instead of cut-throat competition.)

My chapter is presently at total, which is 45 members. It was a real struggle to get there, as my campus is very anti-greek. In my opinion, total is set too high.

That having been said, I liked our chapter's size when I was there, but I think it would have been fun to be bigger. Assuming that rush goes the way it has been for the last few years, my chapter will probably end up pretty close to 55-60 girls this fall...which is just mindboggling to me. I don't know how the Auburn chapter does it with over 230 girls. :eek:

MereMere

I am from the Jonesboro, Epsilon Zeta, Chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta and yes we are over 100 sisters. Alpha Gam is a very prestigious sorority to be involved with at Arkansas State University. We are very popular on campus because we are nice to just about everyone, have the highest GPAs and are considered to be the "Ladies" on campus. I was just wondering which girl did you talk to?

Loyally,
Lindsey

By the way!!!

I love how big my chapter is. We truly are a special family. We all get along so well. My pledge/new member class has 28 girls in it. We started out with 30 on Bid Day and initiated 28. I am very close to just about all my sisters. Without them in my life, my days would be quite boring. Honestly, I do believe that no matter how big or small a group that some controversy may arise. But as long as you are a strong enough chapter and have a strong sisterly bond then nothing will get in your way to achieve great success. I love the girls in my chapter. I've met the girls that will someday be my bridesmaids and I am truly thankful for the experience to be an Alpha Gamma Delta.

Loyally,
Lindsey
(Fall 2002 Initiate)

I really like this. But I would want all new member classes to be between 25-30. That is how big my pledge class was, and I think it was perfect. So if our chapter had continued to pledge that many girls it might have made the chapter slightly larger than 60, but quite a bit smaller than 230 ;) .

Wishing I were queen of the world too...

Tau chapter is currently at about ten members. We're the smallest on our campus, but not by a lot; plus, we've been very (very very) top-heavy for the past few years. Close to twenty women (maybe more) have graduated in the last two years, a huge turnover.

We're hoping to turn it around this year, but everyone in the chapter is very worried that we won't make quota, etc. Toronto is simply not a school that is interested in Greek life.

I think, based on the composites from the 80s & mostly through the 90s, we were at or near quota. It looks like 120-ish...then the chapter was graduating more members than it could take in around '97.

For those of you who haven't been lucky enough to come to Alpha Beta, we like to play "Find the Scariest Hairdo" with the old composites. Hehehe.

We also had a house dad at 1 time. :) It was sometime in the 80s.

The general consensus on the board seems to be pro-small chapters...anyone out there who would like a big chapter?

I like the size of the chapter, since we can get to know each other so well...however, considering the size of the other chapters on campus, I think we would benefit from being near chapter total as well. Big numbers seems to be an asset here.

I've noticed that chapters seem to be getting smaller here at U of M (though they are still huge!). Are any of you noticing this at your campuses? If so, what do you think is causing it?

Wow, this post was all over the place!! LOL.

Re: good things come in small packages!
 

I was in a charter class of 33 with an additional 15 AI at Initation.
I am alum now but I think that TU is currently at about 65 after graduation with campus total at 100. Georgetown is a very strong Greek Campus with pledge classes at about 45 before AGD came along. We are slowly gaining ground.
Arin

I go to the University of Oklahoma ( Upsilon Chapter)
Chapter total is 160 and chapter quota is 120.
We currently have 70 girls but we have other chapters on campus that have almost 300 girls. We love being the size we are even though we steadily growing. I think that total and quota should definitely be lowered. Especially since you can get in trouble for being under.

the way our panhellenic is currently run, the bigger house get bigger and the smaller houses can struggle. There is no limit on quota additions and no penalties they way the fraternities have it. The fraternities on campus (unless i am mistaken) have to pay, only like $5, per quota addition. However, the next recruitment they have to take quota less the # of additions from the time before.

I am not familiar with the total & quota system at all. But from what I read, I really think there should be a cap on chapter size in relation to total. 300 girls :eek: ! Why not put a cap like each group can only take up to 20% over total at rush? To be that far over total seems really wrong.

Brittany,

Didn't your school lose a group recently? I would think with quota being at 120, you would not see chapters closing, even if they don't make quota.

Kristin

If we did lose a group, I was before I joined. We recently added a new sorority. SO we now have 13. 5 of us are under total, with 4 of us under 100.

Make sure that you rely on your VST Recruitment Consultant. She will have lots of good ideas for you. Also try to COB as much as possible. If every member can get one friend to pledge--poof--you have magically doubled your size!

Can you ask Alpha Alpha (UB) to come up and assist you with recruitment? They are only an hour and a half away. :)

Is it possible to have the UCO chapter assist with recruitment? Would that even be allowed?

I can imagine that with over 1500 rushees you would need some help being one of the smaller groups.

I would totally offer to help, but I will be in RI that week.

I know we have talked about it before but I don't know what exactly has happened in the past. It also depends if their recruitment is the same time or not.

I think their bid day is the day of first rounds for y'all. Maybe you could see if any of their girls would be willing to help out over the weekend. That would be great. My cousin Kari went to UCO last year. She was friends with quite a few, she said they were awesome girls. Of course I never doubted that, it is always nice to hear. :D

I found out that they are coming to help with rally and will be fillers. But I don't think they will actually rush. We don't want mislead girls and have them think that the UCO girls are part of our chapter. I think this is the case.

I understand not having them rush. But I am glad they are going to help. It will be good to have extra girls around to help with details so that your chapter can concentrate on rushing.

I think it is great that we have two really great chapters so close to each other. That way you can help each other out when there is a need.

Good! :)

Keep in mind that Rome wasn't built in a day. If I remember correctly, your rush last fall and COB last spring was an improvement from the year before. So your goal this year should be to surpass your numbers from last year. If you take quota, even better!!!

If you take those small steps, you will catch up within the next few years. Slow and steady wins the race. ;)

Brittany, I do have some questions though. You mentioned that quota is 120 and total is 160. Could you explain that to me? I thought that quota should be the number of PNMs attending Preference divided by the number of sororities. Does that mean that you have over 1500 attending Preference??? That is CRAZY! :eek:

Also quota additions are supposed to be limited to 10% of quota. That's a Green Book rule.

I am not positive of the numbers for this year but those where the quota and totals of last year or really close to it. My freshmen year (2 years ago) there was 1000 girls last year it was more but I don't know how many more.

Yes, I looked it up on a thread here from last year and OU's quota was 86. That is NUTS! My entire chapter is not that large!

Just my opinion, but 300 in one chapter is out of control. I even think 200 is pushing it really far.

Yeah, I was just about to say that it was about 86. We only got 40 girls. But if we keep getting just 40 girls next year we will be at 100 and so on. We will keep growing slowly.

Sounds to me like you girls have the right attitude! :)

I found out from our VPR that quota was at about 86 and total was about 160. So far 770 girls have signed up for rush this year and 62 of them are sophomores.

We've tried COR, everything. We've had events that no one came to... either we're targeting the wrong groups, or we're not selling ourselves the right way.

We've talked about having the Zeta Chi (U of Western Ontario) girls come out and help with our FR in exchange for the same for them, as they're only about two hours away, but the idea of having Alpha Alpha come up could be good too. A lot of the girls want to go down to Buffalo to go outlet mall shopping (there are some things you just can't get here... Victoria's Secret, A&F, J Crew...) before the summer is open so I'll suggest that we hop by the chapter too! :)

DWAlphaGam posted this in another thread. I thought it was good advice related to our hijack! :D