[dzandiloo]

We recently formed a chapter association, which is basically an alumnae chapter composed of all initiates of a particular chapter. This makes it possible for those of us who don’t live near the school to keep up with the chapter’s goings-on, and to support them as much as possible. Even though many of us are members of alum groups in our areas, we still want to provide specific support to our college chapter. Although the chapter is strong, we wanted to make them stronger & help boost their confidence—we have worked closely with the chapters Alumnae Relations Chairman and Advisor to make sure we don't step on any toes. So far, everything we have done has been welcome & seems to be working, in that the actives are really seeing that DZ is forever, and not just 4 years. Here are a few of the things we have done:

1. Post positive messages to their web-site.
2. Study Bags: We also initiated a drive to make study bags for them during finals, which basically meant each of us donated $X for gift bags (plain pink or green ones from a vendor on-line), smarties, mints, chocolates, individual packets of instant coffee, pencils, scantrons, blue books and cool toys from Orientaltrading.com to help them get through finals. (We spent about $200 on that…we had 80 bags to stuff…a local alum donated the scantrons, some extra food, and stuffed and delivered the bags for us).
3. BE THERE! We made sure a group of alums were there for Regional Weekend, and will have a large group attending recruitment and homecoming. We also had a couple of sisters go to their recruitment workshop weekend and give the newer rushers some hints & pointers, and just generally reinforce that they are great women, and anyone would be fortunate to have them as sisters.
4. We have about 25 active members of our chapter association, 52 total, and we are thinking about having an alum/collegiate secret sister exchange of some sort (probably by assigning each alum to 2 or 3 actives and sending them e-mails, snail-mails, little trinkets, etc.) Just to say we are thinking about them.
5. Send notes of encouragement to the chapter throughout the year—even for no reason at all, or to say-“Heard you all did great in the Beta-500, Congrats!”
6. Support their fundraisers – Our chapter is currently raising money to endow a scholarship at the university in the name of one of our distinguished alumna. As alumnae, we are doing our own little drive so we can present them with a large donation at homecoming/Founder’s Day, and have decided to do so in honor of the new members class that they get during recruitment.

Anyway, as you can see, there are many ways to support the chapter & show them you care. Not all of them require huge sums of money. We have found it most effective to have someone there, and involved—and showing them that even though we live 5 hours away from our school, we still care deeply about their successes and want then to know that sisterhood does not end with graduation.

BTW-we set up a Yahoo!Group (go to groups.yahoo.com and set it up there…it’s pretty easy) in order to get our Xi Nu Chapter alumnae back in touch. We are constantly looking for more of our sisters…but we think 50+ is a good start. Once you get a good base of alumnae interested, you will be surprised at how much enthusiasm there will be.

Good luck to you!

Edited to add that you could probably take the study bag thing and do it for recruitment...although they are probably planning to pamper their new members, it might be good to pamper the actives as well, and give them a little boost. And since you wouldn't be doing scantrons, etc., it wouldn't be quite as expensive.