[Kevin]

Thomas:

Each group does it a little differntly (at least from the NIC side of things). I can only speak for my own group, Sigma Nu. When we colonized, our headquarters sent an expansion officail to our school where he recruited us to start the colony (I was in that group). We then did our own recruitment, found our own house, etc.

I won't get into the particulars of our 'privileges' within the organization, I'll just hit the high/low points. It took us three years to get from colony status to chapter status (this process has since changed, and there's a lot more guidance). During those three years, we were essentially pledges; however, we didn't have any initiates around, so the internal political workings of the colony didn't really differ that much from those of a fully initiated chapter. To answer your question, we were not initiated until we had finished proving to our HQ that we could properly represent them on our campus. I understand that different organizations handle this differently though.

I can tell you that the colony experience was an awesome one. In retrospect, it was absolutely the right decision for me. I don't want to talk down to people who join existing chapters because that's a great experience as well. Joining a colony is just different. It was a real learning experience where I got to help steer the organization as we learned what to do (and what not to do) in order to succeed. Instead of having an established history of success, we had to create one from scratch.