Just a suggestion...
 

I'm sure I'm far from the only alumna who hears Recruitment Party plans and thinks, "Should I say it or not?" So... for those of us who have to pick their battles wisely when dealing with a chapter, I thought maybe some alumnae could tender some advise here.

I'll start by stating that Recruitment really needs to be cost-efficient. One of the very best Recruitment ideas I ever saw was done by Alpha Epsilon Phi at Pitt. Instead of having 5 conflicting theme parties that caused Set up > The Party > Clean Up > Tear Down > Redecorate for five days straight, they stuck to one basic theme, and just tweaked it to a different subtheme every day!

The Sisters were more on the ball, because they were refreshed, there were no late night fights over "But I did it LAST night!", and I would imagine that the costs were kept down.

Any other pearls of wisdom?

For the love of all that's holy, please don't do the Grease skit again.

I gotta agree... when i went through rush in 99, 2 of the 11 sororities did it.

Go for something different and memorable- it'll make you stand out more and be easier to remember. It'll also get girls talking.

For instance, we did (this was more when animal print was super trendy) a Party Animal theme- the suite was animal print eveywhere, it was made to look like a club, we all wore something animal print.

We also did "Fire and Ice"- one side of the suite was red and fire, the other side was blue and ice themed. We did the cheer from Bring it On (the movie- the Brr, it's cold in here cheer)- Brr, it's cold in here, there must be some KD's in the atmosphere. Was a 30 second skit, but girls remember it and talked about it between parties.

BE UNIQUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Just a suggestion...
 

We avoided the second half of this problem by assigning every girl in the house to one of three parties that they were responsible for coming up with ideas, shopping for supplies, making decorations, putting up and taking down decorations. Girls were more likely to help out if they knew they only had to do it for one party rather than all three and fewer people got burnt out that way. (Unfortunately I got stuck with second round parties, which had about twenty times the set up and take down of the other parties -- I think I'll aim for Pref night crew next year ;) ).

Ditto on the original theme and skits -- this year FOUR houses here did Hollywood-themed first parties (unfortunately we were one of them). If your skit isn't going to be the best, or at least drastically different from the other ones, don't bother.

Ditto: Sex in the City, Survivor, etc.

I think the Beach/Carribbean Theme is played out as well. My old school, I rushed one year and quit after first day because I didnt like the system there, but out of the 12 houses that were participating in formal rush that year 5 of that 12 did this same theme.........they even sang a few of the same songs only inserting their sorority name in it (it was a sorority version of California Girls). Everytime I hear that song now I think of my rush experience there and all five houses that did it.

I'm a new alumnae member of my group. I know you cant really talk to other members of other sororities during silence, but is there some way at all through panhellenic perhaps where it gets worked out to where every house does something different? So everyone knows their skit wont be repeated elsewhere beforehand? I'm talking about havign this knowledge months in advance.......like spring semester before formal fall rush. That way if changes need to me made, there is time to do that and get it perfected, and not have it look like it was put together last minue and half-assed. I was just curious.........

OMG!!! I don't know how many times the Tri-Delts (as drop dead gorgeous as they were) woke me up in the morning practicing that stupid Grease skit. Grrrrrrrrrr. 15 years later and it still irks me.

Of course you should be taking this with a grain of salt. At my campus nobody does Grease, Sex and the City or Survivor -- and to the best of my knowledge none of the groups on campus have done them in recent years, so you could get away with it. (Although Survivor is a little played out by now.) But if you're on a campus where the Phi Mus just stopped using Grease last year and now you want to adopt it . . . I would definitely advise no on that one.

I would encourage you to write your repsective organizations with suggestions for new skits. i know from looking at what is available that many are relatively out of date. Perhaps the time is right to have some creative alums and collegians submit their own original skits to their HQ's to update the databanks!

Kudos to kddani about being original!!!

If I hear, "We have to have cheesecake! Everyone expects it one more time, I cannot be held responsible for what I'll do!!

It's like everybody wearing black for Pref. Sure, it looks nice - but every sorority looks the SAME!!

I think with our university (we were a deferred recruitment school), the formal recruitment chairs for each sorority had to turn in a basic schedule of everything that the chapter was doing for the entire week of recruitment....what was planned for each party, what was being served, what supplies were needed for that round, etc. I think it worked pretty well, because from what I can tell, we never had more than one sorority doing any type of skit or philanthropy activity....which made it easier on the PNM's to differentiate between the seven chapters! :)

As superficial as it is, black does make everyone look thinner. Are you going to assume a marketing disadvantage at such a pivotal time?

Ok, I don't want to get my head bitten off, but on my campus, our Panhel Advisor is telling us that NPC is going to no frills rush starting 2005??? I come from a frilly rush school (well as much as our budget allows) and there are skits and crafts, and balloons galore.

Yes, I like the idea of one bkgrd theme and then each night sets off from that.

We have a lot of TRL, Sex and the City, fashion show, etc. We're a small school and could probably use some big school help.

50's rushing is finally gone....... thank you!!!

chortle chortle chortle.

NPC nationally was supposed to go to no frills in, like, 1995. I remember the article in our magazine. Needless to say this didn't happen at many schools and NPC hasn't done jack about it.

Too bad the alcohol rules don't change at the same pace as the rush rules. :rolleyes: :p

"Take our beer but dear God in heaven, let us keep our confetti!"

On that note . . . especially if you're one of those schools that, like mine, has three-party pref night, don't do the cheesecake! It's just too heavy for rushees to eat three pieces of cheesecake in one night. Something lighter, like angel food cake and strawberry sauce, is such a relief at the end of the night.