Committees?
 

My chapter's committee system isn't working to it's full potential and I was hoping to get information on how y'alls committees system works. This is for an IFC chapter. But, currently we have 10 committees, with 2 not meeting all the time. They range from social to rush to intramurals. They are supposed to meet with certain officers; however, that's...not quite working out right now, so instead we are currently meeting as a group (chairmen + secretary) before chapter every week.

So, what are some things that works well for y'all? Creating a binder for each committee? A general set of "You can do these things, you can't do these things." or what?

Well, over the break we have had some committee meetings for such things as budgets, Founders Day type events (of which I am heavily involved as Alumni Chair), E-Board individual meetings w/ advisor, etc. I am not entirely sure how we will do it during the semester, but I assume we will meet some time during the week, like we do now.

As for how meetings work, take notes. Take notes, email notes, perhaps even have the scribe there.

We've never been good at committees, but we are finally getting out stuff together. Basically every committee meets once a week, and that committee needs to sit down and get its crap done. If the committee chair or whatever the title is, maybe have the VP or president sit in on the meetings to make sure they get done.

How large is your chapter? If it's smaller than thirty, what you have right now is probably more effective than most chapters of this size. If larger, it seems to be more of an accountability issue than a logistic issue. Why are the committees not meeting? Who is responsible for the committee chairmen and ensuring that they fulfill their duties?

As an aside, I wonder if the committee system has faded to a bygone error. With email, texting, and being constantly plugged in to social media, do our undergraduate chapter need committees to engage their members and operate effectively? I'm not saying this is better, just curious if this is the reality in our chapters.

We're currently at 58 guys and actually I should've stated in my original that it's an "IFC colony" not an "IFC chapter," we will get initiated next semester... this was actually our first semester in operation, with our kickoff being back in late October.

I think...part of the issue is that the chairmen don't know what they can do with their position, since we currently don't have any precedent, so they're just kinda pussyfooting around the whole issue. ...and, some of the other e-board members might not entirely be doing their job right this second.

As to whether it's a bygone era, I would say definitely not. Even with current technology, being able to sit down in a room and focus on one task is important. I don't remember where it was at, I'll try and find it again, but there was actually a 10-year study done at a think tank where they studied how scientists came up with ideas, it turned out that like 70% came from something that was said in the meeting by another scientist, that a scientist just figured out how to use it in their area, it just might have been months later.

I find that the biggest thing you need in committees is someone to actually make decisions. You can discuss the options ad nauseam (shall we paint our chapter house pink, blue, green, what shade of pink, what accessories do we need, how long will it take, blah blah blah) but at the end of the day, you just need someone to say "it will be red."

Do you have decisive people? And if the real issue is that no-one knows what they can/are allowed to do, then one of your executive sit on each committee and confirm the decisions that are taken

Ask the alumnae (if this is a recolonization) or the national officers who are assisting your chapter.

If the response you get (from either one) is "figure it out yourselves" or no response at all, you might want to rethink your affiliation with this national organization.

Depends on the size and structure of your chapter and if it has a house or not. Some committees can be merged together even to make one major one. But: social, fundraising, scholarship(grades), Intramural, alumni relations, service and philanthropy, House maintenance, Brotherhood/sisterhood, planning (for organizing homecoming, greek week, etc.), recruitment, and there could be much more.

I think you might be putting a lot of expectations on yourselves about how these things should work. Yes, I would try to focus your efforts to make sure stuff gets completed (not too many) and getting together in person is a good idea, especially as a colony because you need getting to know each other and brother bonding time. These meetings can accomplish a lot in that regard.

Do use the support structure that you should have in place, or seek it out from your headquarters. And stay in your lane. If you're on the activities committee, don't get all wired about what the membership committee is or is not doing. You will only achieve alienating yourself. Just focus on what YOU'RE committee is doing. If you have one really strong area of your colony, that's a good building block.

Exactly. There are local/regional/district and national/international bodies for a reason.

Even contacting brothers at other chapters makes more sense than coming to Greekchat and asking random Greeks.

The way we do it is like this:

Each officer has their set task lists of things they need to take care of during the week before each chapter meeting. If an officer fails to do what needs to do it's addressed in chapter. If we find that they're overworked, the officer themselves can ask for volunteers for a committee. Each officer has that privilege. If it's a big job in general (rush chair) we'll usually vote on it and assign a co-chair.

Committees work for certain things, but in my experience it's hard to schedule a time to sit down and get everyone together. It works better, IMO, to have the officer work out their plan, present it in chapter and if the group isn't a fan, start to rework the plan right there in chapter.

This, a thousand times this.

It sounds like you may be confusing committee meetings with a committee structure -- how committees take care of business rather than the need for them at all.

In a parliamentary procedure sense, committees exist to keep the entire body from having to discuss everything in detail. It's the committees' to job to get down into the details -- to do the main work -- and make recommendations to the full body so that the full body can work efficiently. Or, if the full body has authorized it, to carry out functions on behalf of the full body.

How often committees need to meet and how much they need to to do will vary according to the chapter's needs and the committee's responsibilities. As others have suggested, use your fraternity's resources to help you figure out what your fraternity expects and what you could or should be doing.

That would be preferable... if I hadn't already tried to reach other to 40 other chapters without a single response....and that was through conventional e-mail and through our national site. ...and our nationals have been unhelpful in this regards.

If what you are saying is true, and you gave all of your sources ample time to receive your emails and respond to them, you are essentially saying that your fraternity brothers and nhq sucks and nonmembers are better at helping your chapter than your fraternity is.

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