Chapter Chairs
 

a

You have to give EVERYONE a chair? That sounds a bit excessive. I realize not every org operates the same way, but we are all required to be on a committee. As Membership Chair, I'm the head of the Recruitment committee. I'll ask them to play a bigger role in recruitment and give them more responsibility.

If that doesn't work for you, here are a few more ideas: t-shirt chair, song chair, Greek Week/Songfest/Lip Sync chair, new member, and risk management.

"If it pleases and sparkles..."


I agree that giving everyone a chair is a bit excessive but that requiring membership on a committee is normal.

i guess if you're a smaller chapter it makes sense, because really no person exists you couldn't designate a "chair" for- that sweet girl who gets so excited about every event, even though she's probably too stupid to manage spelling name of said event? "Spirit Chair." That girl who is just a little too "friendly" for your taste with all the fraternity members? "Assistant External Social." Burnt-out senior? "Free Food at the House Chair."

I mean putting everyone on a committee under one of your exec board members would make sense, but if your chapter has more than 10-ish members, giving everyone a title seems redundant.

Either that or it's your nationals' way of telling you that everyone in your chapter is putting on too much weight and can no longer share chairs since the chairs won't support the weight of multiple sisters. In the case of this serious risk management issue, you should focus on grooming and physical fitness, so they don't have to buy more chairs for everyone to have their own to sit on at chapter.

OMG annabella that was so funny!

a

You could have also asked your question on whatever private means of communication you have for your sorority.

You're welcome.

This makes no sense. Forcing everyone to have a chair will drive away members. Not everyone wants to have that much responsibility - some people just want to be a sister!

I would tell (not ask) your nationals that this is a very bad idea and make sure that is really what they meant. Seriously. I can see requiring committee membership but making everyone the "head" of something is every bit as silly as annabella pointed out.

"4 or 5 people to a chair to share" made me think of people sharing chairs at desks and it made me lol. Thanks annabella for fleshing the idea out for me - too funny!


On a more serious note, I think it's a little crazy that your nationals would tell you you need more chair positions without giving you a list of positions. Some "chairs" require less work than others. For example, we had "purchasing." We would do a group purchasing project once or twice a year and buy a t-shirt. They also helped sister-mothers buy items for their daughters during new member period. They did their "job" maybe 3 times a semester, and spent most of their "job" on the phone with greek stores asking questions, between classes.

The most intensive part of it was getting people to give up their money, and coming up with cute ideas which they would put to chapter for voting.

Ooooohh it was a drama-filled chapter meeting when we wanted to do sweatpants. Half the chapter wanted letters on the butt, half the chapter wanted letters on the leg near the cuff. I think we decided on not putting letters, but rather spelling out Alpha Gamma Delta, down the leg, so that no one felt like they were rubbing their ass all over our letters.

I'm not kidding. People were crying.

This is probably a really un-PC-type saying these days, but I can't think of another way to say it at the moment ---- giving everyone a "title" or "rank" makes for too many chiefs and not enough indians. Very bad idea, organization-dynamics-wise.

I really wasn't trying to be rude, I just read your post and started giggling at the idea of four girls sharing a chair. It's pretty stupid, but I mean some positions are really less important/less intensive then others. Maybe just go to your nationals, and ask them for some clarification/suggestions for chairs. They may be able to help you with ideas, provide further insight into their reasoning, or realize that it just may not work out. Win-win(win).