I Can Let My Secret Out Now!
 

Wow! I've been dying to post this ever since I found about it over a month ago, but it had to be kept under wraps until this week. So let me tell you what "this" is! (I apologize beforehand for the long post.)

At my school, we don't have Spring Recruitment, formal or informal. Those sororities who don't take in total during Formal Recruitment during the Fall simply COB all year long. My chapter is rather small, because we're doing some rebuilding. Total on campus is 65, and we're currently at 31. So the Lambda Gamma chapter of Delta Zeta and the Zeta Psi chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha have teamed up to have our own joint COB/Informal Spring Recruitment.

Zeta has only a couple of spots open, while we have 34. They, however, have had very little experience in COB, because they consistently make total or more each year during Recruitment, so they wanted to learn from us. They also want to help us with our numbers. Both sororities know that taking in 35-40 more women between us will make the Greek system as a whole a lot stronger, because the system on our campus is fairly weak, and Greek relations, in most cases, are even weaker.

I won't bore you all with all the technical details, but I will tell you our plans for this COB party. This week, all the sisters of DZ and Zeta are plastering cars with flyers, stuffing campus mailboxes with flyers, hanging banners up around campus, advertising on the radio, TV station, and newspapers (campus and local), and putting posters up all around town. We'll all be wearing letters all week, too. Next week, a Zeta and a DZ will team up to go knock on people's apartment and dorm doors to talk to them about our respective philanthropies and invite them to our big COB party on March 9. The night of the party, Zetas and DZs will team up again to go pick up the girls who want to come. Then, we'll have our party and offer bids to the women we like.

All the DZs and Zetas are EXTREMELY excited about this. Nothing like this has ever been done on our campus before, because, like I said earlier, Greek relations, especially between sororities, are not so great. I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes. Who knows? It might even become an annual event. I'm so excited!
:D

ETA: We've even got a catchphrase for it...all our big "sheet banners" and flyers say "Delta Zeta Tau Alpha." I couldn't tell you how many people have asked us what it means!

That sounds like a great idea; and a lot of fun! It's so great to see DZ and ZTA being so "panhellenic" and I hope everything works out well for both houses.

Keep us posted! :)

that's great!!!!!! i love hearing 'bout stuff like this. gives ya warm fuzzies!

marissa

That's a cute idea to put the two orgs together like that. Good luck!:)

that sounds wonderful! good luck!

Good Luck! Ahhh the Panhellenic love!

Rock on! Crowns to ya'll!

\^^^/

sweet!!

What a wonderful idea! Best of luck to both the Delta Zetas and the Zeta Tau Alphas! :)

That's reallly cool and I hope it works out well for all the Delta Zeta Tau Alpha's. Way to show unity in an atmosphere were greek unity is not embraced.

Good Luck and I wish you ladies all the best .:D

How I WISH something like that would happen at my school!!! That is so awesome.

wow that sounds really cool. what a great way to promote unity amongst the organizations.


Allison

D*Phi*E

i am so proud
 

of delta zeta and zta! you girls rock!good things will come from this! i hope that our national magazine and dz's both pick up this story-it is certainly worthy of publishing! lisa

Yay! An update!

On Sunday night during our meeting, my sisters and I got our shirts for this big joint COB. (You know about sorority girls and T-shirts.) Anyway, I wanted to post the drawing on the back of the shirts on this board, but no one has a hard copy that I can scan into my computer, so I'll just try to describe them. They're mint green, which is my favorite color! I think the women on the planning committee decided they'd pick that color since it's kind of a combination between veaux green and turquoise blue. On the back is a kind of cartoon drawing of two girls playing dress-up. One girl is wearing a crown, and the other has on lots of diamond jewelry. The slogan is "Every girl dreams of wearing diamonds and crowns...DZ and ZTA, making dreams come true." It's really cute!

After our meeting, we had a conversation workshop with Zeta to talk about what we're going to say to PNM's when we go knocking on doors this week. We were also divided up into groups for our visits. My group, which includes 5 Zetas and 2 DZs, are going to visit the freshman dorm tomorrow to try to get people to come to our COB. I'll be sure to update you all about how it goes!

Randi, that slogan is too cute! Have fun raiding the dorms with your group tomorrow. Your positive attitude is awesome; I am sure both groups will do great! :)

All I have to say is DZ AND ZTA ROCK DA HOUSE! Way to go and good luck with everything! :D

If I remember my sorority trivia correctly, back in the early days Sarah Ida Shaw of Delta Delta Delta and NPC tried to broker a merger between Zeta Tau Alpha and Delta Zeta. At the time, ZTA was primarily southern and DZ was northern. Apparently it didn't get any farther than initial discussions as each organization wanted to keep its identity, rituals, etc.

Fast forward 80 years later, and we have this amazing example of ZTA and DZ working together - I sure hope everyone takes notice.

This is the most wonderful display of panhellenic spirit, friendliness and helpfulness I have ever seen. Ever! it's so cute. I wish someone would do that with my chapter!!!
-M

Awww, I'm jealous...those shirts sound fabulous! Green is a good color. :)

Well, yall, wish me luck. I'm about to go dorm-storming here in about an hour. Both chapters are really excited about this, and even my boyfriend, who's a Sigma Nu, expects daily updates! :p It should be loads of fun.

please,please, please keep all of us informed about how it goes with the dorm storming. I really wish that my org and the other latina org here on campus could get together and do what DZZTA are doing. It shows other greeks that we can be different and still be united as sisters in greek life....... GOOD LUCK & WAY TO KEEP GREEK UNITY ;) :D

Well, everybody, apparently 12:30 in the afternoon is a bad time to go knocking on doors, because no one is around at that time! On two different floors of the freshman dorm, we only got 7 people to fill out the "I'll Show Up" form for the COB. Some girls will be going back tomorrow while I'm in class, though. From what I can get from everyone else, we've got about 25 or so people committed to coming, and we've still got nearly a week to recruit. I'll keep yall updated.

I think the timing has a lot to do with why you didn't get to talk to a lot of girls. Try going after dinner - like at 7pm, you might have better luck then. Thanks for keeping us posted and good luck with everything.

I think what you all are doing is so wonderful and should be an example for other Greek systems to follow.

I have another update! Yay!

Today, my sisters and I and some of the ZTA ladies started making phone calls to all the independent women at our school to invite them to our COB. I've never felt more like a saleswoman in my entire life. I swear, I'll never be mean to another telemarketer again (or at least, for the next couple of days!). When I left, there was still a huge list of women to call, so I'm thinking we'll be calling people up until Monday night.

While I was calling, we had a few more women commit to coming on Tuesday. I think the "guest list" is up to about 50 now, which is more people than we have empty slots. I'm sure all of them won't be able to attend, but maybe most of them can. I'm getting more and more excited about this every day, and I'll definitely continue with my updates.

Wow...I just got in from our chapter meeting, and our CCD, whose name is Gina, shocked the crap out of me. She was like, "I'd like to thank Randi for posting our Delta Zeta Tau Alpha thing on the Greek message board, because we've been getting all kinds of positive feedback." So, wow.

Now all I want to know is...Who told? :p

No, really, I just want to thank everyone for your positive responses to our little idea. I'll be sure to keep you updated on how things turn out Tuesday. We're up to 76 (tentatively) on our "guest list," which is more than we and ZTA put together can take in at this point. I really do appreciate your support, and we hope that maybe our idea can take hold on other campuses. Guess this proves the Greek community is a lot more closely-knit than a lot of us ever thought. (Awwww...warm fuzzies!)

I forwarded the thread to my alumnae panhellenic reps and cc'd the ZTA national NPC delegate, who forwarded it to the DZ delegates on the NPC.

So...guess you can blame me! :D

Ahh! That is so awesome, PenguinTrax!

Can you feel the Panhellenic love!!

By the way, I think this would be an amazing idea for NPC to discuss, I think it could do wonders for numbers if chapters would join together for the betterment of greek life as a whole.

Well, PenguinTrax, I suppose I can forgive you this time! :D Seriously, though, thanks bunches!

Okay, I can finally update. The COB went a lot better than anyone expected. We had 26 women show up! We had them all fill out information cards, and we all ate banana splits. ZTA's advisor and our CCD talked to the women about Greek life and encouraged everyone who received a bid to accept it.

After the COB was over, both sororities went to their respective chapter rooms to vote and deliberate. We ended up giving out 11 or 12 bids (not sure which), and Zeta ended up giving out 3, which was the maximum number they could give out, as they are almost at total. (Unrelated tangent--while we were waiting for the Zetas to finish voting, my sisters had a candle pass for me, because my boyfriend lavaliered me the night before! I was really happy!)

As of right now, I'm not sure how many people accepted bids from either us or Zeta. I know one woman for sure accepted a bid from us, because I was standing there when she signed her bid card (:D), but other than that, I don't know. I'll be sure to update when I hear a definite final number. All in all, our joint venture seemed to work out pretty well! Thanks to everyone on GC who supported us. *Happy dance*

Congrats to DZ and ZTA on a successful COB!

That is an amazing story. I congratulate you for all your hard work, and for giving out 11 bids. That's a lot of people for you guys!!

My chapter is like yours twhrider, and this is truly an inspirational story!!
-M

Excellent!!! I think this should be shared with Nancy Brewer so something about it can be put in "The Lamp." This could be an inspiration to other chapters/campuses who need new ways to recruit!

Congrats!

This has been an amazing story. Congratulations to both groups for reaching a new milestone in cooperation and building a win-win attitude in Panhell on your campus. So many times we get so hung up on the competition and numbers, that we forget we are all in this together. The major point is to offer a sorority experience to ALL women on campus who feel it will work for them in a way that meets the needs of the organization and the individual women. Your organizations really showed class and integrity in all your hard work.

Hurray for you and your new members!

This has to be one of the coolest threads I have ever read on GC!! How AWESOME for both of your chapters to do something like this!! What an inspiration!


.....Kelly :)

I'm happy to hear that this worked out so well! Congratulations to the DZ's and to my ZTA's!

youhave to tell us how many girls accept their bids now!
-M

I'm still not too sure how many women accepted bids yet, because I've been so busy with school the last couple of days that I haven't spoken with anyone who knows for sure. We're having our new member ceremony tomorrow morning before our recruitment workshop, so I'll know for sure then! :) I think we will probably extend more bids later, but we didn't want the size of our new member class to exceed the size of our initiated sisters! (There are 28 of us, and 2 are temp alum.) I know we'll be COB-ing some more this semester, but nothing as big as what we did this week. Both we and ZTA encouraged everyone who got a bid to accept it and everyone who did not to keep trying, either through more COBs or formal recruitment in the fall. It's not that we didn't want them; we just didn't want that many at a time! :) I'll be sure to update tomorrow night to let yall know exactly how many women accepted!