rush events for guys and girls
 

hi, I'm rush chair for spring 07, and we are a co-ed social fraternity and i wanted to come up with some events that were both guy and girl friendly. our numbers for guys is dropping, but our membership has actually grown. our school does an informal rush and its on going, but we do it for the first 2-3 weeks of the semester.:)


AOZ

Our chapter just had a holiday interest party on campus with food and music. Perhaps try doing that like the first week back on campus?

Depending on the weather, maybe a cook out and can invite guys and gals.

Rush trip.

provide lots of free beer

I've seen em all in terms of rush events. The lamest ones are usually the ones where some kind of forced interaction is pushed on people. Honestly, the best rush events were always the tri-tip bbq's. A bunch of people just bbq'ing and getting to know each other....sounds too simple...but it's true..

BWW
 

One of our best rush events its with a sorority and its just going to Buffalo Wild Wings. Its my favorite event of all the rush event, even over Hooters.

Guy/Gal events that have worked in the past:

1. Speed Dating
2. Carnival/Fair
3. Casino Night

Think of real life situations that involve meeting a person of the opposite sex, or casually dating them, and incorporate that into a rush event!

Fraternities on my campus are prohibited from involving women in our rush events directly, and alcohol is strictly prohibited at recruitment events...

This really limits the obvious ways to recruit, but Sigma Nu has found that the most effective way to recruit isn't to draw in the random skirt-chasers and booze hounds, but rather to have brothers invite their closer, non-greek friends to casual, bring-your-own-beef (or food provided for walk-in people) cookouts on campus around the start of the fall semester.

If nothing else, it's fun, and it's a good welcome back for our friends and brothers.

We're working on the carnival concept for next semester, entitled "Inflatable Fun with Sigma Nu" (incorporating a moon-bounce and american gladiator sparring type attractions), in addition to a poker tournament, a Guitar Hero II and 16-person Halo tournament in the student center, an outdoor movie showing of stereotypical fraternity movies (i.e. Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, Old School, Going Greek) using an LCD projector.

Our most successful event last semester was hosting an open mic night in our student center... about 45 musicians showed up in addition to the 30 of our brothers that were there, and it turned into an all night jam session with everything from Spoken Word poetry, rap, country, bluegrass, Jazz, and Rock! The event was supposed to last from 8:00 to 10:00, but it went until about 1:45AM/2:00 AM-ish before they kicked us out, and we moved the jam session elsewhere! Half of our now-initiated brothers from this past semester's pledge class came out that night.

Original ideas
 

A really good way to establish a recruitment event is to come up with an idea that can in turn become a tradition. Our house has our Pig Roast every fall rush, and we basically roast a pig in the front of our house, , guys always recognize it, and you always get people curious about what else is going on inside the house.