Nationals vs. Local debate
 

Hey fellow local GCers!

I posted a thread under Greek Life ...it's about nationals versus locals. It has received quite a few posts so far...and but not a lot from those of us who are in local groups. Please feel free to read that and comment :)

Thanks!! I want to make sure local opinions are heard too!!


*SiggieJilly*

I did think of a BIG advantage to being in a large chapter-regardless of national afiliation or not. When you order t-shirts and other Paraphernalia, it is sooooooooo much cheaper if you order a large quantity. An organization of 10 is going to pay $20 per T-shirt but if you have 100 sisters, the cost goes down to like $7. Big difference. Just something I noticed.

That's not completely true. We can get t-shirts for under $10 and we usually have 15-20 active sisters. It all depends upon where you order your shirts at. :)

agreed... it really just depends on where you get them. you can't rely on the big name greek stores to give you a huge deal. the smaller ones and small screen printing shops usually help us out a lot.

if you want just screen printing, try customink.com. they specialize in greek shirts and usually charge about $8-$12 a shirt.

I would like to order cheap embrodiered shirts.....also I cant wait to get a line jacket.....I notice that most nationals dont wear a line jacket........

i love being in a local because you don't have to deal with nationals breathing down your neck... and you kind of have creative license to change things if you want... i def like that...

Name one instance where any national group has "breathed down the neck" of a chapter, unless that chapter has already committed a grave violation of policy (like hospitalizing a pledge.) When such lamentable events happen with locals, their entire existence hanges by a thread. Rare, drastic actions by parent organizations ensure their survival.

Coming from a school that once had three national sororities I always heard them complaining about their national getting on their asses about their numbers. We went to a small school and their national organizations couldn't grasp the fact that Greek life was small and there was not going to be 40+ active members in every chapter. They all have been threatened over the years about low numbers and having their charters revoked. One of the national sororities decided to go local because they didn't want to deal with their national organization anymore. When you are local you don't have to worry about things like that.

yea- actually i have friends in all of the nationals on my campus- and they all complain about how nationals is constantly hounding them for more and more money- that nationals always send reps out that completely tear their chapters apart... and i know that nationals for two different sororities are threatening to close 2 chapter because of money issues.... (i think b/c the chapters aren't bringing in as much as they should) their numbers barelly dip below 40.....

yep, either they go through and clean house and kick out a bunch of girls bc they dont fit the image they want or else they are constantly bitching about numbers. i have seen house cleaning a couple times here and i see the issues with numbers all the time. plus the girls get so anal around structured rush bc they HAVE to have so many girls. its rediculous.

We get this from our nationals.....it's annoying and they will never understand.

I have never received a numbers lecture from my national. I am sure it has a lot to do with not having the responsibility of maintaining a house and our campus not having total (our local sororities are not members of Panhel so we won't have total if other chapters don't have to follow it). They have been very understanding about the differences with commuter schools and the tendancy for chapters to be smaller than those at away schools. We have always been above the average chapter size on campus though, so I don't know if their opinion were change if we were below average.

Not to air my chapter's dirty laundry in public, but - well, let's just say we did get the numbers lecture at one point, and it wasn't pretty - but the chapter did come back strong.

I liked being in a local; I like being in a national. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. (For one thing, I liked having local dues that were about 15% of the national sororities' dues... ;) )

I have seen this done at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) in '98 w/ Alpha Phi. All of the current members were forced to become alumae early or become inactive. Events were held by nationals to recruit new women and the house was recolonized...my roommate at the time was chosen.

I have never heard of Alpha Phi forcing the members to go alum. What probably happened is the sisters in the chapter have a vote, and they chose whether or not to do it. The sisters must have realized that in order for their chapter to survive, this was the best option. Now I know nothing about this case in particular, but I do no that my sorority is not cruel and would not force such a thing onto the sisters.

I do know that the recolonization (or whatever it's called) went very well at Missouri. They got some outstanding women. Two were even ELC's this past year, one came to one of the schools I advise at. Seems like they were all good leaders, smart, and polished.