New chapter support
 

Does your GLO have a set program for support of newly chartered chapters that they use for every new chapter?

I'm talking does it specifically say things like a dedicated GLO volunteer will oversee the colony for one year, so and so many visits will be made, that sort of thing.

Phi Kappa Psi sends a consultant to each colony at least twice a year, as opposed to once a year for chapters. Also, we waive many of the colony's fees for its first year of operations.

Beyond that, our chapter support is very comprehensive and effective, for those chapters who choose to take advantage of these things, so we don't believe that there is further need for support beyond what we offer to our established chapters.

If a chapter, new or established, is in need of additional assistance, we provide it.

ETA We have a entire set of standard operating procedures for colonization, and this includes training alumni to help support the colony. Details are mostly internal, and not for public viewing.

33girl, Great question!

LXA does have a program set in place that when a new colony or a Re-Chartering is being intitiated, they try to work with the Local Alums and get an Advisor from the school.

They have set scheduals of ELC visits to work with them!

In the case of U. Incarnet Word in San Antonio, Tx, one of our very own GCers was asked and appointed as the New Advisor, lifesaver!

Mainly, where a National Organiztion goes in to Colonize, My Fratrnity will spend more time with them to get over the rough spots. Remember though, all Nationals are streatched to the limit!

Therefore Local Alums are an Important Part of the Equation!:)

When we were a colony, we received two visits per year, plus unlimited phone support from our expansion consultant.

Basically, we enjoy the same status as a chapter. We were the first new chapter chartered in about 3 years, so new chapter services were a little lacking. However, I understand that they've greatly improved the process.

I believe that we try to have a Chapter Consultant stay with the chapter for an entire year (at least) during their founding. She is in close contact with HQ at all times. CCs are usually selected from the same pool of women who apply to be Traveling Consultants and recieve the same training as they do--if not more. Sometimes a TC is chosen to stay on with the Fraternity for another year and become a CC to a new chapter, as what happened with the colonization at UCF.

As with many others, we like to have a strong local alumnae support group from which to draw advisors and volunteers.

ISUKAPPA, can you explain a LOT MORE!:)

It may sound good on paper, but having and am familliar with Greek Organizarins per say, I for one would be interested in hearing on how your Org Does It!:)

Pi Phi is the same as Kappa. Every new colony gets a Resident Graduate Consultant for a year to live with them and train them. The RGCs are selected from the same pool as the Traveling Graduate Consultants most chapters get. They also get exceeding levels of support from National HQ and local alumnae.

Delta Phi Epsilon appoints a Colony Advisor, along with an advisory board if possible, who are local to the chapter and available to them as resources. Our LCs visit the chapter on a regular basis as well (twice a semester). Each colony is also put into a region after it charters, and the regional team also provides support with recruitment, membership development, chapter operations and the like.

I know that when we colonized at one school, another group had chartered less than a year ago (Gamma Phi Beta I think), and they had a Consultant from HQs living with them for 6 months during their colony period at the sorority's expense.

Pi Beta Phi provides extensive support for new chapters. They will have a graduate consultant live with the chapter for at least the first year. The second year, they may have a consultant for part or all of the year. If their resident consultant moves on for the second semester, she'll come back for several visits the first term they're "on their own". Depending on their needs (and requests), they may have a consultant for formal recruitment during their third year as well. Colonies also have a NCAO (new chapter assistance officer) who is a current or past Council member or Director that will work specifically with that chapter and their local alumnae advisory committee.

Excuse, Me Right!

Did you say that you had a person living with the New Chapter that was paid by the National!????

Am I seeing things or does you Org. Have Super Deep Pockets to afford this?:eek:

You are not seeing things. Pi Beta Phi just rocks that much.

(Well, Kappa too! ;))

Yes Tom, apartment rent/ utilities, salary and benefits are paid by the Fraternity. When Pi Phi makes the committment to form a colony, we want that new chapter to succeed... to us that means having someone available whenever the university is in session... locally- not by phone/fax/email. Sometimes RGCs will take graduate classes as well but most of the time they do not. Her job is to assist the colony and it's members.

We Monmouth ladies know where it's at! :D

I don't know whether it's that we have deep pockets, I think it's just something we feel is important enough to merit paying someone who is giving their time to basically be a 24/7 resource for a new chapter. So we make the funds available.

If You Will Pardon Me for saying This, It Is G**Damn Fantastic!:)

I would Love to have done this in my younger days! Well, not to say that I would not Love to do it anyway!:D

I give a tip to of The Dude Hat To Ya All who do this!!!!!:cool:

My admiration is not strong enough to tell you my admiration for what is put forth!


Redundancy is its own self rewards!:)

Live and Learn everyday I so Hope!:cool:

Add Tri Delta to that list too.

We had a field consultant living with us for a year; and while she was here, her apt, dry cleaning, food, travel, etc etc were paid for by the Fraternity.

This is the first semester we do not have a FC living with us; but we have one visiting 3 times this year- once for formal recruitment, once now for a mid semester check, and one in a month for Delta week/initiaion.

We also have VERY strong alumnae support. And our chapter president has home numbers of various support staff at EO. We had a huge issue with elections last year, and pretty much ended up almost calling the national president before our problem was solved....and this was at 930-10pm EST.

Did Tri-Delta also pay for her field research in Atlantic City? ;)

You can also add sigma kappa to that list. We have a chapter consultant live with the chapter for at least a year, and of course everything is paid for.

Alpha Phi also has resident Chapter Consultants who live with the chapter the first and sometimes the second year at the Fraternity's expense. After the Chapter Consultant leaves the chapter will get an Educational Leadership Consultant visit about 3 or 4 times a semester for the next few years to help make sure they have all of the assistance they need. These consultants are in addition to our International Staff, Extention Committee, Colony Team and and advisory board members who are there to support the colony.

LD

For those GLOs that have a resident consultant live with the colony for a year...how much is their salary roughly? I know the expenses depend on where they live (Little Rock, AR is much cheaper than parts of Virginia/DC area, etc.) but how much pocket money do they wind up getting?

And really, what do they do during the day or week when the chapter doesn't have something going on? The RC can't do everything for the chapter while they're in class (such as plan recruitment, design Tshirts, write bylaws, etc.). Other than taking graduate classes (are those paid for by the GLO?), what do they do?

I'm envious...I wish I could do that job!

PsychTau

Alpha Chi Omega has a CLC from headquarters living in town overseeing the colony for its first year, too. For my chapter's second recruitment, we had several CLCs in town for the week on standby in case any crises arose. Thankfully, none did :)

When our chapter at U Mich recolonized, they had one consultant who was there full time and another that visited from time to time throughout the year in addition to Pearl Sisters (alum who 'adopt' a new member), the advisors, and alumnae chapters in the area.
The one who was there full time did visit a couple other chapters in the region as well.

I can easily see it being a full time job to focus on educating the new members, organizing their colonization, etc.

I don't know what our Leadership Consultants or Graduate Consultants get paid. Leadership Consultants travel around to chapters to focus on leadership development and recruitment. Graduate Consultants are students at the school and live in the chapter house. The Fraternity's goal is that each chapter will receive a visit from someone on the Volunteer Services Team or a Leadership Consultant every year.

I would have loved to be an LC when I graduated but I had a boy I thought I was in love with and didn't want to leave him... hindsight is 20-20!

Dee

[I don't know what our Leadership Consultants or Graduate Consultants get paid. Leadership Consultants travel around to chapters to focus on leadership development and recruitment. Graduate Consultants are students at the school and live in the chapter house. The Fraternity's goal is that each chapter will receive a visit from someone on the Volunteer Services Team or a Leadership Consultant every year.


My LC year was 1974-75. I got $200/mo plus expenses. (To put that into perspective, the "real" job I got when the LC year ended paid $7280. My car payment was $40/mo; rent for a furnished apartment was $80/mo.)

I know for our leadership consultants they were being paid $13,000 plus expenses (about 5 years ago). When we had a Delta Upsilon Colony, they had a consultant who virtually lived here for a semester. Unfortunately though, he was about worthless and was fired by their HQ.

I agree that having an LC living with the chapter for a year can be a GREAT thing. But when does the chapter learn to function on its own with no LC? I just wonder if you ever have trouble with a group who has their hand held too much? I don't mean that offensively either...just curious.

doubleblue&gold, I'm confuddled...was this a recolonization or were the alumnae you're talking about alums of the local that went national?

No system is perfect and not all consultants are suited to being a resident. I agree that she should not be doing the work for colony officers and that doubleblue&gold was not well served by her RC. On the other hand, I have worked with two colonizations and both were blessed with excellent resident consultants. It is a challenge to take 100 strangers and facilitate them becoming a chapter or take a local with it's own structure and tradition and rework those traditions into Pi Beta Phi. It is not easy and our consultants don't sit around all day designing T-shirts or planning recruitment. She may plan and facilitate recruitment workshops, small group meetings, work one-on-one with officers (most often at night... how many of you go late into the night with meetings/ events?) but is also doing 'behind the scenes' work to plan the Installation, communicate with other officers and help train alumnae advisors. Since these alumnae are NOT from that campus, and may not have worked with chapters in the past, they may not be ready to just jump in immediately.

I don't think that you can ever support a new colony too much. As a charter member myself, I found Alpha Phi knew just how to support its chapters the right way. Yes their is a "prescription" for support (ie, live-in consultant for year one, possibly year 2) but who the consultant is, the programming skills she brings to the chapter is always decided on in a very individual way. For example, my chapter is at a big engineering school so our Year 1 consultant was from Virginia Tech so she matched our academic background but was also picked for her recruitment and chapter operations knowledge.

After the live-in year consultants are sent based on what support the chapter/colony needs. Finance, programming, etc.

Good point, Karen. I didn't even think about training the alumnae advisers, especially if they are from a local group and aren't alumnae members of Pi Phi.

AST doesn't have resident consultants, but we have Educational Consultants that travel to all the chapters. One of them is focused 99% of the time on the new colonies (and she absolutely ROCKS at that!), but she visits a few established chapters as well.

We also have colony advisers that are assigned to work with the colonies and move them toward chapter status. They are part of our volunteer staff, though.

PsychTau

Another point about groups spending that much $$ on consultants is many groups try to limit the number of colonies they have and places they choose to present because they want to provide every colony with a consultant. It just depends on what the priorities of that group are--expansion with a consultant, or more expansion.

Our national programming often dealt with new chapters. Conventions and regional conclaves often asked colonies to go to certain meetings. We were provided with phone and email help constantly. Also we had a consultant down several times - mainly for rush though.

-Rudey

sherbertlemons would have a more accurate description of what the CC did while they were colonizing the chapter at UCF. I'm guessing at the beginning she was very hands-on with training and support but weaned it down as the year wore on and the girls became more comfortable in their positions. Knowing her (as she was a pledge sister of mine) she would have wanted the girls to do as much on their own as possible and only give assistance when asked/needed.

ITA with breathesgelatin. Not that they way we do it is perfect, but that's what works best for us. We're not big on explosion expansion; one new chapter a year or less is how it's been recently. Focusing on one colony at a time lets us give it the attention it needs to hopefully grow and flourish into a solid chapter.

AEPhi hires two TECs (Traveling Education Consultants) each year. When a colony is formed, one of the TECs goes and stays with the colony for much of the new member period. She runs new member education and assists the colony in setting up its infrastructure of officers, bylaws, policies, procedures, etc. A TEC is also sent out to help the colony or chapter with its first formal recruitment. And, both TECs as well as the national office are always accessible by phone or email (to any chapter, not just new colonies).

There was a decent number of alums in my chapter's area who helped us out. AEPhi offers more direct support if local alum support is thin on the ground.