young Alumns

[XOMichelle]

What does your alumni association do? Mine holds events about once or twice a month, but most are targeted at the older members, and although I would love to get to know them, the 40 year old moms haven't been too interested in getting to know me.

Do any of your alumni associations target recent graduates? What kinds of activities do you do?

-Michelle

[Kevin]

Originally posted by XOMichelle
What does your alumni association do? Mine holds events about once or twice a month, but most are targeted at the older members, and although I would love to get to know them, the 40 year old moms haven't been too interested in getting to know me.

Do any of your alumni associations target recent graduates? What kinds of activities do you do?

-Michelle

We're still in the organizational stages of our alumni chapter. We figure to set up an event ever month or two. Something like golf tournements, maybe a fishing tournement if we can find some boats to use.

Possibly even a family day.

We don't really have to reach out to too many people as we have less than 20 alums at this point -- keeps the newsletter mailing costs low

[XOMichelle]

Our AA president has great parties at her house. They are really fun, but the whole "family day" thing only attract the most die hard young alumna in the area. I'm looking for Alum chapters that have had good success in recruiting the younger alums and keeping them interested in their orgs.

[WCUgirl]

I don't know if we target recent graduates, per say, but we do have a lot of young alumnae. I graduated in May 2002...and we have a girl who graduated more recently than that.

I think what helps us out is that we offer an activity that a variety of people could enjoy. For example, in March our event was a wine tasting. We've also gone to baseball games. That one even had some young children at it, but us younger girls didn't mind.

I know one of the other alum. associations in the area (Kappas I think) did a manicure/pedicure day. That's definitely one for all ages. Who doesn't want to be pampered?

[Rudey]

I'm organizing an alumni club that is regional (not local to one chapter) and someone suggested happy hour. I think that might attract a younger crowd...golf definitely will not.

-Rudey

[WCUgirl]

LOL at Rudey's golf.

Yes happy hour is a great suggestion.

This is what we do: we meet the first Tuesday of every month. Usually the "meeting" (and I use that term loosely 'cause really, not much formal business is conducted) is held around 7 pm. The location alternates one month on the north side and the next month on the South side (Charlotte is so spread out...we have many alums who wouldn't want to constantly drive an hour to the North side and vice versa). Usually the meeting will be at a restaurant with a bar...have to have that bar! and we'll all just order whatever. Every once in a while we'll have a set menu and a set price. It's nice, because the girls who don't want to eat don't have to, they can just sit and have an appetizer or whatever. It's more socializing, really.

Sometimes we'll have the meeting in someone's house and they'll have appetizers and everyone will bring a snack, and usually a bottle of wine or something.

I think the key to attract young alumnae is to let them know that 1-not everyone there is going to be their grandma's age, and 2-it's not a formal thing like in college - remember, some of these girls might be burnt out and are just looking for a way to socialize and meet people.

[lauralaylin]

My alumnae chapter is the exact opposite, tons of young alums and no adults with kids or older. Unfortunately, we've had a lot of events that have to do with alcohol. Besides the happy hours, we had a wine tasting and we did a tour of a local winery. I'm also hosting a pampered chef party, because those young alums need to have a kitchen full of neat gadgets!

Do you have collegiate chapters nearby? I think that makes a big difference. We have four, so we go to them, let them know we are here, try to hold events with them, etc.

[Speechpath]

Our club has folks of all ages, but we do have a lot of young people too (by young I mean less than 6 years out of school). We do 7 events each year one of which is always founders day with our local chapters. The other events we did this year were: a brunch, wine and cheese party, dinner and a movie, jewelry making party, bowling night and one party with alums and spouses/children. I agree that it helps if you have a local active chapter close by you seem to have more young women interested in alum groups. But if you can get them interested initially and they meet people around their age that they like, they will come back and hopefully bring some friends!

This is why I'm thankful that AGD has official, recognized chapters for alumnae 35 and younger, called JUNIOR CIRCLES.

A few times a month we'll get together for happy hours, dinner nights, or movie nights. Most of us were in the chapter at the same time, so we've known each other for years. We also have members from other chapters who have moved to Hawai`i who are part of our Junior Circle. It's been a while since we did this, but we once did a sleepover that was just so much fun!

During the busy seasons like Recruitment and Initiation Week, Junior Circle members get together to help the collegians. It's a good way to show the graduating seniors that sisterhood doesn't stop with graduation!

[XOMichelle]

That Junior Circle idea is a good one! I like being able to meet some of the older women, but only a handful of things could attract new alumna.

I like happy hours. I think I might suggest that!

-Michelle

[ISUKappa]

The core of our alumnae association is fairly small (there are 22 dues-paying members and only 10-14 or so come to events) but ages range from 22-82+. We only get together 4-5 times a year but try to do a variety of things that everyone can enjoy. Past events have included: a wine tasting, Founder's Day dinner, Christmas Tea/brunch, breadmaking, paint-your-own pottery, a Monmouth duo dinner with the Pi Phis and a garden party. But what everyone seems to like the most is just getting together, having a glass of wine or two and socializing!

There are about 4-5 of us who are all under 30 and married (or soon-to-be) who try and get together a few times a year for dinner, drinks, a movie or just hanging out. We call it "Night Owls" and I know other alumnae associations in other cities have similar groups as a good friend of mine is active in the group in Minneapolis.

I think once you get the word out and try a few activities to see what works best with the group of younger women you have, more people will be interested and come to events. The hardest thing is just taking that first step and really, all it comes down to is someone taking the initiative to plan something.

Good luck!

[PhiPsiRuss]

Originally posted by Rudey
I'm organizing an alumni club that is regional (not local to one chapter) and someone suggested happy hour. I think that might attract a younger crowd...golf definitely will not.

-Rudey

We've been holding a happy hour at the same time, same place every month. Once someone goes the first time, they know where, and when to go for future happy hours.

Also, we use a Yahoo group for messages, and to automatically notify everyone when the next happy hour is. We have it set to automatically kick out an e-mail on the Sunday before, and at noon of the Tuesday of each happy hour.

We've been doing this for about a year, and attendance has slowly been growing.

[Rudey]

Originally posted by PhiPsiRuss
We've been holding a happy hour at the same time, same place every month. Once someone goes the first time, they know where, and when to go for future happy hours.

Also, we use a Yahoo group for messages, and to automatically notify everyone when the next happy hour is. We have it set to automatically kick out an e-mail on the Sunday before, and at noon of the Tuesday of each happy hour.

We've been doing this for about a year, and attendance has slowly been growing.

So for happy hours do people just show up? There are no reservations or costs prior right?

-Rudey

[WCUgirl]

I forgot about the paint-your-own pottery...we did that a few months ago. The girl who owned the store painted a plate for us, and we all put our thumbprints on the back. We gave the plate to the local chapter we support. It was a lot of fun!

[Measi]

The paint-your-own pottery is a great idea... I might actually suggest that to our active chapter as a rush event.

My chapter has gone through a lot of ups and downs (it closed for about two years due to complete lack of interest/membership plus internal issues), and the alumni association completely fell apart. Most of the "older" alumni (alumni from pre-implosion) no longer really have an interest in participating with the chapter. Some of the "new" alumni (post implosion) do, and so I'm hoping we can start fresh and get a strong alumni association together, inviting the older alumni to participate if they wish... but also focusing on moving forward with the newer ones that wish to participate.

One of the things I've discovered as one of the "old" alumni is how interested many of the actives are to hear stories about when I was in the chapter. They literally have a cut-off history in the late 1990's, and it's as if many of them started a brand-new chapter. So one of the biggest alumni activites right now is making a record of memories of our days in the chapter so they can see where the chapter *has* been.

~ Mel.