Quote:
Originally Posted by LyreLove2012
I am seriously considering being a Rho Gamma for my school this coming year, but I have a few questions.
1. If you live in your sorority house, how long do you have to move out? Is it just a few weeks before recruitment and recruitment week or is it longer?
2. Does anybody have any advice that I should consider before deciding if I want to do this or not (questions I should ask myself or something)?
3. Are there any cost associated with being a Rho Gamma?
Thanks in advance!
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1. I was a Rho Gamma while living in the house. I did not need to move or stay over in someone else's apartment while I was disaffiliated. This varies from campus to campus.
2. Ask yourself if you can handle 20 girls coming at you at once with crazy questions. Also, ask yourself if you treat all sorority members on campus with the respect you would give your own sisters. You're not only a helper to PNMs, you're also a helper to the chapter. Make sure that even if they don't treat YOU in a sisterly fashion, you always treat THEM in a sisterly fashion. Ask yourself if you can refrain from dishing on other houses (there was a Rho Gam on my campus that could not).
Also, and this may be me, ask yourself if, knowing what you know now and not what you knew in recruitment as a PNM yourself, could you see yourself in other houses beside your own. It'll give you a more balanced take on what's going on with the chapters (you do not need to come up with the answer that you would, you just need to understand that that's the type of introspection that's required of PNMs, and luckily you have more knowledge to go from). If you can do it in a fair and balanced way, share what you know now with PNMs (but only the positive). Keep in mind that if you say one nice thing about one house, you need to say nice things about ALL the houses. Try to find benefits of being a member of each before recruitment starts.
Ask yourself if you can put yourself in the place of PNMs. Can you handle people crying around you? Can you sympathize with them, or better yet, empathize? Are you confident that not only will you learn the recruitment rules by heart, but you'll be able to explain them to your group in a clear manner, and clear up any confusion they may have later?
3. Sometimes there are costs, sometimes there aren't. Sometimes it's as simple as buying an extra t-shirt, and sometimes it involves buying supplies or gifts for your Rho Gamma group. It doesn't need to be much and this also varies from campus to campus but my first year my partner and I made door hangers (you know, the fun ones you can buy blank and decorate that hang from the doorknob) with each PNMs name on it. Other Rho Gammas got different (small) things for their new members, depending on how crafty they felt like getting. I'm a firm believer that all sorority members are fairly adept at writing things out in puffy paint.
This also depends on campus rules, but keep in mind that you will be expected to be prepared for everything. Make sure you can afford a recruitment supply kit with things like clear nail polish (for chipped nails and/or runs in pantyhose, if people wear them on your campus), an ice pack, kleenex (you'll go through a lot of these), a nail file and clippers (no joke), band-aids, breath mints, a little bit of candy (I'd stay away from Chocolate as it stains), a tide pen and anything else campus specific you might need while you're a Rho Gamma. You generally won't spend more than $25 on that and sometimes the campus panhellenic will provide it or pieces of a kit for you.
I don't want to discourage you from being a Rho Gamma because I loved it (I was a Rho Gamma for one year, then head Recruitment Counselor for another), but it is a lot of work, you need to learn the chain of command and the lines of communication between chapters and between chapters and new members, and you need to really take to heart the idea of helping someone find "their home" while still helping chapters take quality new members.
I stress that because so many times Rho Gammas are misinformed or just don't care and they end up really affecting a potential new member's recruitment in a negative way. You also need to remember that if you screw up as a Rho Gamma (I'm talking in a big way, here, like telling a PNM to drop a certain house even if she doesn't want to or encouraging her to go toward a certain house because you want her to) chapters will call you on it and it'll be a lot of drama. Also, even if you're doing everything right, ask yourself if you can handle chapters being less than nice to you, because it does happen, and ask yourself whether or not that would affect your ability to give fair and balanced perspective about that house.
Also, it never hurts to do a little research about the other chapters on your campus besides yours ahead of time. Knowing the symbols, motto (if there is one), jewel (if there is one) and even founding date of the organizations and the chapters on your campus can help you a lot when PNMs are asking questions about "the girls in the red and yellow" or "the girls in the rastafarian colors" but can't necessarily remember the name of them.