|
Speaking from the APO perspective...
The chapter where I go to grad school has quite a few people in social GLOs, most have jobs, and nearly everyone is involved in multiple student organizations. They try to balance the time commitments a few different ways. The most successful, I think, has been through planning events to support those other GLOs and organizations. The chapter takes this approach often with fellowships/friendship-type events, e.g. attending a philanthropy event another GLO is hosting as an APO fellowship. The chapter intentionally tries to avoid holding rush events at the same time as other GLOs and have set up their pledge program to accommodate students with complicated schedules as best as possible. This is somewhat particular to our campus, so I'll spare the details here--but if you want more info, you can PM me.
The chapter I pledged was much larger and had a fixed schedule for meetings. If it didn't work with your GLO, tough luck. It was on a different night than most social GLOs, however, and there were several people in social GLOs as well. Because they were a large chapter, they were able to have a huge number of events, usually several events per day, so it wasn't hard to schedule around other commitments as long as you kept Tuesday nights from 7pm to 10pm-ish open.
Both chapters discourage students from pledging another GLO (or any other organization with a pledging-type process) while pledging APO, and both try to host as many events as they can feasibly support so that even students with complicated schedules can join or otherwise participate. In both chapters, too, anyone can organize a fellowship event or service project, including pledges, so if nothing is working for someone schedule-wise, they can set something up themselves or with the help of the appropriate chapter officer, if they're not sure how to go about it.
As far as recruitment, both chapters go about it similarly, so I'll lump them both together.
We start by getting the word out about APO. We table as much as possible, whether it's at the start of the school year, at new student orientations, before and during big events like blood drives or National Service Week projects, or on any beautiful day. Chalking works well, if it's allowed on campus. Making short presentations at the beginning of classes and passing around a sign-up sheet, if professors allow it. Handing out fliers and talking to people. Setting up visible events to get our name known on campus. We reach out to everyone, from freshman to seniors and even interested grad students. We tell our friends. We make new friends so we can tell them, too. :P
Rush might be one week or two weeks, and we invite those interested people to events. Usually there's a couple nights that are info-oriented, one or two nights that are friendship-oriented (like pizza nights and game nights), and at least one service project during rush (usually more if rush is two weeks long).
Our service projects tend to be more "hands on" than what most social GLOs seemed to do or promote, rather than fundraising-type events, but that varies so much from campus to campus that I don't think you can generalize it. But the chapters I'm most familiar with tend to work directly with affected populations when possible, whether it's regularly cooking for and serving meals to the homeless, tutoring and mentoring students, or walking dogs at the animal shelter. Many members also like building or helping with maintenance, projects with visible physical results. Both chapters are weak in the sense that they don't have a "signature event" right now, something highly visible that APO does every year or every semester on or around campus, but I think both chapters are also working to change that.
|