Having to miss chapter because of "major" activities
 

Greeks get all excited when their members are elected to major offices or win spots in prestigious groups. However, sometimes the meetings of these groups conflict and the Greek can't win; the chapter is hollering because he/she isn't there for chapter and the "big deal club" is upset if the Greek misses their meetings for chapter. Neither the GLO nor the big deal club is willing to compromise and change its time and neither one wants to cut the Greek any slack by allowing him/her to go to one meeting half the time, the other half the time.

Solutions?

Clone yourself? :p

If you want to do both, you find a way. Probably the best option would be to alternate meetings - chapter one week, "big deal club" the next - and arrange to sit down with someone each week to catch up on whichever meeting you didn't attend. Or, if one meeting always runs longer than the other, you go to the shorter meeting, then run off to catch whatever's left of the longer one. Explain to the officers of both orgs, that both are very important to you and that you really want to do both.

Well, I think it helps at my school that pretty much every Greek org has meetings Sunday night. Not only are meetings rarely scheduled on Sunday nights, but even non-Greeks are normally aware that Sunday nights are chapter nights, and know that if you meet Sunday nights, every Greek invoved is going to have a conflict. I think that helps prevent such a conflict in the first place.

I think it would also help to try to analyze the relative importance of each meeting. For instance, if you know your chapter is going to do a major vote that night, attend chapter.

Rank is important also. If you are a general member of Kappa Sigma as well as Student Government President. Student Government is going to have take prescedence and there should be a way to arange it.

If you are just a general member of both . . . thats up to you.

Being a theatre major and having rehearsal 6 nights a week, from 7 to 11 (meaning I normally had to be there from 6 to midnight...) I had a really hard time making it to chapter meetings when I was working on a show. It was really frustrating, and it sometimes prevented me from being more active in my sorority - I couldn't make it to chapter, or IM games, or socials... I even missed formal my Junior year for a performance!

My sisters were all really supportive though - they knew how much I loved theatre and how important it was to me - and they would come out and see my work when they could. I think it helped that during the times I wasn't invovled with a show, I would really try to be super-active in the chapter, going to all the IM games and helping out with different committees and stuff.