No frills recruitment ... what does that mean?
 

I met with a house director last night and was told that Ole Miss is going "no frills" during recruitment. What does that mean?

“No Frills” recruitment: A recruitment style that focuses on quality communication with
potential new members as opposed to decorations and matching outfits.“No frills” recruitment is defined by the National Panhellenic Conference as “an effort to eliminate high cost and time demands for decorating and
entertainment.” Recruitment focuses on quality communication with potential new members” (NPC Manual of Information, p. 137)
EX:
The following is a list of (but not limited to) items which are/not considered frills:

Considered Frills
- Attire that has potential to inflate financial
burden of membership and be considered
a costume for chapter members.
- Banners, Posters, Flags* Composite pictures, trophies or plaques
- Recruitment video during the rounds
- Crafts
- Music, additional lighting
- elaborate skits

Not considered frills:
- Recruitment event attire for chapter
members that reduces individual financial
burden and eliminates costuming.
- Composite pictures, trophies or plaques,
Wooden chapter letters in chapter colors,
chapter house banner, display boards
- Philanthropy video
- Recruitment Slide Show
- Recruitment video posted on the chapter
social media page.
- Activity/Discussion of how an individual
can connect with the Chapter’s
philanthropic cause

Indiana State has an exhaustive "No Frills" run down: https://www.indstate.edu/sites/defau...ment-rules.pdf

Crafts are frills? So no more crafts during the philanthropy round? Not that I’m sad (far from it), I was just surprised that they were on the list. So philanthropy day is basically show a video and talk day?

Dunno, it says that videos are considered frills.

Crafts on philanthropy day fell out of favor when they realized most were thrown in the trash because there weren't enough to donate, the chapter never got around to donating them, they weren't really usable as designed,etc., etc..

Having rushed during the days of frills, I can see how non-frills recruitment focuses on meaningful conversation in a way that frills might not have although I felt I really got to know the girls in each chapter, especially by the time I reached Pref - had a real sense of personality and when I pledged, I knew I had found my home even though I really liked girls in the other house I went to for preference. Girls likely were influenced by the skits, decor, food, etc. And the frills varied, from what I saw, from school to school.

I went to Arizona and our frills paled in comparison to those at Ole Miss where my cousins went - I remember seeing pictures where they had elaborate homemade name tags (like something from Martha Stewart), matching dresses, etc. We had Panhellenic issued plain white name tags (where you wrote your name and hometown). We wore our own clothes for first and second rounds; for skits we wore black tee-shirt type tops that had Gamma Phi Beta in script on them with white shorts. Our skits were cute, but nothing elaborate (no fancy decor; we had snacks in our dining room and bowls of M&M's in rooms as we toured the rushees through the house including bedrooms - do chapters do that now?). I'll admit our pref party food was Martha Stewart-like - small flower pots lined and filled with ice cream with oreo cookie crumbs on top and a pink carnation in a tiny plastic vile inserted in it along with frosted cookies in our Greek letters and a small piece of cake with our names in script on top - that was as fancy as we got and yes, I think that was pretty frills-like. On Bid Day we got a pink carnation (our flower), a simple tee-shirt, pledge ribbons and a cook-out at the house. Our first Pledge Mom (called big sister at other schools) gave us a welcoming note-card. Nothing that broke the bank like I see at many schools.

Since there were no philanthropies there was nothing to focus on that emphasized public service. I do think the non-frills style puts all chapters on equal footing although it's also clear from posts on here how the fixation on tiers still exists so I wonder how much no-frills truly impacts rush although it certainly saves money and time!

Is no-frills recruitment the same as values-based recruitment?

Well, technically but the chapter still could "focus" on something else....if you get my drift.

Two questions:

Why are composites, trophies and plaques on both lists?

NYCMS? No philanthropy at all, or no philanthropy DAY?

I never saw the point of the crafts. We did big service events where we often made things that fell in line with things chapters would do for a "crafts day" (and probably attracted some PNMs in the process) but I couldn't imagine doing it during recruitment.

I wondered that, too. How on earth are groups with hundreds of members going to take down all their big honkin composites (which I assume are affixed to the walls by a bit more than a Command hook)?

Two ways:

1) They just cover them up!

or

2) This is really going to blow your mind: They move everything out...yes, hire movers who take it to a storage facility and then bring it all (furniture and all) back after recruitment. I know at Arizona State many of the chapters do this.

When I cut and pasted, I messed up. Composites, trophies, and plagues are not considered frills. I apologize. (And it won't let me edit it . . . ? )

My bad (and poor memory!), we have a philanthropy, but there was no Philanthropy Day - we had Skit Parties which were replaced by Philanthropy Day for several reasons, likely including the 'frills' element since some sororities had skits that rivaled Broadway shows and others didn't.

And to address a comment above: Removing composites because they are "frills". We covered up the pics of the girls who were rush counselors. The only way they could remotely be considered frills was that some houses had way more members on their composites but PNM's can figure that out on their own.

The DPhiE chapter at Georgia takes the furniture out from downstairs during recruitment, but it's purely practical. It's so they can accommodate all of the PNMs and sisters in the house during the parties.

yes, it's a practical thing in some places...but others...well...