[FuzzieAlum]

There are some good reasons to be concerned about total, although I can't condone being obsessed with it:

1) The more girls you have, the easier rush is. It doesn't matter whether you want to grow or to remain the same size, but if you're small relative to the other chapters on campus, each sister has to work harder. Rushees don't like being double-rushed formally, and informally, the more girls you already have, the more you know and are interested in you.

3) While small chapters offer opportunities, there is clearly a point of diminishing returns. If every sister has to hold three offices, she'll get burnt out. And not every PNM wants to be Ms. Officer; some just want to join and be active but not a chapter leader. You won't get them if they know they'll have to take an office.

3) If you have a house and wish to keep it, if you get far enough below some number, it will be hard to make rent. The ideal situation is a house that holds few enough girls that no one ever *has* to live in (except perhaps certain officers).

4) Events like Greek Week, for example, favor large chapters. Now, this won't matter to every chapter, but it can be discouraging to come in last place. Every single year. Yeah, can you tell I've been there?

5) If you believe you can't know a chapter of 50 members, how do 150-member chapters do it? Yes, it is different. No, it's not as bad as you worry it might be.

Some reasons against worrying too much about total:

A) You bid Suzy just to make quota, even though she's questionable - and even one bad member can turn away many PNMs, thus reducing numbers in the long run.

B) You start to focus on rush instead of keeping members. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I think aiming for ceiling is a worthy goal. I do agree that if you get 48 instead of 50, you're doing fine, and it's better than taking two not-so-desirable extra girls just to make it to 50. But if you are getting 25 instead of 50, you're not doing OK. Put it this way: If your org is as great as you think it is, shoudn't everyone WANT to be in it? Now if the entire school wants you and you choose to be tiny, fine, but if you're only getting 25 because that's all you CAN get, protestations about wanting to be small sound a little defensive.

And yes, I know of what I speak, because my chapter was the poster child for "we're small and dang it we LIKE it that way." If we liked it so much, why did we always stress about it so much, and complain when we got a smaller class than another chapter?