[33girl]

All our organizations need to keep growing, and not stay stagnant. Ever forward, as Tri-Sigma says. But you also have to know your limitations. (as Clint Eastwood says) What good does it do to crow about the fact that you opened three new chapters, if you had to close 4 old ones (and upset alums) because all your resources were going to help the new groups? If you try to do too much, you'll be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

This next statement excludes groups who have lots of chapters at schools where the admin just has a bug up their butt about the "classist, elitist" Greeks. If a GLO is closing large amounts of chapters on a REGULAR basis I think it's a sign that something is wrong in that GLO on a larger level. Somehow, the ideals on which the GLO was founded are not filtering down to the collegiate level. Whether it's careless membership selection (which often leads to RM issues), communication difficulties or colonizing pell-mell at schools that can't support GLO's, it has be laid on the table and fixed before things get worse. And expanding while you are going through that kind of thing can be disaster. It's like having a baby to try and save a troubled marriage. The marriage gets worse, if anything, because not only do you have the problems you started with, but you have this little human who demands all your attention. And that makes it very hard to get to the root of the things that were wrong with the marriage to begin with.

If a chapter is in trouble, don't give up...pull out all the stops (especially regarding alumnae and inter-chapter involvement) before breaking a lot of hearts and closing it. These aren't just names on a roster, these are your brothers or sisters. Aren't they?