Coming from a small chapter myself, I understand what you are going through. Total at my campus was 53, and quota was usually around 10 or 11. The year I joined, 8 of us joined through formal recruitment, and we were able to COR (recruit instead of bid) an additional 3 women, bringing us up to quota. Let me tell you, that's the BEST our chapter has ever done in formal recruitment, "numbers" wise. Every year, however, we are consistently the smallest chapter on campus, with usually around 20-25 members. It is tough, as others have said, to keep the morale up when women are taking on more than one position. I personally think it depends on the chapter. If your chapter is good at formal recruitment, then go for it. If you're better at COR (which is the case with my chapter), focus most of your energy that way.
As an example, my senior year, we had the most wonderful, well put-together and stunning formal recruitment, to find on bid day that we didn't bid ANY women. That was a crushing blow, and it took that type of incident to help our chapter join together as a sisterhood and work our tails off for COR. (Quota from formal that year was 11). By the end of the semester, we had picked up 10 women, and it started with just one woman around Valentine's Day...the other nine joined over the course of the next two months. It is possible to recuit wonderful women, it takes a lot of desire and hard work in order to accomplish it.....best of luck to you and your chapter! Please keep us updated!
