Big Problem!!! Need Help!!!!
 

GCers, My little is having a HUGE HUGE HUGE problem!!! As soon as I calm her down and get her off the phone would anyone be willing to offer me advice?????

:( :( :(

umm... sure, when you tell us what's up...

Alright, she's calmed down. We talked about it and I think we have a plan, but I just want some advice.

Warning: This is going to come out wrong, especially since I'm known for being harsh anyway....

If you want to help your little, get off GC and LISTEN to her. Most of the time, when I'm having a problem, I don't want someone to FIX it for me, I want to do that myself. I just want someone to LISTEN to me. After you've given her your attention THEN come back to GC and ask for advice.

Okay, so here's the deal:

May SAI little is kind of awesome. And, I just found out today that she turned down a bid from Chi Omega (one of the top sororities at UNCG) because she wanted to join SAI that badly.

The SAI pledge process involves a fundraiser, among other things. Because when the class is initiated they have to present the chapter with a gift. Her pledge class decided to make and sell jewelry for their fundraiser. So, my little, being the wonderful person that she is fronted all the money for the supplies because her family is able to help her with money and she realizes that other people aren't as well off as she is. The total cost for everything was a little over $200. The class got initiated with only one meeting left of the semester and no one ever told my little anything about reimbursement or how to turn things in to get reimbursed. But, she comes from a long line of greeks so she knew to keep her receipts, which she kept for 2 months. When she moved she thinks that she accidentally threw them away. No one on exec board ever approached her about reimbursement and being a brand new sister she didn't reallly have a clue what to do. (I WISH SHE HAD TOLD ME ALL THIS WAS GOING ON!!!)

She finally got tired of waiting and I guess she called someone, I'm not sure. Actually, she called her pledge mom who said that she would take care of it and not to worry. Her pledge mom then called the old president, who called the new president, who called the new treasurer, who called the old treasurer. They told her that she would have to pull the back statements on the credit card she used to buy the supplies and then they would see what they could do but that they don't usually reimburse for fundraisers.

But, here's my thing: Their pledge mom was not supervising their fundraiser and didn't give them any information on reimbursements or anything. She, I guess, just slacked the whole way through. I really don't know how this could have happened if she was doing her job. My thinking is that even if we don't reimburse for fundraisers she should be reimbursed because they weren't told any of the guidlines on reimbursement. They were pledging and we all know how that is....you're kind of clueless and you don't want to make waves.

She has the back statement on the credit card and it supposed to call the treasurer this afternoon. This has been almost 4 months since she spent the money and she waited patiently for something to be done. I told her that if they don't have an answer for her today she needs to call our Province Officer and tell her what is going on.

I just feel bad for her because she comes from a long line of panhellenic sororities and they gave her a lot of slack for turning down the Chi-O bid. And, now it's she feel like it's biting her in the ass....

Any ideas??????

It seems to me that she needs to talk to the rest of her pledge class about reimbursement. Did they buy the gift for the chapter yet?

I think that the pledge class should have given her the $200 back out of the funds raised selling jewelry and then used the rest to buy the chapter gift. how much money did they raise total?

I don't think it has anything to do with being panhel or not, you know?

Use whatever pull you have to help her get her reimbursements from the treasurer. Other than that I don't know what to tell you.

Also, I'd consider making changes to the rules where the intitial money comes from the SAI account, not a sister's.

I agree. It was a gift from them and by now they should have enough money to each kick in a portion of the cost for the gift.

Wow, I was expecting a real catastrophe.

She should absolutely be reimbursed if she provides proof of expenses.

Her costs were a legitimate cost of the fundraiser. For example, if they sold t-shirts, then the cost of the shirts would be deducted from the amount raised. The only problem I foresee is if the fundraiser did not make enough money to cover these initial costs.

It also does not sound like SAI is refusing to reimburse her - just grumbling because this wasn't taken care of before now. I imagine that perfectly she should have been reimbursed the money BEFORE it was given to SAI.

They only raised $177. And, the initial plan was for each MIT (pledge) to contribute money, but one of the pledges was apparently being a pain and refused. (I wish the VPM had told all of us this.....) She just talked to the treasurer and the treasurer told her that she needed more time to think about it.

I'm on exec board and I'm almost tempted to send an email and ask for a meeting to see if this can be worked out......

No, they haven't bought the gift yet.

It is catastrophe when you can't pay your bills because you are waiting on reimbursement.

But, then again, me and my little can kind of be drama queens....:p

I was the fundraising chair in college and we ALWAYS took out the cost of the fundraiser from the money collected before we turned in the money. For example- one fundraiser was a raffle for a $100 JCrew gift certificate. So we took out the $100 plus the cost of the raffle tickets from the money that we raised (we did keep reciepts for those items), so instead of turning in $1500 we turned in say $1390 plus two reciepts- one for the gift cert and one for the supplies (tickets).

I guess it is too late in this case, but I would recommend that if a fundraiser is a manditory activity for the pledges/new members, that someone put together a manual on how to run fundraisers. It would cover this plus other things such as getting unversity approval (if needed), and maybe even ideas for what works and doesn't work.

Dude...it's $200. That's like 3 kegs, not even enough to have a decent tailgate.

Not everyone's daddy gives them beer money.

Or pays their credit card, or their other bills.

She is continually getting the run around. No one wants to talk to her. No one wants to reimburse her.

Everytime I have contributed monetarily to a fundraiser I have been reimbursed, so this was new to me.

And, I was not the VPM. I assumed the VPM would have notified them of anything they needed to do to make sure nothing like this happened. I mean, that's her job. Her job was to supervise their pledging period and make sure they knew everything they needed to know and did everything they needed to do.

If they haven't bought the gift yet, then who has the $177 that they did make from the fundraiser?

It's in the SAI account. I don't know when money changed hands and I really don't know when all of this started, but I was just notified today.

Resolution
 

Alright, GCers.

Apparently, this has all been solved. I was notified by my little that she will be recieving a check tomorrow from the VPM.

I probably acted a little prematurely by coming here, but my little was very upset and was afraid she wouldn't be able to pay her electricity bill.

I apologize if this caused anyone undue stress.

I just didn't know where else to go.

20/20 Hindsight
 

She should have joined Chi Omega and this never would have happened! ;)

KIDDING...I'm only kidding! Sorry, I couldn't resist!

We believe you.

HAHAHAA :D

It's cool. She said she really liked the girls, but that it just didn't line up with her ideals the way SAI does.

She could always pawn her rings. If she don't have any rings, I'm sure her mom and grandma have some.

But you said her family is able to help her with money, which is why she footed the bill in the first place.

ETA: Glad it was resolved, but believe me it didn't cause me any stress.

I know this has nothing to do with the thread topic, but since the catastrophe has been averted it doesn't matter...

Doesn't she realize she can do both? I had several sisters who were in both SAI and KD, and I know KD wasn't the only NPC org represented in SAI.

.

Mom and dad can have their own financial problems when there's an illness in the family, or something in the house that needs to be immediately repaired, for instance. I personally know that can change quick and drastically.

Mom and dad might also have assumed they'd be getting reimbursed and weren't happy when they weren't. I've been in that situation as well.

So she put out $200 and they only made $177 which was then put in a chapter account? Now your little is being reimbursed her original $200....Sounds like there wasn't much of a fundraiser there... they ended up costing the chapter $23.

Can't they just get each girl who want to voluntarily chip in $5 to get the chapter a gift? We did this when I was a new member of ADPi. We got the house a gift from our class. Anyone who couldn't afford it didn't-- most of the girls contributed, however.

She is only for some of it because that is what the class agreed on. They agreed to donate some of the supplies to the chapter.

Her parents are willing to help with some things but not others. It's a family thing.

And, I told her that she was still eligible to join a panhellenic sorority. She is the type of person that focuses her energy on one thing and she is a music student, so that puts her short on time. She told me that she preffed at AXO, ADPi (she's a legacy here), and Chi-O. I told her that AXO started as a music sorority. She seems to want to be apart of an org that focuses on music.

And, hey, she's great and I love her so that's fine with me! :D

so moral of the story, save your receipts. what your chapter could do is credit the amount owed to her dues so you dont take a direct hit. although 2 bills is kinda just change.

Stop being a tool.

wait wait wait...i know this has been resolved, BUT--the pledges spent $200 on a fundraiser that only made $177??? and one of the pledges REFUSED to chip in?????? first of all, the responsibility of the $200 should have never been put on one pledge, no matter how well off she is. second, you as her big, should have been able to warn her that IT MAKES NO SENSE for the chapter to reimburse her for money raised to buy a GIFT for the chapter. the only people responsible for reimbursing her are the women in her pledge class who made the descision to spend it. unless the descision was made by the pledge in question alone without consulting the rest of the women, in which case she alone is responsible for her actions. was no one watching out for these girls while they were doing this???? sorry if this is very aggressive, but this situation blows my mind.

Well, some people try and some people are trying.:rolleyes:

Maybe she tried, went out on a limb for the love of the GLO?

Been there and has cost a lot more than that!:)

trust me, i know all about it. i can't tell you how much i've given out of pocket just to make things work. but i did it with the understanding and acceptance that i would probably never get it back. the difference is, this girl was lead to believe she would be reimbursed and no one told her different. i'm in no way criticizing the girl who was pledging; i admire her for being willing to help. but someone along the way should have warned her before she gave the money.

never! tool for life.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...nfire/tool.jpg

This is a good example of why new members/pledges shouldn't be solely responsible for the planning of any events, even a philanthropy, because they have not been educated regarding the policies and procedures of things such as reimbursement of out of pocket expenses. I would imagine that most, if not all, organizations require that the expenses be approved ahead of time by a financial officer of the chapter or else they would risk not being reimbursed.

Have them work on committees with experienced officers/members rather than plan and execute something all on their own and you avoid these types of issues.

I agree, the whole thing is wacky; but, AlwaysSAI did state, "The SAI pledge process involves a fundraiser, among other things. Because when the class is initiated they have to present the chapter with a gift." So, in my opinion, if the chapter is going to "force" pledges to hold a fundraiser and buy a gift whether they want to or not, it's not so outrageous for the chapter to reimburse for the expenses.

.....Kelly :)

Update:
 

I know this is a long time coming but I just found the blog (leave it to beaver to only think to trace her big sisters footsteps a year after she was initiated...she is an amazing lady).

The who fiasco was a huge blow to me. I did catch a ton of flack from my entire family (including aunts and uncles) who could not understand why I was willing to put so much time into an organization that was not of the same "league" as theirs. While I respect their opinion, I do not regret my decision one bit.

For the record...200 was spent (technically more that than but I worked it out to "donate" many of the supplies to the chapter to keep the cost down and provide tools for future pledge classes) After the 200 had been deducted we would have made 177. The treasurer, after finally calling me back (post 2 months of phone calls and emails since she had left the city for the summer) arranged to take the total profit (377) from me. Once she had the money she refused to reimburse the original costs, saying that it was not chapter policy and since i was initiated at the end of the semester, i was part of the chapter and had to abide by said policy, even if i was not aware of it. The whole situation blew. There is a golden liner though, keep reading....

As soon as I started having problems my biological sister's sister drive (no matter what sorority she was in) kicked in and she was able to give me strength. to bolster the aid I found in my biological family my big sis was there for me. It was silly of me to assume that my pledge mom was filling in the bigs about what was going on with the pledge class when she didn't even know herself.

I am happy to say that even though this experience gave me doubt I was able to learn from it and push on. I have just been inducted as m chapters VPM for the upcoming school year and can not wait to right some wrongs that have been done. I have taken your suggestions to my big sister and hope to be implementing some of them this year. I will be there for my pledges, no matter what. I see that they are my responsibility, no matter how big or little the task they will be completely informed. I am currently working on a pledging handbook that includes ALL of the procedures for the tasks that they will be faced with. Biggest of all I want them to know that m dedication lies with them, i am there to mold them as sisters. My pledge mom has been horrible to me since "the incident." To the point of uniting an entire graduating pledge class against my nomination for office, luckily for, my chapter saw through it and have put their faith in me.

Tragedy avoided