Parties with custom t-shirts

[RoeCyris]

Hi everyone!

At my campus, nobody does any sort of social/mixer or party that requires getting special t-shirts like I see on many of the greek clothing websites. I'd like to start doing this on my campus, but I have a few questions first.

-Is it typical to wear the shirt of the vent TO the event or just before it?
-What is ultimatly the point of the shirt (I just like the idea, but if I were to try and explain it to my treasurer what would I say?)
-Who pays for them, meaning do the fraternities and sororities usually split the cost or just one pays? There may not be a set answer for this, but what typically works best?
- How far in advance do you usually order these shirts?

Thanks everyone!!

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by RoeCyris

Hi everyone!

At my campus, nobody does any sort of social/mixer or party that requires getting special t-shirts like I see on many of the greek clothing websites. I'd like to start doing this on my campus, but I have a few questions first.

-Is it typical to wear the shirt of the vent TO the event or just before it?
-What is ultimatly the point of the shirt (I just like the idea, but if I were to try and explain it to my treasurer what would I say?)
-Who pays for them, meaning do the fraternities and sororities usually split the cost or just one pays? There may not be a set answer for this, but what typically works best?
- How far in advance do you usually order these shirts?

Thanks everyone!!

Uh, I ONLY go to girls functions for the shirts. Not even for the girl.

Here, you don't wear it to the event or anything, the girl brings it to you later on.

A mixer/function shirt for me is sort of like a notch on the belt. At least, that's the meaning for me. It's good advertising if your campus/greek system needs that sort of thing.

Fraternity usually puts in an order for how many shirts they want, then throw the cash the sororities their way. The sororities set up the order usually, as they're the ones who come up with the design for the shirts.

It takes us two weeks or less to get our shirts, but we have a great place near campus that does it for most of the greeks (if not all). They do alot of the designing theirselves.

[gee_ess]

Think of the t-shirts as a party favor. If you are having a date function, you buy one for yourself and your date OR if it is a mixer, the fraternity has a sign up sheet as well as the participating sorority, and each pays for his own.

[cbm]

-Is it typical to wear the shirt of the vent TO the event or just before it? Neither - they're more of a "status symbol" type of thing around campus. You mostly see them getting worn around the gym or to class.
-What is ultimatly the point of the shirt (I just like the idea, but if I were to try and explain it to my treasurer what would I say?) See above.
-Who pays for them, meaning do the fraternities and sororities usually split the cost or just one pays? There may not be a set answer for this, but what typically works best? For date parties, the host buys them for both him/herself and date. For mixed functions, if you want one you buy it. My sorority never paid for ours, and they ran around $15-20 each.
- How far in advance do you usually order these shirts? They usually arrive the night before the function. This is probably a question for your printing company.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by gee_ess

Think of the t-shirts as a party favor. If you are having a date function, you buy one for yourself and your date OR if it is a mixer, the fraternity has a sign up sheet as well as the participating sorority, and each pays for his own.

Did they call it a mixer back in the olden days?

[tangelo212]

-Is it typical to wear the shirt of the vent TO the event or just before it?
While I do agree with what cbm said above me (that they are a status symbol and you continue to wear them to gym/around campus, etc., we usually wore ours a day or two before the event for PUBLICITY. Our chapter was/is notorious for getting shirts for EVERYTHING, from homecoming, crush parties, formals, and date nights, to our big philanthropy event, to team shirts for other houses philanthropy events, and so on. If you need something to tell your finance officer to justify getting the shirts, say publicity.

-Who pays for them, meaning do the fraternities and sororities usually split the cost or just one pays? There may not be a set answer for this, but what typically works best? I think this is very specific depending on your campus and your chapter. Usually, I'd say the host of the event would pay for the shirts (at least in our house there is actually an officer position of someone who designs and orders the shirts). Usually the person doing the inviting pays for his/her own shirt and date's/invite's shirt.
I am not sure if you are also asking about method of payment, but we have a system that varies-- sometimes it's like "bring in a check or cash for your shirt," and sometimes we bursar them, and other times we have used a specific account that you fill with a certain amount at the beginning of the semester and it is then deducted as you order things (I think this way is very efficient and eliminates the confusion that comes with collecting money).

I hope this was helpful!

[alum]

In my dinosaur days of the early/mid80s, we did call fraternity-sorority get-togethers mixers. We only ordered tshirts for major events such as Homecoming and Spring Carnival, but not for mixers or formals. We wore stitched-letters a lot. I'm not sure if it's a North-South, a generational, or just a LAC vs techy school thing, but my D has a million "function" GLO shirts and very few stitched-letter shirts. Based on the shirts that my clients want incorporated in their tshirt quilts that I design, it's generational or Southern as the intended owners are young (estimating from the dates on shirts) and attended a variety of colleges (albeit mostly below the M-D line).

All I can say is keep the design relatively cleancut if it's a coed function shirt. One shirt that was provided for a quilt was for a sorority alumna. Her mom commissioned it as a surprise. The phrase Sloppy Seconds in large, tdrippy olive-green letters was the major design of this specific shirt. I have no idea if her mother knew what that meant or not but that would not be a shirt that I would personally want incorporated.

[Elephant Walk]

See we call 'em functions, but I don't know many places that do.

[AOII Angel]

On my campus, every group made shirts for every social and date party. If it was a social, the social chairs from the sorority and fraternity would get together to decide on the design. Each member was responsible for buying the shirt if they wanted it. Most of the time, we wore the shirt to the social unless there was a special dress code for the party (ie costume or theme) or you didn't get one. For date parties, we would buy one for ourselves and our date. Everyone wore them to the party unless it was a formal. Like Elephant Walk said, a lot of guys just coveted the shirt not the actual party or girl! You would see people all over campus wearing these shirts to class or the gym. I had so many shirts by the time I graduated...unfortunately they're all gone now.

[indygphib]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

See we call 'em functions, but I don't know many places that do.

Purdue does. Or at least they did back in my day.

[SigKapCoug]

We wear ours to the event.

[exlurker]

RoeCyris,
You asked about who pays for the shirts; this varies from campus to campus and from chapter to chapter at a given campus. One thing to consider – especially for NPC sororities that are required or encouraged to inform potential new members of financial obligations – what have you already told members, and in the future what will you tell potential new members, about costs / charges for mixers, formals, other events? Will you build the cost for shirts into the general fees, or will they be optional “extras” that members will choose to pay for on an event-by-event basis?

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about – a “cost list,” so to speak, for the NPC sororities at one school. Just an example:

http://www.greeklife.sdes.ucf.edu/PD...FeesFall08.pdf


Another thing to consider about “who pays”: without getting overly nosy, but being realistic, what is the financial situation for the majority of your members? Do a lot of members have to watch their budgets very carefully, work while in school to pay expenses, etc? Or does money truly not matter to nearly everyone in your chapter / on your campus? Most chapters will be somewhere between these extremes, but consider the personal financial implications of shelling out for shirts. Yes, one or two t-shirts a year is probably going to be doable for anyone, but if you are thinking of moving toward lots of shirts, you may not want to get carried away. Especially in uncertain economic times.

One more thing you might want to think about: why aren’t t-shirts the custom at your school? Would they be seen by most others, Greek and non-Greek, as fun, interesting, “OK” things? Would they be perceived negatively? Someone mentioned North-South differences, but there can be other differences in campus customs and traditions that might affect whether t-shirts would or wouldn't be well-received at your school.

Good luck in exploring the idea.

[cbm]

We called them functions.

There were NO stitched shirts on my campus.

A custom shirt was made for every single time any chapter on campus did anything at all.

[gee_ess]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Did they call it a mixer back in the olden days?

Back in the olden days?! Aagh!

Actually, no, we called them functions like they do now. I think that the majority of people on GC seem to call them mixers and I just oversimplified my answer by using that term in my response.

[RoeCyris]

I want to say thank you to everyone for the information! I think based on what I've read that part of the reason that these shirts may be unusuall here is because of the financial situation of most people here and perhaps because everyone wears stitched letters. I have 5 garments with stitched letters and most people have 4-8 as well so screenprinted t-shirts are as necessary in a way. At least thats how I'm reading this thread.

On a sidenote, to the person that posted those chapter fees charts.... wow. Dues in my fraternity are between 280-420 depending on living in the house or not and I dont think any of the sororities go near $500 on this campus. are those typical dues rates?!

Anyways, again, thank you to everyone for your help. It's so interesting to see how greek communities operate in different parts of the country. Thanks!