good COB ideas
 

hi everyone-
i was just made COB chair for my sorority and i have been going through posts to try and come up with some really cute ideas that have worked really well but there are so many posts out there that i cant find anything. i was wondering if anyone could help me out. we are a smaller chapter on our campus and we are getting alot of pressure from nationals to be bigger and i want to be bigger (i transfered in from a bigger chaper and affiliated). but i was hoping someone could help me come up with some really cute COB event ideas. thanks guys :)
~katie~

I joined my house at UW through COB, and I remember some of the things that I really liked. It was always fun when houses invited me over to just do sisterhood things with them--I dyed Easter eggs at one house, and watched Friends and ate ice cream at another. It doesn't have to be something elaborate--just fun! My house usually starts by taking a girl out to coffee, and then if we keep inviting her back events get more involved (like dinner at a restaurant or dinner at our house with a house tour).

The most important part of COB (at least in my opinion) is just to make the PNM feel comfortable and show her the best that your sorority has to offer. I was always impressed by the houses where the members really seemed to get along with each other--not in a fake way just for the event, but truly friendly/respectful--it may seem kind of cliche, but it's true.

One more thing--don't always take them out to coffee. At my school, pretty much EVERY house does that in the beginning and it gets kind of old. Also, a game night (board games and snacks) or a movie night could be a lot of fun. Even just attending campus events can be really fun!

When I joined my sorority, it was the only local on campus - held rush 1 week after the national sororities held their formal rush. They did a mocktail party and a picnic - which worked well.

We were always looking to expand our membership via COB - but we were more interested in accepting the right women, rather than just extending bids for "body count". You have to be careful in that regard - extend bids to just anyone and your sisterhood will disintegrate.

In nice weather, we took people for ice cream, picnics, etc. In bad weather, we did coffee hours, study breaks, and movie nights (either by renting movies or by going over to a theatre to see some current movie - chat en route).

Lets see.. when my DZ chapter was starting up we invited girls, announced it in the school newspaper, put up flyers... for things like an ice cream social - where we obviously made sundaes and floats and then watched Must See TV (like Friends) on NBC or during halloween time we had pnm's over for pumpkin carving and chit chatting... Honestly, through all of this, we did more talking and getting to know the girls than we did watching TV or carving pumpkins... dinner is always good - but I could understand how a girl might feel intimidated having dinner with 40 girls she might not know, lol...

I did cob, and the event that I went to that I loved was a kareoke night. It was really fun and I got to see how laid back my sisters can be. I know was also have done things like setting up a formal dinner where we had some frat guys we know go pick the girls up and bring them to the dinner.

We had Chuck E. Cheese night and skating!

TG

For spring COB we had one night out at a nice restauraunt; ben & jerry's ice cream trip; and a movie night with appetizers and snacks from chilis. We got two of my wonderful pledge sisters this way but I'm hoping for more variety with the fall COB events! :D

Jess

Karaoke was really successful. We have a sister who has a machine, and we did it on campus. Also, we did a March Madness sort of party during the NCAA tournament, which went over really well. Try to do something a bit different than what other sororities are doing, and make sure it's active. Doing something that gets everyone up and moving, involved in the activity has always gone well for us.

I always liked the more laid-back events at the house, like TV or movie nights, because it was easier to talk to people. My chapter also did Halloween parties, holiday parties, game nights, etc. My favorite was re-live your childhood night, where we had coloring books and crayons, finger paints, play-dough, and other stuff like that.