Quote:
Originally posted by lifesaver
So let me start here with a quote: Originally posted by 33girl, "If your group is smaller, you HAVE to COB - you HAVE to have open bid parties all year - you HAVE to rush 24/7/365.
If you all care about the future of the greek system, which I know you do, this should be the attitude of everyone. Guys and girls, ya know, thats why they changed the name from rush to recruitment.
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I completely agree with this. My house was one of the smaller houses on campus, and although we would get quota for formal rush, we (like all Houses) had some people drop right after and in the later weeks. I joined during COB right after rush, and gaining my membership through this process has made me appreciate it a whole lot more. We would COB our little tails off and make a reasonable goal (like 5-7 girls by the end of winter semester, 10-12 for spring) and almost consistently make them. The problem was, we were trying to get numbers up so much we were rushing quantity, not quality. This is where our retention problem came from. The year after I left, the house started to rush quality, throwing quota out of their heads( a very hard thing to do) and with their new base, increased their membership because of quality members wanting to stay and rush more quality members. This in turn showed the kind of house we were: willing to work hard, and not willing to take just anyone for the sake of quota. It worked. Now the house has many quality members, and has a higher membership than in years past. Althought they are still one of the smaller chapters, it's fine. We don't have a huge house, so smaller in our case is better. The New Member classes are tightly knight, and all the classes had a good bond.
Now I'm not saying that you can't rush quality and quantity at the same time, but it is a much harder thing to do. I am also not saying that the women we obtained when rushing for quantity didn't hold the same ideals, they are all wonderful women. Some might have had lower grades or shown less enthusiasm during rush. Other houses might not look at these women, but we gave them a chance to know greek life all the same. And to those that greek life was right, they stayed and helped us grow. All you need is a bunch of good women willing to give their all to meet your goal. Above all, make your goal realistic. If it is just a huge number in the sky, you might never get there and feel worse for having not met it. If you make your goal small and reasonable, think how you will feel when you exceed it!
COB is just what it says: Continuous. Never stop rushing. The woman sitting in your classes are PNM, the ones you pass in the hall. How you portray yourself and your sorority does matter. We dressed up in pin attire every other Monday, and wore letters every Wed. If we were wearing letters, we didn't look like we just rolled out of bed, but we didn't have to be all beautified either. We also tried to participate in every Philanthropy event we could, and had sisters come and watch if they weren't participating for support. We would go to each other's preformances and show, and wear letters to sporting events. We would put EVERYTHING in the paper, from new officers, to NM classes, pinings, University scholarships, thanks to our philanthropy coaches, anything we could think of. Just getting people to see our name everywhere makes a difference. When you ask people whose letters you see on campus, it's the people who do all of these things. Be proud of who you are, and the organization you represent.