[amanda6035]

Have you talked to your advisors? Sometimes, a little outside perspective is good. You might even consider having an ELC come visit.

One of the things my chapter did to help boost attitude is that we "accidentally on purpose" started not making a big hairy stink about people not showing up to events and such. You joined a sorority to be involved, right? So you should WANT to hang out with your sisters and do those events. Sometimes you have other commitments, but for the most part, unless someone was excessively absent, we didnt even tally up petal points (or merits, whatever you call them) because forcing someone to be somewhere for a specific event made that event "not fun."

How many times do you guys hang out just for the heck of hanging out? With 40 girls, it's probably difficult to plan a spur of the moment outting - but why not grab a few sisters and say "hey, let's go get pedicures..." or whatever else.

If I didnt learn anything else about the negative people in my chapter it's this: they have to be willing to want to have fun. As cliche as it sounds, they are going to be negative, no matter what, until they have made themselves so miserable that they cant stand being miserable anymore. You've heard the expression "you can lead a horse to water, but you cant force it to drink?" Yeah, we've had a few of those. While I dont necessarily think its appropirate to "give up" on that girl, or those girls, you also will drive yourself bonkers if you try to change them. You can continue to invite them to things, going to dinner, going bowling, whatever kinda fun event you and some other sisters may be heading out to. If they have a piss poor attitude and it shows, they will eventually realize that they are a miserable person to be around. On the other hand, it might be a wake up call for that individual, and she might make a turn around because she wants to have fun.

As far as recruiting and numbers. PNMs can tell when something is fake. They can feel the tension in the air when sisters either dont want to be there, dont have a good attitude, or have conflicts with each other. They can also tell when a chapter is genuinely happy and fun to be around. Depending on how your recruitment parties go, if you can work it to where a couple of sisters who are pretty close can sit with a PNM or two and tell stories about how much fun they've had together that shows that they are friends with each other. I went to Destin with 2 sisters one year for spring break. One of them convinced myself and the other girl to go on this big swing (similar to bungee jumping, I cant remember exactly what it was called). I screamed and screamed and screamed. but when it was over, we laughed, and had such a great time going it, and we have some great pictures to show to go with the story. You have to show PNMs why your sorority is SO MUCH FUN, and what kind of benefits they are going to get out of being a member of your chapter.

Check your private messages. I've got some other advise for ya that doesnt need to be public knowledge.