Frat decreasing in numbers...
 

....

If the guys in the chapter are already acting like it's over, then it's over.
But, if you can get them motivated, good luck.

They need to do some brotherhood activities and quick. Dinners together, hanging out with each other, etc. They also need to chat up guys in their classes that they think would make good members. You could do the same - but, you might want to let the members know what guys you are talking to about the chapter. Make sure that the members know and would be willing to accept him as a potential member.

Good luck.

I went through something similar the semester I graduated (was fall semester). Our chapters' oldest sisters had graduated the spring before, and recuitment gave us maybe 3-5 pledges per semester. In the mid 90s, things really died down.

Long story short, we closed our chapter, but thankfully, our alumni chapter has reborn. There are mostly older sisters (older than me) but I am hoping that coming in as a 30-something might encourage other alums to join.

You cannot force people to pledge... it's either in their hearts or it isn't. And honestly, it's worse having someone pledge and quit halfway, or get initiated then disaffiliate, than inducting the few.. the pround (lol Marines) who are really into it.

I am not sure if you have quotas, so that might effect your goals. Not to get religious, but in the bible, it says (paraphrase) "Where ever 3 or more gather in my name"... etc. Not comparing us to Jesus, but it if there are 3 people who believe in your organization, I say let those 3 people do the best they can. If things are meant to "die" in the process, then there isn't much you can do to save it. Some things are not meant to last forever, and although your chapter may close, you are still a brother/sister. This might be a good time to get to know your alum group and become one of them, if your chapter is closed.

Best of luck,
Ree

Is it a local or a National?

If 20 is the norm, then they are not that far off are they?

Try a School with 6 National NIC Fraternitys and having just 1 member who is graduating at the end of the year. Now that is a problem isnt it.

That was my Chapters problem.

1. If a NIC Fraternity, can they get HQ help?
2. If a local, then they need to pick up the pace and recruit!

Please PM me for further info.

Because they didn't think of doing that at all until you posted that.

Are you so special!:eek:

So, just what is your point of discussion and post?:rolleyes:

Yeah that's the thing. They really aren't that far off but they have it set in their minds that they are. It's really messed up. I just wanted to get some fraternity guys' input on some things that have helped them recruite guys or ways to get them motivated.

It's a National Fraternity.

Emily,

Do you think the National organization knows the situation and mindset of the guys?

I know the national organization knows about the numbers issue, but I don't know if they know about the mindset.

Is there a local alumni chapter or are the recent graduates around to help them out? I doubt there's much that anyone outside the group can do, but some closely associated brothers could probably do a lot to help the morale of the guys who are left.

Same question to you.

I agree. However, as Tom suggested previously, they should request help from HQ *in addition to* getting help from alumni. It shouldn't hurt to ask.

Frankly, it seems like this chapter is looking at their situation as being "half as big" as the average chapter. What they should be doing is looking at the situation as being just ten members short from being at campus average. Getting there shouldn't be that hard.

Right now, each member should be looking at rushing two separate men each. That would give the chapter a pool of 20 men for a possible bid. All might be worthy of a bid, but if only half are worthy, then would bring the membership of the chapter up to the other chapters on campus. If only one-forth, they are well within sticking distance of 20 with 15 members. (5 pledges 10 actives). The new pledges may know quality men and should bring them around. If found to be worthy of a bid, then they can be extended a bid.

As such, a couple of good rushes can easily bump up the numbers with quality men.

Why is it your business? I mean, "sweetheart" means what exactly?

Many NIC fraternities choose a sweetheart as an honor. It's typically a girl who has given a lot of support to the fraternity. Not just a random girlfriend, not a random...whatever. There is no pledging or anything like that involved.

Does that answer your question?

No.

I know what a sweetheart is. I'm asking what it means in relation to her being the one to carry this task. If those dudes feel defeated then let them figure out what to do. If they don't figure it out then she'll be the sweetheart of a now defunct chapter or organization. No real sweat off of her back, right?

Oh, OK. I agree it's not up to her to figure out how to motivate them. I can understand why she'd be asking or upset if they closed, though. As we have seen on GC girls are much more apt to come and ask for help than guys. :)

DSTCHAOS,

You've never been tempted to help out the people you were friends with, if you thought they were stuggling, and asked other people for advice about how to do it?

I mean, let's remember questions on a message board are a pretty low level of involvement, really.

No and especially not when it comes to their organizations.

So if being a sweetheart means that their organization's problems are her own, which is why I asked the question in the first place, then okay. I still can't see why she may be more optimistic and actively seeking change than she communicated that the actual members are.


She's asking what she can do to help. She's not just typing and reading.

Well, yeah, but we don't really know that she's contacting nationals and rallying the local alumni.

If I were a sweetheart, I'd prefer to be the sweetheart of an active, rather than defunct chapter, and I might ask for ideas of how to help them.

Uh...okay......

It just doesn't seem like that big a deal.

No one said that it was a big deal.

Posting on a message board is a low level of involvement, remember?

Glad we're in agreement.

Maybe.

I'll take what I can get. :)

For what it is worth, some sweethearts do take on certain responsibilities when elected chapter sweetheart. These might include, and certainly may not be limited to, helping with the chapter's rush/recruitment/intake. My guess (hope) is that most of these women would know about these responsibilities prior to accepting the honor of chapter sweetheart.

As for the original poster, I do not know if this is a situation where she is simply doing this out of the kindness of her heart (perhaps with an enthusiastic touch of optimism) or part of some "official" responsibility as the chapter's sweetheart.

Basically it's just out of the kindness of my heart and that I know the enthusiam they had before has to be in there somewhere. Just matter of getting out.. I dunno. Just wanted to know if any fraternity guys had any good ideas on how to get them motivated.

The biggest thing is.. these guys are some of my best friends and I hate seeing them so down about it.

Thanks.

Most importantly, I hope the guys give a damn.

It is certainly not over. When I joined my glo there were 10 brothers on a campus where the all male average was about 40 or 50 or so. It takes hard work but it's easily doable. We are up to abotu 25 now with no graduating seniors this year. A problem with a lot of fraternities that go from big to small still expect rushees to knock on their doorstep. It doesn't work that way when you're small. you gotta go out and meet people. It's possible. If they still want to go on, they need ot keep their heads up and try.

Agree with above poster, but we have to remember it works both ways.

Help coming from any direction should be good. If we do not help each other, it sure is not going to be the independents or the school.

This Soro, is asking for help. She needs help.

So, why not help instead of showing her how some Greeks can be?:o

My organization was in a comparable spot two years ago. The key to being a success is to win the freshman. For the most part freshman have no clue how the greek system works so in there eyes they cannot discern between the biggest and the smallest fraternity if both can make themselves equally visible. Yes the smaller organization wont have as much exposure in terms of people wearing letters but its still possible to hide your numbers and appear bigger than you are. Since the organization had many guys graduate there should be an influx of recent alumni willing to come down and help. The next step is to throw big parties. Now this may vary in difficulty depending on where you go to school but it is the opportunity to show the freshman a good time. 10 guys can run a party but a good ammount of preparation is needed and chances are you will only break even cash wise unless you can support a massive rager which is hard with 10 guys.

If you throw a good party then the freshman will have a good opinion of you guys and with all the alumni it does not need to be known how big the organization active list is untill pledge season and at that point they are commited. The mixer scheme will probably disintigrate with only 10 guys but thats ok as long as you have a base of people which will come to all the "open parties" they can fill the void for mixers until you have more members.

Next is to put on a lot of stupid little programs that wont necessarily garner much attention (if they do then great) and thats fine because you will constantly have some sort of flyer with the organizations name on the boards of the residence halls. If you start at the beginning of the year and make some strong friends you can have a big pledge class by the spring.

Honestly now is the time when the organization has nothing to loose so it can go balls out and risk it all otherwise they are done.

Using this strategy we have been able to triple our organization size back to healthy numbers at a school which is not greek friendly and filled with giant tool box organizaitions who let anyone walk in there society.

Recruitment
 

My fraternity is in a similiar problem as i have seen others describe. We are a national fraternity with good numbers but my chapter is now down to 8. My school is very antigreek and incredibly blind to the fact that all social life revolves around the greek community and their involvement. Despite this i know that recruitment for some organizations is not a problem, the sig pis, while all assholes here, get 15+ men pledge classes, while we get 2. Obvisously we are not rushing correctly. Our image on campus isn't huge outside of the greek system. The sororities love us and love to party with us.

so i have 2 questions: What have been the best things to attract perspective pledges. What drew you to your respective fraternity/sorority and why them over another?

AM

An informal cook out. These can be done on the smallest of budgets and either during the week or over the weekend. If your college team (or a local sports team) is playing on t.v. (make it an away game) invite rushees over to watch the game at the house. Or you could have a poker (game) night. Go bowling and have members invite friends.

Events may get a rushee's attention, but it is the brotherhood and friendship that seals the deal. As such, members should also be rushing their friends. And friends of their friends.

True to all of the above! Be yourselves and down to earth with any possible new members.

One thing that has always stuck in my mind was at Homecoming. The new kids (Fraternity) on the block was Phi Sigma Kappa. No house and just a small group of members. They were at the game in letters and all hung together. They were the only letters I saw. That was @ 8-10 years ago and are still there with a little bigger membership, and while a rental house, they have a home.

Don't hide your light under a basket. Show togetherness and what your organization means.

Are you at WSU? I had some really good times at that house. If so I can tell you whats wrong with your rush program: You don't have one. Theta Tau has always aligned themselves with the social greeks in every sense other than how they rush. I know a lot of the guys back in the day didn't want a huge fraternity, and didn't want to have an extensive recruitment program, but if you guys are now at only 8 members thats kind of dangerous. And even though you guys may be a much better group than sig pi, they have a much better rush program.

Glick - do people know you don't have to be an engineering major or something in that field to join (if that is the truth)? That may have something to do with it. If I was a guy w/ an education major and heard "engineering fraternity" I would automatically think I wasn't eligible and not pursue it any further.

One thing thats terrible about low numbers and rush is that numbers really contirbute to your image on campus as well, and guys can be turned off by few people. The president of our local alumni chapter (im active right now) was active during the 80s and was experiencing this problem as well. They were down to 6 or 8 guys in the chapter and discussions were abound about the chapter going inactive. However what was done was through contact with the chapter at the University of Puget Sound, a few hours away, they actually came up, in numbers, and helped them during fall rush. SO instead of 8 guys you had 38 guys in the house for rush. That fall they got somewhere around 25 pledges, and saved the chapter.

What im trying to say i guess is dont dispair, like someone above mentioned me here mentioned, make sure your chapter brohood is really strong, then try talking to surrounding chapter who may be quite strong and talk to them about rush teachniques, and possible assistance

Hey all!

New guy here. While low numbers are an obvious problem, it isn't the kiss of death. You are able to offer new members leadership opportunities that larger chapters will not be able to offer. You essentially are offering the guy you are recruiting the chance to rebuild a chapter. For a lot of type A personalities, that has a definate appeal.

It did for me - I pledged a dying chapter and made it the top one on campus.



pd