Pledge Manuals - Public/Private?
 

I see a lot of fraternity and sorority pledge manuals on eBay, but I haven't seen anywhere near the "rescue" effort on these that I have for active pins.

How much of an issue do various people have with seeing the pledge manuals for their organizations for sale on eBay (and otherwise available to the public)?

For Alpha Phi Omega, the National Office now has the complete pledge manual available online. (In fact, bizarrely enough, as far as I can tell, the online Alpha Phi Omega pledge manual is the first hit in google for the phrase "Pledge Manual"), I'm actually in the process of making an Alpha Phi Omega public online archive and old pledge manuals will be part of it.

There is nothing secret in the AOII New Member manual. Everything is public information since NM are not initiated and not privy to secret information. We don't print secret information for members anyway. We're rather proud of our new manual which is more of a membership manual/ keepsake than just a NM manual. It is not something I'd be worried to have an outsider read cover to cover.

Since there *is* ritual in our pledge manuals, because a new member of Beta Sigma Phi goes through a ritual and is considered to be a full member of the organization *before* receiving her pledge manual.... I do get tetchy when I see them for sale online.

This is a personal opinion and I do not speak for my sisters about this. I've run into sisters who shrug their shoulders and say "People will do what they want and sell what they want." and I've run into sisters who are more up in arms about it than I am.

Haven't you already asked this question?

Twice?

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist. :p)

lol I'll reply again.

Our pledge manual directly evolved into our membership book, which doesn't have an ounce of confidential information in it. It's even digitally on the national website.

Actually, when I joined, older members said it wasn't a bad idea to give the book to our parents to read through so they felt better about things.

I don't think there's much in our NM manual that is not also currently available online. However, when I pledged *mumble* years ago, the Web was in its infancy. One of AEPhi's earliest web sites (if not the earliest) was my chapter's site, which I built. I was very careful about what I put on the site. I put NOTHING out there that was revealed in ritual, even NM rituals.

I wouldn't presume anything given to pledges to be secret.