Service Rush Week
 

I have been reading through the forums on here, but haven't found much that will work. We are a small co-ed service fraternity at Missouri State. I'm still pretty new to the frat, but already am working on boosting membership totals. I'm just wondering if anyone has any good ideas for Rush Week. They can't include alcohol! We have one of the oldest and most respectable fraternities on campus and need some ideas for rush events and helping get our name more widely known around campus. If anyone has and ideas or thoughts please let me know.
We can do pretty much anything for rush events, but just can't include alcohol. I would like to do things that are interesting for both girls and guys.

What is the name of your co-ed service fraternity? Alpha Phi Omega? Just curious.

Interested also be an APO member and know where "Missouri State University" is. A Gorilla from PSU!:cool:

The very best of luck for you and your new members!:)

Yes, The name of the Fraternity is Alpha Phi Omega. Its a National Service Fraternity. We are the Beta Mu Chapter located at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO.

What types of events has the chapter had in the last two years? Are there other co-ed groups on campus that you compete with? What events have they had?

They had a board game night, and bowling. But not much else. Im trying to find something to promote the fraternity around campus and boost membership totals.. I am not aware of any other organizations that we compete with. Since we are service, we generally don't get involved with the social fraternities. Our bylaws forbid alcohol at any event. We used to be the large organization on campus and now with down into small numbers. Any help in suggestions for activies to promote and boost totals would be amazing!

My home chapter does dorm talks -- informal, 30-45 minute discussions with students in the lounges of their dorms. One per dorm is usually enough.

We also have "meet the chapter" which is the more formal rush event. Usually held on a Thursday night, they have the following people speak: Chapter President, VP of Service, Pledgemaster, and Alumni President. Then they serve free pizza.

During rush week in particular, we invite prospective pledges to service projects. We do NOT generally allow non-brothers to participate in service with us as it is considered a benefit of membership, so it's a real selling point for us.

When I was pledgemaster, we had a real concerted effort to recruit students of color -- in addition to dorm talks, we had an event called "Reflections of Service" at the Black Student House. We wanted the chapter to look more like the campus and over the years it worked.

I can't really remember other things we did because "Meet the Chapter" usually works for us.

At a neighboring campus which was rechartering a chapter, we sent students to the main quad on three consecutive fridays and simply passed out postcard sized leaflets about the fraternity. From that initial effort we got 24 rechartering brothers of Zeta Phi Chapter.

If you have a neighboring chapter, see if they'd be willing to help out with such a project.

Ongoing positive publicity can't hurt. Try to submit articles to your campus paper once a semester.


Come to the Alpha Phi Omega forum and introduce yourself!

I understand Rashid's point about the service projects being a benefit of membership but in the interest of attracting service minded members I would encourage members to bring 1 or 2 friends to each service event for the semester. It'll give prospective members a chance to see how you operate and if it's something they'd be into. Honestly for a service centered group I would have more than half of your rush week activities be service oriented. Bowling, batting cages, mini golf, etc are good activities to get to know people but they are not a realistic snapshot of the day to day activities.

eta: Update the chapter website. :)

^^^ Just wanted to echo that I agree with bringing friends and potential pledges to service throughout the year. A chapter in the single digits at a school the size of Missouri State is definitely at-risk. My chapter wouldn't be able to comfortable pledge more than 25 (and has never taken more than 23).

However, I would add that if someone keeps getting invited to service projects and doesn't end up pledging, then it's time to stop inviting them. (Sorta like the chick we've discussed in another thread who kept coming to COB events and didn't pledge but liked the events)