[SweetTeaParty]

Just like the rest of the Gingers, our new members were a diverse group.

One other new member really stood out, even in our first meeting. That was Beth, she had REGRETTED the Posh Preference Party! None of us could believe it! WHAT?? EVERYONE wanted to be a Posh.

“Nope,” she told us. “I want to go where I can make a difference. I want to make the Gingers the group everyone wants to be,” she stated.

WOW. The same thought I had. But where I took lemons and made lemonade, she had a glass of lemonade handed to her, but she wanted champagne! I just knew that she and I were going to get along. Beth was elected president of our New Member Class and I was sure she had her eye on being President of Ginger in a few years. She took on filling out our house to limit (16 more new members) seriously.

Don't think that our National Office didn't size up what was going on at our chapter.

Yes, they were worried (NO, they were panicked) that within a few years – we'd be the Scary group.

For our formal pinning ceremony, a National representative showed up and called several Leader's Council meetings. My sister, Lisa, was recording secretary for the chapter and she just rolled her eyes when I asked about the representative. “National is worried about us,” is all she would say. “We're going to start COB as soon as the spring semester starts in January.”

Now COB was allowed on our campus – but VERY few new members were ever taken that way. It was considered that, “You're so desperate for members, you'll take anybody” if you had a COB event. There were almost NO spring semester transfers to our school AND Scary had tried COB parties for years to increase their numbers.

The actives were shaking their heads, “No, no, no.”

And the National Office was saying, “Oh, yes, yes, yes! You WILL have COB recruitment.”