Some weeks later, in January 2002, I was still wondering whatever happened with
Saltimbanco as it had been a very, very long time since I had first contacted them.
After a few follow-up e-mails, the president of the original
Saltimbanco collegiate chapter finally replied and was extra excited to hear about my interest. The chapter discussed it at a meeting and decided to invite me to be a special guest at their spring 2002 informal recruitment! I had a great time; the ladies were really cool. One of the sisters was actually near my age and she and I got on really well. I was first invited to a night out for ice skating and dinner. Then, I was invited back to another event at a coffeehouse.
On a side note, during the first event, I happened to run into a girl I went to high school with! She was two years behind me in school and we had been buddies in drama class. It turns out that she was participating in recruitment! She confided in me that she had her heart set on another chapter, but that
Saltimbanco was a close second! Don’t worry, I didn’t pressure her to pick
Saltimbanco.
In case anyone cares, she did end up getting a bid from her first choice and went on to be a very active member!
Shortly thereafter, I was invited to a joint collegiate and alumnae event where we worked on a philanthropy project. That was really cool because, up until then, I had been talking with the collegiates and this was a good transition event. At the end of that event, the collegiate president and one of the alumnae association officers asked me to join them for lunch. They asked me about myself, talked about the benefits of being a lifelong member and we generally just had a laugh. They said that they would like to contact
Saltimbanco's Regional Coordinator to ask about how to proceed. I was told one of them would contact me with more info. A couple months went by and I didn’t hear anything.
But there's a twist! I realized needed/wanted to get a Master of Education degree in Counselling. Just as I was moving along with
Saltimbanco, I was offered a place to study at the University of Bristol in England! I thought that would end my journey to become an alum initiate right there. However, the collegiate president assured me that being in a sorority was for life and that one year wasn't going to make a difference.
Finally, six month’s after the first invitiation, they got me in touch with the regional coordinator. Just a couple weeks before I moved to Britain, we met for lunch. She really liked my enthusiasm and my outlook. She especially thought I would make a good member because I'm a university administrator - helping students is what I do! She said I was just what they were looking for in a member. She then gave me the application forms for alumnae initiation and asked me to keep in touch while in the UK and to definitely give them a call when I return home to the US.
I was excited. Though, just between all of us
I was a little disappointed that she took so long to finally get it in gear. Had we moved forward with this in a timely fashion, I could have been initiated *before* going to England. Oh well. As I mentioned, I was really happy with that result and I was looking forward to becoming a member of
Saltimbanco upon my return.
I attempted I keep in touch with a couple of collegiates and the Regional Coordinator with mixed results. It’s no surprise that they started to forget about me; after all, I was in England for nearly a year and a half. My biggest cheerleader, the collegiate president had graduated and actually went on to become a travelling consultant for
Saltimbanco's HQ (and she definitely deserved to get that job!). After a while, it seemed like
Saltimbanco really had forgotten about me and there was nothing I could do.
After a total of
three years spent on this group,
Saltimbanco sort of just dwindled away.