We always do amazing well at preference -- the other sororities actually come up to us and tell us that. I'm thinking what it could be that actually goes over so well.
We definately stay away from anything the girls don't know. So we don't use the quatrafoils, or anything else where the symbolism will be lost on the girls. I think the idea behind that is they feel more included -- not lost because they were just at sorority XYZ and heard all these refernces to things they don't get and now they feel like outsiders.
We also have a
lot of personal stories. We keep them short though. For example, a chapter tradition is that big sisters give little sisters baby blocks that spell out PHI MU (mine are stacked in the living room.) So somebody brings in her letters and then five girls get up and speak about, I don't know, maybe Pride. Then she puts the P up on the table. Then somebody about Honor, and when she's done with her little speech she puts the H next to the P. And so on.
We also keep it
short. It's so intense that if you keep the girls in there too long, they'll loose focus -- it is, after all, a bunch of girls you don't know, and there's a thin line between realizing what this bond means to these girls and wondering if they're all just gaga for each other in the strangest way. After all, they don't have the bond yet
they don't know.