[The Original Ape]

I hope yall don't mind a brutha responding to this; but I too think this is a very important issue. You never know who's gon stay around and serve the chapter or not. There are plenty of good actors/actresses out there eagerly waitin'for their chance to get in because it's a personal accomplishment for them, or to give more weight to their resume, or to take advantage of their new network. Whatever the reason, I think we had a better-than-expected chance of identifying people like this when orgs pledged people. When pledging was allowed, prospectives had to impress us from the time they showed interest, till the time they saw the light. We mandated community service projects, and observed our pledges from the planning to the evaluating stages. In doing so, we discovered which pledge did what, and how well. This gave us an idea how each hopeful would be as a member.

Now that pledging no longer legally exists, there is no way of knowing if a hopeful is legit or not; and because of it, we wont know what kind of member we're getting. People lie daily about volunteering, and other community service.

I would suggest offering awards for participation to more than one member each year. Offer such an award for members that have been in for one year, two years, three years, five years, ten years,etc. Perhaps this may inspire a member who otherwise may have fallen by the wayside.