Big Problem!!! Need Help!!!!
 

GCers, My little is having a HUGE HUGE HUGE problem!!! As soon as I calm her down and get her off the phone would anyone be willing to offer me advice?????

:( :( :(

umm... sure, when you tell us what's up...

Alright, she's calmed down. We talked about it and I think we have a plan, but I just want some advice.

Warning: This is going to come out wrong, especially since I'm known for being harsh anyway....

If you want to help your little, get off GC and LISTEN to her. Most of the time, when I'm having a problem, I don't want someone to FIX it for me, I want to do that myself. I just want someone to LISTEN to me. After you've given her your attention THEN come back to GC and ask for advice.

Okay, so here's the deal:

May SAI little is kind of awesome. And, I just found out today that she turned down a bid from Chi Omega (one of the top sororities at UNCG) because she wanted to join SAI that badly.

The SAI pledge process involves a fundraiser, among other things. Because when the class is initiated they have to present the chapter with a gift. Her pledge class decided to make and sell jewelry for their fundraiser. So, my little, being the wonderful person that she is fronted all the money for the supplies because her family is able to help her with money and she realizes that other people aren't as well off as she is. The total cost for everything was a little over $200. The class got initiated with only one meeting left of the semester and no one ever told my little anything about reimbursement or how to turn things in to get reimbursed. But, she comes from a long line of greeks so she knew to keep her receipts, which she kept for 2 months. When she moved she thinks that she accidentally threw them away. No one on exec board ever approached her about reimbursement and being a brand new sister she didn't reallly have a clue what to do. (I WISH SHE HAD TOLD ME ALL THIS WAS GOING ON!!!)

She finally got tired of waiting and I guess she called someone, I'm not sure. Actually, she called her pledge mom who said that she would take care of it and not to worry. Her pledge mom then called the old president, who called the new president, who called the new treasurer, who called the old treasurer. They told her that she would have to pull the back statements on the credit card she used to buy the supplies and then they would see what they could do but that they don't usually reimburse for fundraisers.

But, here's my thing: Their pledge mom was not supervising their fundraiser and didn't give them any information on reimbursements or anything. She, I guess, just slacked the whole way through. I really don't know how this could have happened if she was doing her job. My thinking is that even if we don't reimburse for fundraisers she should be reimbursed because they weren't told any of the guidlines on reimbursement. They were pledging and we all know how that is....you're kind of clueless and you don't want to make waves.

She has the back statement on the credit card and it supposed to call the treasurer this afternoon. This has been almost 4 months since she spent the money and she waited patiently for something to be done. I told her that if they don't have an answer for her today she needs to call our Province Officer and tell her what is going on.

I just feel bad for her because she comes from a long line of panhellenic sororities and they gave her a lot of slack for turning down the Chi-O bid. And, now it's she feel like it's biting her in the ass....

Any ideas??????

It seems to me that she needs to talk to the rest of her pledge class about reimbursement. Did they buy the gift for the chapter yet?

I think that the pledge class should have given her the $200 back out of the funds raised selling jewelry and then used the rest to buy the chapter gift. how much money did they raise total?

I don't think it has anything to do with being panhel or not, you know?

Use whatever pull you have to help her get her reimbursements from the treasurer. Other than that I don't know what to tell you.

Also, I'd consider making changes to the rules where the intitial money comes from the SAI account, not a sister's.

I agree. It was a gift from them and by now they should have enough money to each kick in a portion of the cost for the gift.

Wow, I was expecting a real catastrophe.

She should absolutely be reimbursed if she provides proof of expenses.

Her costs were a legitimate cost of the fundraiser. For example, if they sold t-shirts, then the cost of the shirts would be deducted from the amount raised. The only problem I foresee is if the fundraiser did not make enough money to cover these initial costs.

It also does not sound like SAI is refusing to reimburse her - just grumbling because this wasn't taken care of before now. I imagine that perfectly she should have been reimbursed the money BEFORE it was given to SAI.

They only raised $177. And, the initial plan was for each MIT (pledge) to contribute money, but one of the pledges was apparently being a pain and refused. (I wish the VPM had told all of us this.....) She just talked to the treasurer and the treasurer told her that she needed more time to think about it.

I'm on exec board and I'm almost tempted to send an email and ask for a meeting to see if this can be worked out......

No, they haven't bought the gift yet.

It is catastrophe when you can't pay your bills because you are waiting on reimbursement.

But, then again, me and my little can kind of be drama queens....:p

I was the fundraising chair in college and we ALWAYS took out the cost of the fundraiser from the money collected before we turned in the money. For example- one fundraiser was a raffle for a $100 JCrew gift certificate. So we took out the $100 plus the cost of the raffle tickets from the money that we raised (we did keep reciepts for those items), so instead of turning in $1500 we turned in say $1390 plus two reciepts- one for the gift cert and one for the supplies (tickets).

I guess it is too late in this case, but I would recommend that if a fundraiser is a manditory activity for the pledges/new members, that someone put together a manual on how to run fundraisers. It would cover this plus other things such as getting unversity approval (if needed), and maybe even ideas for what works and doesn't work.

Dude...it's $200. That's like 3 kegs, not even enough to have a decent tailgate.