New Sorority Help with Recruitment Fall 09
 

Hey

So our new sorority is a small local sorority with 13 girls right now. We are newly affiliated with Panhell, which just means Panhell recognizes us as a part of them but we do not participate in their formal recruitment. My informal recruitment is looking like a huge turn out! Probably like 100 PNM's or more! We are going to have one info night, then 3 rush nights, and 1 rush afternoon.

I need help with ideas to manage 100+ PNM's with our 13 girls each night. The info night will be a peice of cake, im not worried about it. I do need help with the rush night though! What are some activites or ways you have gone through recruitment? What worked to make it run smoothly?

Also I have a little while till recruitment so I am giving my girls a recruitment seminar when it gets closer. So any tips about talking to girls, any helpful/key questions to ask would be greatfully appreciated.

If I didnt cover something specific enough just ask! :)

If you are expecting a significantly larger number of PNMs than the number of members in your chapter, maybe have 30, 45 or 60 minute time slots where the first X number of PNMs showing up get that time slot instead of a come and go as you please open house. Or maybe you could have interested PNMs sign up for a specific time slot just so you have enough sisters to talk to all of the PNMs.

Right. I know of chapters with over 100 members who wouldn't try to handle 100 PNMs at a time. Invite them all to your info night, then have interested PNMs sign up for time slots. It'll make your days a lot longer but much more manageable.

Also, and I'm sorry to be a debbie downer here, but you'll probably have a larger percentage of who you think will come show up at the info night, then you'll probably lose a percentage of that with each passing night. Keep that in mind for your planning so that you're not wasting resources. Make sure you're counting those who will not return of their own choice plus those who you will not be inviting back.

Please keep in mind that many chapters who more than double their chapter size in one new member class have some problems once those new members are initiated (and even sometimes earlier). I'm not saying not to bid all of the women you'd like to have in your chapter, but be prepared. It's something you should talk about with your actives NOW so that there aren't as many surprises LATER. I would also suggest bringing up a number - "we will bid up to X women" as an attempt to manage such issues.

You may want to make sure you have a good balance of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors - even seniors, so that three years from now you don't have the majority of your chapter graduating. I'm not saying that ALL freshmen are completely immature, but you'll want women that are ready to take on a leadership role within the chapter from the get-go, and often times older members of the chapter are more ready for that, at least from a time management perspective. They (hopefully) know what it takes to get all of their school work done AND be very active in other clubs and organizations.

I'm not an expert on expansion but many NPC sororities try to build colonies around a balance of different ages and class standings so that the chapter doesn't face as many issues while it's getting started. I'm not saying you should do everything like the NPC (I don't know if colonization is something your chapter is interested in or not) but taking some cues from the NPC sororities on your campus may be helpful while you're starting out. Like, how big are they? What's total? Are you interested in meeting their total? How often do they participate in continuous open recruitment or continuous open bidding? Knowing what you want in terms of what they do may help you plan better for this recruitment and new member period as well as for the future.