APO Bidding

I just finished replying to another post, and it reminded me of a pledge my chapter had a few years back. He was absolutley terrible- disrespectful, mean, and obviously not interested in being AT ALL involved after becoming a brother. It became evident pretty soon, too. It was A VERY stressful semester for us...full of fighting. So I have two thoughts on the matter...

1. Do you ever wish that we offered bids to potential members instead of encouraging everyone interested to join?

2. If your chapter has ever had a demon-pledge, what did you guys do?

[Sister Havana]

I think that our requirements for pledges do a pretty good job of weeding out the people who aren't in it for the right reason. Sure, anyone can pledge, but not everyone who starts the pledge process is guaranteed to be initiated - they have to put out some effort and do things and get involved.

(For those who didn't see my earlier post, these were my chapter's pledge requirements when I pledged waaaaay back in Fall 1993.)

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by ErinKathleenNJ

1. Do you ever wish that we offered bids to potential members instead of encouraging everyone interested to join?

2. If your chapter has ever had a demon-pledge, what did you guys do?

1) Some chapters do extend bids. It works for them. My chapter doesn't use bids, but we reserve the right not to vote a pledge in at the end.

2) See above.

[GreekGirl06]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

1) My chapter doesn't use bids, but we reserve the right not to vote a pledge in at the end.

2) See above.

My chapter doesn't do that either it's very rare that we don't initiate all of our pledges. But we have the right to not make them a brother, if we choose. We usually end up with about seven pledges anyway in our chapter (pi rho, Rider University) we don't own the house so we don't have restrictions like the other Greeks have.

LFS

[Virtuous Woman]

My chapter didn't use bids but we definitely were big on voting at the end. It was made clear from the beginning that all pledges were not guaranteed to be voted in at the end.

One brother at another chapter in our section pledged 3 times because she wasn't voted in twice.

[naraht]

If I remember correctly (I has been almost 20 years), for Kappa chapter, we did bids to become pledges, but those were more or less automatic. (Probably averaged about one bid that there was a discussion on a semester. We set the pledging requirements somewhat high, with the idea being that anyone who met them couldn't be that much of a pain in the neck, leaving control to the chapter of the ones who didn't quite make it.

To this day I still don't really have a good clue for what the *official* policy on the ability of chapters to just say no and/or use "fellowship" requirements for pledges. What can a chapter do if out of a chapter of 30 brothers, half of them are willing to say simply I don't want her as a brother of this fraternity. (Either a week before pledging or a week before initiation).

Randy

[33girl]

I don't wish we would change our policy (i.e. give out bids).

And yeah, we were VERY big on "you need voted in, it's not a lock."

Plus, as anyone who's in an NPC, NPHC or NIC group knows, simply having a bidding process doesn't mean you weed people out. It's much easier for someone to put on a front and be un-demonic for the days/weeks of rush than it is for a whole semester. And for NPC anyway, once you bid them, you're pretty much stuck. There are plenty of groups that are envious that we DO have things set up the way we do.

[aopirose]

Originally Posted by 33girl

I don't wish we would change our policy (i.e. give out bids).

And yeah, we were VERY big on "you need voted in, it's not a lock."

Plus, as anyone who's in an NPC, NPHC or NIC group knows, simply having a bidding process doesn't mean you weed people out. It's much easier for someone to put on a front and be un-demonic for the days/weeks of rush than it is for a whole semester. And for NPC anyway, once you bid them, you're pretty much stuck. There are plenty of groups that are envious that we DO have things set up the way we do.

I agree and pretty much, the hell people dropped before long anyway or didn't get the initation vote.

[quote=33girl; There are plenty of groups that are envious that we DO have things set up the way we do.[/quote]

I've never thought about it that way. In my chapter, we have voting at the end too. It's pretty emotional...the pledge has to stand on stage in front of all of us.

I'll admit that the one pledge I'm thinking about is an oddity.

[tbdumpsterdiver]

TB encourages everyone to join the organization but we still use a bid system and vote on who to give bids to - it's not super picky but you have to be interested and not have had any altercations during your rush period. We still reserve the right later to dismiss you if you don't abide by Fraternity rules or cause all kinds of trouble. Most of the time though, troublesome pledges that become Brothers just kind of disappear anyway and are never heard from again. If they don't, try some team building exercises to see if it helps the group dynamics...

We encourage all pledges to complete the pledge process, however, we do have a vote at the end of the pledge period. We do tell pledges that if they compelte the requirements set before them, there is a good chance that they will become Brothers, however we also warn them that it is up to the Faternity. I know in the last few pledge classes we have had to restrict a few pledges from becoming Brothers, but it was because they didn't meet a requirement that they agreed to. We (thankfully) haven't encountered a situation with an unruly pledge as of yet.

[APO-WW]

Originally Posted by GreekGirl06

My chapter doesn't do that either it's very rare that we don't initiate all of our pledges. But we have the right to not make them a brother, if we choose. We usually end up with about seven pledges anyway in our chapter (pi rho, Rider University) we don't own the house so we don't have restrictions like the other Greeks have.

LFS

You wouldn't happen to know anyone who pledged in the late 90's, would you? Pi Rho and Nu Theta were pretty tight back in the day

Nu Theta didn't use bids, per se, but the brothers always reserved the right to not initiate a pledge that brothers felt were not ready or not serious. We had a fair share of brothers that vanished after pledging. I don't know how the new incarnation handles things.

Awesome Jersey chapters! (Pi Rho, Nu Theta, and DELTA RHO!!)