bid day activities
 

hey there (this is my first post so i guess this is my intro). ~

anyways...
does anyone know any good (cheap) ideas for bid day? we're having a catered dinner and all that, but what's a nice and fun way to start integrating the new members?

thanks!

Bowling
Rent out the roller rink and go skating
Silly games like twister, simon says, etc.
Watch movies together

On my bid day we went to the park & played all of those "get to know you" games that everyone knows! It was fun to get off campus & have a cookout! And (besides the cookout which our housecook catered) it was very inexpensive!

Vanderbilt Bid Day Modifications

Bid Day 2005 at Vanderbilt will be different from past Bid Days there. An article in the student paper explains that they're doing away with one "tradition" and trying to emphasize sisterhood and bonding.

http://www.vanderbilthustler.com/vne.../41e75402c499f

Also interesting is the statement toward the end of the article that women who go through Pref and maximize their choices are guaranteed a bid, though not necessarily to their first choice.

I can't believe they got rid of the "Running of the Pigs." Well, actually I can.

I understand tradition and all that, but I think it might be for the best that the running isn't done any more. It just sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

That, and a lot of times what a lot of people call "tradition" (maybe not in this case though) are really only activities that have gone on for 2-4 years.

We had the sisters go from dorm to dorm picking up the pledges. I think it was a lot easier on the girls who didn't get their first choice (they only were upset in front of a half dozen sisters as opposed to the whole Greek system) or those who didn't get a bid (they were notified early enough so they could leave campus). I just think anything where you have to open your bid in front of everyone is barbaric.

I know that bid day is held Sunday to try to prevent partying (which obviously doesn't work very well), but they need to think about the women who don't get bids. It would be easier if they could have a weekend off and get over it a little rather than have to walk into class the next day w/ everyone sporting letters.

33, I like that a lot. I think that method would work with most schools with moderately-sized chapters. (When our school would choose who was going to be on the Orientation Team, the outgoing O-Teamers would show up at their door with posters, baked treats, presents and confetti to formally offer them their "bid."

Unfortunately, when you have a new member class of 70+, that's a little tougher!

Our Bid Night is at night after all the pref ceremonies and bid matching have taken place, so it's been a long stressful day for both us and the new members.

We had catered dinner, of course the tons of pictures, music, and just good fun getting to know our girls, nothing too structured. :)

Our bid days are required by Panhellenic to be low-key: we're not allowed to go off campus, and all events start at 3pm when the girls receive their bids, and must end by 8pm. We normally order pizza and have a cake, the girls get gifts from their Heart Sisters (or whatever your org calls them), and we play little getting to know you games. This past week on our bid day our VP-New Member Ed wrote down all these random questions, like "what's your favorite color?" "have you ever been out of the country?", etc., and everyone had to take one and answer it. Our chapter has just over 50 women, so it works well. We played games like Catchphrase and stuff after that. One year we made the floor of our CR (we don't have houses, so we do everything in our CR) into a giant Twister board, which was also really fun.

We also have time for formal pictures, so if you don't do that, you could always take the time to take pictures of everyone by class.

On informal recruitment bid day, which has less restrictions that the one after formal, we normally do the same types of things and then go see a "chick flick" together (make sure the new members are paid for by the sisters). Nothing like 50 girls in matching t-shirts taking over a movie theatre ;) One year we actually went to the drive-in movie theatre in our town.

Our Bid Day activities were always low-key and it was really nice. In the fall we usually went to the park right off campus and played on the playground and had a barbeque. There's just something wonderful about a swingset and a slide. :) We also gave the girls roses and purple and white balloons then as well.

One year it was -34 outside on Bid Day so we all posed by the sign on campus and got our photo in our national magazine, which was really neat! Then we took the new members out for lunch at a favourite local restaraunt.

for my bid day, we went to a sports bar, had great appetizers, and watched the football game while chatting and getting to know each other. afterwards, a bunch of us went and saw napolean dynamite in our matching shirts :-) took over the theater!

other sororities did things like going to the football game as a group (a problem with that is it's not easy to socialize/get to know people) and one sorority took a bus to six flags magic mountain.

bids day
 

last year we had a scavenger hunt.

we broke off into teams, each team with a list and one camera. Each team had to take pictures of each item on the list. The list ranged from pictures with random people to sorority things; like pictures of something that has your sorritity colour or moto.

it was fun.

_________
GAMMA PHI BETA
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Wine&SilverBlue, it's been years since I last heard about a cookie shine -- yep, college was a long time ago.