100% Voting
 

How do you guys feel about 100% approval vote for voting on pledges? I've hear that KA does it, and our chapter is considering doing it as well.

Personally, I'm not in favor of it, as a brother with a grudge against a pledge or if he thinks he's "not the right type to be an XYZ" can mess a whole thing up. But that's just me.

Any comments?

I think that is weird. If a guy really has a legitimate complaint against someone, I would think that the brothers would trust him enough to release the pledge.

What if one guy had a grudge against the fraternity and was planning to voluntarily resign his membership. He alone could vote every single pledge out of the organization.

I dont think 100% approval would work. Its almost impossible to get 100% agreement on anything. Whats wrong with majority rule?

"Trust the Brothers" - another one of the over-used greek system cliches that prove rampant across greekdom . . .

. . . however, this maxim is slightly more important than most, as it proves to be the basis for so much of our strength, success, etc. If you can't trust every brother to make the right decision, there's no reason to continue operation of your organization. Now, pragmatism tells us that dumb mistakes will occur, but this part is unavoidable - these mistakes can occur regardless of how many votes it takes to depledge (or 'dink'). If you want to go to 100% approval, be prepared for every brother's wishes to be shown in a concrete way during the bidding/pledging process. Minority viewpoints will carry intense amounts of weight. YOU WILL lose pledges that you considered to be strong candidates.

But - you will also have instituted a program that, if utilized correctly, will make every brother's say in the future of the chapter carry weight and power. 100% can definitely work, if you train brothers correctly on the decision-making process w/ regard to potential new members. If you don't trust your friends and brothers with this sort of power, first of all don't pass the amendment, and second of all take another look at the reasons why these guys would not make the right decisions and address these.

Go with 2 votes and they are out. Make it also if they have two votes no arguments or questions asked too. If it is 100% there could be alot of pledges gone because if its a decent sized group your bound to not like one of them.

I think it depends on the size of your chapter. In a chapter of 20, 2 votes are a lot, but in a chapter of 120, 2 votes are nothing. I would think that majority isn't enough, but 100% is too much.

I'm not exactly what this thread is referring to: the process of voting on PNMs to bid or not bid them? Or is it referring to voting pledges out of the organization prior to initiation?

I'm with DeltaBetaBaby on this one. You need a percentage ~ simple majority isn't enough, 100% is too much (otherwise 1 or 2 naysayers could kill every potential pledge's chances). Or, you go with a point scale where each member rates each potential new member on a 1-5 or 1-10 scale, and everyone whose average is above a certain cutoff gets a bid (or in the case of sorority formal rush, gets invited to the next round of parties) and everyone below a certain cutoff gets released, and the status of anyone in between the 2 cutoffs gets discussed among the members.

Do you guys just vote "yes" or "no"? We have a point system where the rushees have to make a certain %age of points based on several factors. Voting "no" is for very severe cases ONLY.

Good Lord, we could barely agree on what jackets to get, I can't imagine if we would have all had to agree 100% on all the pledges!

I'm referring to voting pledges out of the organization prior to initiation. For instance my chapter currently does:

Voting at week 2: 50%
Voting at week 4: 67%
Voting at week 6: 75%

if you have anything less than that percentage positive, then you're out. now some in my chapter are proposing to have 100% yes votes all 6 weeks of the pledge period.

I guess I should chime in here on 100% voting. As a member of 4 organizations that require 100% votes for membership (KA, Freemasons, York and Scottish Rite) I dont think that it is quite as drastic as some of you may think. With 100%, I have always felt that, and this especially applies for KA, that we really know what we are getting, and this leads to less of a chance of releasing pledges at a later date. Yes, bid sessions run extremely long with us, but hey, KA is selective. We always have been. Always will be. TKE, try it in your chapter, as long as it doesnt break rules with your nationals, I think you will be pleased with the qaulity of your pledges and also the quantity of pledges that you retain.

100% is a policy that could definitely work. It sets in a sense of responsibility with the guys - and if you know that one vote is all it takes, it's also going to make you think more about your vote, and might eliminate the possiblity of a "grudge vote" The more responsibility you give every individual member, and the more trust you show each individual member, the better quality the voting process will be, and it can be something that can help the whole chapter.

our sorority does 90%,
Which I feel is too much. Not everyone is always going to agree, especially as you grow and expand. I just think 90-100% is too much. There was a girl I loved, and one girl did not like her for no real reason, just bc she said, so she did not get invited back to pref, I am still upset about it bc I would love for this girl to iin my sorority. In my friends sorority, and a lot others they do the scoring system which I think allows for more opinions.

interesting
 

I think it's interesting you vote on pledges every week.

We vote to bid to would-be new members (i.e. pledges), and if I remember correctly it was a 2/3rds majority vote to get a bid.

But once you've received a bid, you're pretty much in. You are of course required to meet all of the requirements the chapter has set up for your pledging, including attending meetings, completing projects & passing tests. If you don't meet any of these requirements, then the new member educator speaks to the entire chapter, who can vote:

A) extend your pledge period to make up for it- you initiate at the end of this period
B)you can attempt to pledge again the following semester, but are not initiated until then (you go through rush, but are guaranteed a bid)
C)you're out- you can rush again, but no promises

I never saw any of these things happen. Once we had a new member who failed a test, and we were about to vote on what to do, when she decided to de-pledge (our new member ed. came rushing in right before the vote). It was a sticky situation because she was a student from abroad, and we had to decide how much of her difficulty was based on her lack of English skills. And then match that against her involvement during her pledge period. It would have been a tough decision. She didn't join any GLO's, but we remained friendly with her.

My Chapter uses a "Black Ball". It only takes one “Ball” to change a pledges world. It's an awesome responsibility, and it's not taken it lightly.

If there are no possible repercussions to a Brother who chooses to use his power, then lookout. One wildcat Brother could change the landscape of your Chapter for many years, single handily. In a normal semester, we see it used 3-5 times on classes of 20-30. We had a class of 12 a few years ago that got 12. But they deserved it, so be it.

In my Chapter, active Brothers are the only ones that have the power to “Black Ball”. However, that power is bestowed by the Alumni. If an active over uses or inappropriately uses his power, it can be removed for one semester or more, up to life. Therefore, it forces each and every active to temper his power with mercy. Usually, it is the senior Brothers who tend to drop the “Ball” most often.