New Member bonding!
 

Hey Everyone,
I am VP Education for my chapter, and I was just wondering if anyone had any good ideas for creative bonding activities for our new member class. It could be anything from ice breakers or fun sisterhood activites.
Thanks!

One of my all-time favorite bonding experiences was a ROPES course my junior class did at the high school I attended. We had to learn to trust each other, work as a team, etc. while having a blast together. It was definitely a day that brought us all close together.

My favorite bonding experience as a new member was when we went on a sisterhood retreat & stayed at a local wilderness camp. We spent a lot of time getting to know each other & learning about Sigma Kappa. It was really nice-I left feeling like those girls were my family.

whenever we did mocktail or pledge retreat, we would play a game called "two truths and a lie" and everyone had to come up with 3 things to say about themselves, two being true, and one being a lie, and everyone else had to guess what the lie was.

This isn't really an activity for the new members to bond with each other, but moreso with the chapter, but it relates to new members nonetheless so I'll share. Before the new members chose their bigs, our new member educator had an event called "I Want to be a Big Speed Dating". Each member who wanted a little made a flier about herself and then the new members and potential bigs had conversations with everyone speed dating style!

An overnight sisterhood lockdown at the house, an on-campus facility like a gym (bring sleeping bags!), etc. Have plenty of food, do an ice breaker (your Greek Adviser or Resident Life Director is sure to have books of ice breakers), and review chapter policies by assigning small groups to perform skits to teach the others. Teach songs, do a craft project, etc.

One fun ice-breaker is the "M&M's" game-- pass around a bag of M&M's. Each color represents something (make it up-- IE: Green means say something nice about the person next to you; Brown means tell us your favorite thing about the sorority so far, etc.)

One method my chapter used to help everyone get to know the new members was to take a manila envelope, some old magazines, markers, glue and the new member's photo. Decorate the envelope with your photo and create a collage all about you. Include your name. Hang these around the chapter room and throughout the new member period, these envelopes will serve as mailboxes where all members are encouraged to leave notes for the new members. It is a great way to get to match faces to names for all the members and getting the notes makes you feel so special! The new members can also present their mailbox to the rest of the class and tell the other new sisters about themselves when they make them at new member retreat so the new members get to know one another too.

Another activity-- make up a new sisterhood song to teach to the chapter and have the chapter members incorporate it into the chapter song book!

Also, the next morning, have the entire chapter come to the retreat to surprise the new members with breakfast. Stage an all-chapter activity so that the entire chapter can bond and integrate the new members into the sorority. It is good for the new members to bond, but aim for all-chapter unity as opposed to pledge class unity only-- this helps to build the chapter up and helps to eliminate pledge class cliques. Go canoeing, rollerskating, play field games, etc.

A good retreat keepsake-- cut a uniform shape out of construction paper: heart, diamond, 5-point crown, 4 petal flower, etc.... Give one to each girl and a piece of tape for her to tape it to her back. Each person gets a pen or marker and writes a nice note on each girl's back-- it is a great memory of retreat!

We did something like this too...basically spent the night in a wilderness lodge learning about each other and Theta. It was a very memorable and worthwhile experience.

We also worked together to plan a small philanthropic project. The amount of time that we put into it helped us learn about our philanthropy and learn to work well with each other.

I wish we had done a retreat like all those that you guys are talking about.

My New Member class...we just kind of clicked. We didn't really have to do many ice breakers or anything like that. But I guess the thing that brought us really close together were these projects. Our class had projects to do throughout the course of the orientation period...making class letters, philanthropy project, stuff like that. Basically, small versions of things we'd be doing once we were initiated. But, it was a secret from the sisters what our projects were exactly about. So while the sisters were keeping secrets from us about stuff we didn't learn until initiation, we got to keep secrets from the sisters too...

My Gamma Sig pledge class went camping as our retreat. We had a cabin and had so much fun. The actives went with us, but left at 11. Then our pledge class and pledge class "mom" stayed up all night talking and bonding. It was a lot of fun.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

We did a retreat in one of those religious run "camps" that consists of a big building with a center room and then seperate bedrooms. The downside of this was that one time some guys got it in their head to follow a couple new members out and "take them home" because they supposedly had called and asked them to.

In fact they'd actually tried to keep the guys from even knowing where the retreat was but someone let it slip. We called the sheriff and I think they actually arrested the guys (who were drunk)

Though that was just a story I wanted to tell, at all of these we've bonded so much. This is new members and actives together, and the stories we've told over the bonfires about our lives are what helped make us so close as sisters.

Ours was new members & actives together as well. Our retreat was for a whole weekend so the camp we stayed at just shut & locked the gate to the camp at night so there weren't any random people wandering around.

One thing you could do is have a huge breakfast prepared for the new members, complete with all types of syrup and donuts, and pancakes, and bacon and all that good stuff. After each member has made a plate, instruct them that the person sitting next to them has to feed them. No one is allowed to touch their own utensils, napkins, or food. It's frustrating but will break some boundaries and unite the new members in a huge "WTF?" moment.

Cute idea, but being fed your meal could be seen as a little "out there" ...

at the end of the last retreat i went to, we had a U-Rock (pretty similar to giving someone snaps at a meeting) and at the end of each session, the owner of the rock acknowledges someone who rocked for that session. repeat throughout the retreat, and eventually it becomes tradition.

i passed this on to my RA staff last year and it was pretty catchy.