"Delta Letters"
 

I don't know why I was thinking about this today (Excuse the randomness!!) but when I was a delta member (until May 2006), our chapter would send a letter to our advisors, district leadership team, and province leadership team every week via email. We called it our "Delta Letter." It was always written by a different delta member and it was supposed to cover what happened that week in our chapter, but also something about the member who wrote it.

For example, I was selected to write the letter (usually it was either a volunteer or someone who was involved in something that was going on that week, e.g. the philanthropy chair would write the week of a big philanthropy event) the spring of my sophomore year when I was alumnae relations chair. I wrote about how, as I searched for summer internships/places to live for summer internships, I was reminded about the wide network of ADPi alumnae and how this all tied back into my job for the chapter.

Do other chapters do this? Is is common? Required?

I was just thinking about how I would love to read some of the letters from my chapter this past year - how I wished they'd send them to alumnae too! It was a great way to know what was happening with the chapter AND wonderful insight into the different, wonderful group of members.

We wrote Delta letters and the Alphas wrote Alpha letters during their new member period.

They do indeed write them- as a Province Director, I get these weekly- some are quite inspirational :) I'm saving the Alpha ones to give to the women when they graduate :)

my chapter did Delta & Alpha letters ... i thought they were fun.. but many people think i'm a nerd :)

The chapter I advise does Delta letters (and Alpha letters when there are new members)...

There are times I'd love to receive one too - this chapter's letters go to the Province Director and the Chapter Advisor :)

I'm sorry ladies..... but I am SO R&D'ing* this idea for my APO chapter and alumni association. Thank you for sharing it!

*R&D Rip-off and Duplicate

I suggested to my chapters that they send the Delta letters to all advisors - it's just adding a few more people to the emails :)

My chapter does Delta letters.

Since Alpha and Delta letters are done, I think that there should be Pi letters. The girls graduating should write one after Jewel Degree. The point would be to talk about what you have learned in your college years of ADPi.

Every chapter does the delta letters.

Is this something new because I am about 99.9% positive that none of my chapter sisters did this, albeit I was a Alpha at the time, but I did become a delta in March and I never was asked to do one.

Nope! It's been around for a while. I remember writing them in the mid-90s anyway. :)

See, the chapter that I advise actually writes the letters on letterhead and sends it "snail mail" to the CA and PD :)

Emails would be great! :D

i certainly do. :p

so i'm a senior and thusfar i've escaped ever doing an alpha or delta letter. i'll be amazed if i can make it to graduation next year without having to do one.
haha, i've probably jinxed myself and i'll be assigned it this week.

The other advisors on my board have mentioned that they would like to get them too but our women also write it longhand. I've tried to get them to switch to email but a lot of times they will write them right after chapter and hand them back to the EVP to mail to me and the PD.

my chapter did them via e-mail. the weeks were already divided up alphabetically by the EVP, so you knew when your turn was coming up. somehow, i always got away with never doing one :-)

You may have just not heard them being requested-- usually it was a quick announcement in chapter by the MEVP that could be easily overlooked-- "can I get delta letter volunteers this week?" or she may have just approached members outside chapter meeting. :) They've been around for quite a while, but so much happens during chapter meetings!!!!

That's true. It could have been something requested by the MEVP prior to meeting. As a Delta, I honestly only actually remembering attending 1 maybe 2 formal chapter meetings. I say that because I was initiated the last week of March, and there were only roughly, 4 at most 5 chapter meetings until the end of school. I don't think we had a meeting the last week of school (during finals). So as a Delta, I didn't participate in many formal meetings. (Brianna shrugs her shoulders). Oh well. :D

Wow I didn't realize other chapters did this too!!

I must be a huge dork - I miss Delta Letters too!

so guess who gets to do a delta letter this week? yeah i totally jinxed myself on that one...

well perhaps you can also shares yours with us :)

Since came from the same chapter...I thought they were fun too. :) And I was a nerd. I think i was even voted the most involved alpha in my class. LOL!!

So what are you writing about this week?

We did our long hand also. The very first one I wrote was the week after initiation (hint hint....easiest week to write one) and i got a thank you card from my Advisor and province Director. It was nice to be appriciated and know that my hard work was recognized. I think I even got a super cute Lion paperclip from one of them. :)

EVERY Alpha was required to write a letter each week when I was in school. Granted, our quota was never in the twenties, but still, they found someone for us to write to! The most fun one was to our retired housemother, who always wrote back.

As a Delta, it was done on a rotation basis, and you basically had an idea on when you were due to write it. Our Corresponding Secretary would have the envelopes addressed & stamped, and we'd have to turn in the letter by the next morning (read: usually that night!). I never minded doing them, but I don't mind writing letters in any case.

We did try the "Alum Chum"/"Pi Pal" route, but it fell through at the time. I think that, now that numbers are up again, it would be something to think about again. Did anyone else do those?

We had Alpha Letters AND Delta Letters. They were picked at random from girls that hadn't done them. Not all the Alphas get to do Alpha letters as they were only Alphas for about six weeks before they were Deltas.

LOL! I'm from the dinosaur days - we pledged for 16 weeks! That's a LOT of "Alpha letters"!

I remember having to write letters, can't remember if it was as a pledge or not. Snail mail, of course! Wish we had computers back then-sure would make trudging to the library not necessary!

And, yes, Honey, on the 16 weeks of pledging. We pledged for one quarter, got initiated the next. And, remember blue pledge books with the Greek letters on the front? We had to get three signatures from 70 sisters by the end of the quarter. And the signatures had to be spread out-no one could just sign your book three times in a row. I REALLY didn't like that!

That IS a lot of Alpha letters!! haha... So did the girls have to write one per week like a rotation basis/picked at random/etc or did all the girls just have to write one period?

Since our pledge class was the largest on campus with a whopping thirteen, we were pretty much guaranteed to write one every other week. I'm trying to remember who all we wrote to, but I do remember our (retired) housemother, the Alumnae Association President, our Chapter Advisor (who only came to one meeting a month max), the PD, Miss Blake, and whomever was in charge of Pledge Education at EO, for starters. It was as much an exercise of writing "the bread & butter note" as anything else.

And BBelle, I certainly remember Pledge Books, both the "official" one from EO and the Chapter one! We had to have 3/4 of the Chapter sign each of our Chapter one prior to initiation! The sisters would write their home/school addresses/phone numbers, their likes & dislikes, birthdays, and an "assignment" - usually to get the signature of someone on campus that the sister thought we should know. It may sound romantic & sentimental, but it was really hard on the grades!

When I was a pledge, the pledge letters and sister letters were snail mailed. As a chapter advisor, i used to get snail-mail Alpha & Delta letters. Around 2001, we started having the EVP forward them via email to the entire advisory board (and CPD). That practice continues. I found it very helpful to get to know something about the women in the chapter I didn't work with closely (esp. after I rotated to new roles). This helps with Slating and for sorting out the various episodes of drama!