[SigmaNuHX766]

Yeah, blanket bidding was a bad choice for our chapter... we bid about 25 guys one semester after a lot of older brothers graduated a while ago, and our chapter GPA dropped from the highest on campus to about mid range. We've since gone back to "quality over quantity" for recruiting.

One thing we do here at ODU is an informational booth during the freshman orientation, and also facebook "flyers" (banner ads on the left hand margin). The school pays for and puts together welcome packages for all incoming freshman so we put our Rush Event schedule out there from day 1. Talk to your school's IFC to see if you can get something like that set up through the school... it's a lot cheaper than (free!!) going to Kinko's or Staples and running off thousands of copies and mailing 'em.

One thing to make sure to do at those informational booths... DON'T EXPECT THE FRESHMEN TO COME TO YOU! Walk out a few feet, shake some hands and meet some people! I see so many other fraternities on my campus sitting on their ass at those events, and their list of interested freshman shows their level of effort... some have less than ten contacts since the start of the summer! So far we have a list of 60 potentials, which we'll probably get a return of 15 bids from, in addition to upperclassmen friends getting bidded, legacy folks getting bidded, and the folks that just plain show up to the rush events and get bidded.

As a chapter we also collaborate on our friends and aquaintances that may be interested, and bid them in the fall... this is where most of our candidates come from. 50 brothers that each know 200+ people on campus means we have a LOT of coverage. Also real-life brothers are recruited as often as they can be.

Things I'm working on for the fall: A series of recruiting videos to be shown on Campus TV, radio ads to be played on WODU, advertisements in the Mace & Crown (student paper), and a "grassroots" campaign of getting brothers to go out in letters on the day of a Rush Event with a goal of bringing at least 1 person that they know or met that day... other fraternities on campus do that with great success.

Also, being that we live near the beach, we're doing some late summer day trips to VA Beach, and I'm bringing a bunch of potentials that live locally.

Any other ideas guys?