Fraternity Big Little Reveal
 

Hopefully I'm putting this in the right place…

So I'm thinking to make some adjust to my fraternity's pledge process and one of the things that my brothers have been debating for awhile is how to do our big little reveal. I've been doing some research but most of the ideas that come up are for sororities. I did find a few (the yarn maze, and clues) that I thought would work pretty well. I'm in a Coed-fraternity so I'm trying to find an activity that work well for both guys and girls. One of the ideas I had was to do something like the week of clues, and I'm interested in hearing what kind of ideas have been successful for other people.

If you're co-ed try to stay away from anything "cutesy." I would avoid the yarn maze and stick with the clues.

That was what I was thinking, have you done the clues? Like what sort of clues are given? The biggest concern I hear from people is that their little will find out their identity before the week is over. I want to do it in way that builds the excitement and anticipation without ruining the surprise.

Alpha Phi Omega - Kappa chapter from the 1980s...
 

The way that Kappa Chapter did it when I was there about 25 years ago:

Kappa chapter gave two bigs to each little, so things got a little more complex. Clues were left in the Fraternity office starting more or less when pledging started (or rather when bigs were assigned which wasn't much after that). In week 5 of a 9 week pledging, we took a "Nature Trail to Hell" which was a walk through the Large City park and eventually ended up at a pizza place on the other side (Note, the pledges did *not* know where we were going, but we had a few advisors along). Brothers either walked with the pledges or met us there. When we got to the Pizza place, after we ate, the pledge master called out the pledge's names one by one and asked if they knew who their bigs were, whether they guessed right or wrong, the pledge master let them know and presented their bigs...

A clue in the clue box addressed to a pledge might be something like chocolate to represent that the big was from hershey, PA or a xerox of the cover of a textbook the big had for one of her classes, or sometimes just something written.

Ok, I like the idea of the walk somewhere, I've been suggested to try and devise a scavenger hunt but its a little difficult to do that because of the complications of "hazing" allegations. So the clues can basically be anything?

I did one that would be considered 100% hazing these days, but anyway...the clues sent them to the old chapter house, my bio brother's chapter house, my boyfriend's chapter house, and my bio mom's chapter house, before bringing them back to our chapter house where I was waiting.

It's pretty easy to come up with clues related to the big's high school (colors or mascot), major, siblings, etc. You don't want to "ruin the surprise", but you want to give them enough that they have fun guessing.

What about something like matching tshirts or matching socks? Or is that too cutesy?

I think that might be too cutesy for some of the guys. I mean I probably wouldn't care, in my fraternity we do families and my family all the guys have matching socks, they're boss so that might be cool.

Yeah that's what I'm saying, we are zero tolerance against hazing, thats why the scavenger hunt is kinda a touchy subject because some people are ok with it, others think it can be seen as hazing. I think if its planned correctly and done with care it could be both fun and memorable for the pledges. I had this idea to do a short scavenger, and hopefully get permission from my school to do it, that splits the littles up and leads them to a room on campus where they're family is, we do families in my fraternity, and let the family handle the reveal. I think it could create a better more memorable experience for the littles, and also allow the families to start their own traditions with the reveal.

If you do a scavenger hunt, do it inside someone's house (if someone lives someplace big enough) and all the clues are inside the house. Don't take it outside.

Whats your opinion on doing it inside a building at our school? Our chapter doesn't have a house so we use class rooms on campus for our activities.

I think that's fine within reason...like, having them run all over the building? No. Having them move from one classroom to the next and getting a small clue/gift in each one? Fine.

Standard rules, pretend the President of the University, the National President of your fraternity and the editor of the school newspaper are following your pledges as they do this...

That is an excellent guideline!

Ok, I'm not saying like having them run all over a building, like nothing running back and forth, but definitely like a path kinda of so that its not excessive but its still meaningful.