Junior Circle
 

Okay,
So I need ideas for Junior Circle gatherings.
Here are the problems I am running into-

There are over 500 sisters in my metro area that are Junior Circle aged yet IHQ has an outdated list of their addresses (shame on those sisters for not updating!). So out of the 500 maybe 100 are somewhat accurate (their parent's house instead of their's and so forth)... so we may have about 15-20 people show up.
GREAT except-

Everyplace that we could go wants a deposit or a guaranteed amount spent. Since I can't ask for money because we are a JC and we can't collect I can't promise that we will have $200 in food orders or whatever. Especially since I don't know how many people will show up to begin with. I can't be out $150 every time we have an event.

And since people don't RSVP I get the wrong number coming anyway.

I've had two events- the first 15 girls showed up, the 2nd about 10. I say girls, but I mean women. I want us to have a very active JC so that we can eventually get an Alum club in the area. With over 500 sisters in the area just JC ages I am sure we could pull a strong Alum chapter (Then maybe U of L would get an AGD chapter!).

Thoughts?

pay as you go events ?
 

I feel your dilemma, I've been through it with a college alumni club. We now concentrate on events where people can show up, and pay, like sporting events. If you set a time for people to show up, then at that time, all walk up together to buy seats next to each other, that way it doesn't matter how many show up. Any professional or semi-professional teams in town ? Minor league baseball games are alot of fun, and very reasonably priced, and easy to get tickets right up until game time. What about a comedy club? What about going to a water park or amusement park ?

As long as you don't feel that you need a separate part of a restaurant set aside for you, or a separate part of a club, etc., then there should be less of an issue with promising the establishment a minimum $$$$ amount of business.

HI!
I feel your pain! We've had the same exact problems here when I started the JC. Try to find an alumnae chapter/club that will hold money for you. When our JC members pay support fees to our alumnae chapter some of the money is set aside for JC. I'm guessing most of your local JC women probably wouldn't want to pay support fees to an alumnae chapter/club far away, but I would suggest talking to the closest group and see if they can help you out.

Although everyone will tell you, you don't need any money, I personally think it's nice to have some in case of an emergency or if you ever want to do a mailing. It's also nice to have so people can hold an event at their house and get reimbursed for paper products, etc.


We also try to do pay as you go type events - sporting events, meet for dinner/bar, paint pottery, movies, etc. Although we always seem to have a difficult time getting any kind of accurate head count beforehand so restaurants can be a little difficult. Sometimes we'll have 2 people show up and sometimes 25-30! A lot of restaurants around here also have deposits/minimum amounts so it's difficult.

I have had several events at my house and others have as well. Ask people to bring a drink & appetizer to share. We also had a recipe swap which was fairly successful. Bring a recipe and the actual dish to share. Cookie swaps are easy around the holidays. Picnics at a park would be easy if people are interested. We haven't had to do this yet, but some local libraries and city centers have free rooms you can use for events/meetings. Try to find out what everyone is interested in and ask them to volunteer for a month to set up an event.

I found a lot of local women just by going through the IHQ list and calling them! It was a huge long project, but I think people were pleasantly surprised to have someone call them. If you tell them right away you're not looking for money, they tend to be a little more likely to call you back. :)

Once I got a group of women interested I kept emailing out the list of women I had already heard from and asked them to pass along information to anyone not on the list. So it kept growing from there.

Hi there! I just took over for the JC in my area and it's been very stressful but definitely worth the time!!

I'm in Michigan (Western Wayne County Alumnae Club sponsors us) and in August we met at the Hard Rock Detroit for lunch and then walked over to Comerica Park to watch the Tigers play baseball. It was a pretty successful event.

We met in October and baked cookies for the two chapters that are near us (University of Michigan-AB and Eastern Michigan University-ZA) and then we had dinner together.

We went back downtown Detroit for lunch at the Hard Rock (again) and then we went ice skating at Campus Martius Park (it was so much fun).

Our last event was last weekend and we went to an adult arcade (Lucky's) and we had dinner together and then hung out at the arcade until the wee hours of the night.

I got a lot of names from doing a sister search on the website. We also have a Yahoo! Groups page and we can manage the calendar, pictures and postings there. We also have a website that's linked to Alphagam.net.

We try to do some events with our sponsoring Alumnae Club and they're always very supportive of our efforts.

This month we'll be doing the Relay for Life with ZA chapter and then in September we're participating with the JDRF for Ann Arbor. We've got a team that'll be walking and then we've got a team that's volunteering.

Good luck!!
Cathy

What a coincidence that you posted here - I found your JC's website last week. We're trying to rejuvenate interest in the Greater Toledo alumnae chapter, so I was doing some online research to see what other groups are doing. Noticed that your group was organizing a trip this past winter to see the lights at the Toledo Zoo during the holidays. Hopefully we have strengthened our local alumnae base enough by next year that we can meet up if you decide to plan a similar event! :)

(On an unrelated side note - I grew up in Dundee. I think I recall from your website that you...or one of your other officers, perhaps...lives in that general area. :confused: Live in Sylvania now and am the Chapter Advisor for Alpha Kappa - Bowling Green.)