[Kevin]

If you do decide to disassociate, bear in mind that the process of affiliating with a national fraternity is a pain in the rear-end (been there, done that). Took us 3 years to complete.

There are many many pros to being part of a national organization. First off, you'll still have your alums. Even if your chapter does go dormant if you're part of a national group there's still something there to REcolonize. You won't be starting from scratch, so that in itself I think you'd find helpful.

HQ plays favorites because it's in their best interest to. They can't afford to take many risks (the assets of a fraternal organization usually aren't bottomless) so the risks they do take are small. Your larger chapters with which they play favorites have most likely been around a long time and have a long standing reputation for keeping a high level of men, etc... So from a financial standpoint they actually are making money by investing in those chapters.

Remember, no matter how crappy things are right now they can be better in a heartbeat. You start getting organized and competitive and you could be back on top in hardly any time at all. The Greek System (at least at my school) is fickle like that.

The only problem with reassociating with another national GLO would be that you would all have to formally turn in your badges, etc... I know it says very specifically in Sigma Nu's Law that dual membership is not allowed under any circumstances (probably the same for most other national GLO's I'd imagine)..

To summarize, I've seen my chapter go from 12 men up to 30 and get a charter in the 3 years I've been here. We went from the bottom to the top (maybe not in #'s but we win stuff!) With hard work and the right kind of message I think it's something that anyone can do.

LHT
Kevin Taylor
MT #5
University of Central Oklahoma