Help!

[AXiDdancer]

Hi sisters! I'm a member of the Sigma chapter at University of Iowa and we need help from our sisters. Our chapter is very small (39 on a campus where the capacity is 120). We need any and all ideas you have for COB and Informal Recruitment. Thank you! TFJ!
Julie :)

[navane]

Hi!

I'm not a member of AXiD, but I just thought I'd jump in.

You didn't indicate what kind of ideas you needed. Activities? Publicity? ??

Here are a few activity ideas:

- "ROCKSTAR!": find a karaoke place and let loose!

- "A Xi Tea" or "Café AXiD": set up a tea party or go to a coffeehouse.

- Board Game Bonanza: set up some board games for good ol' fashion fun.

- Find a craft or project that everyone can do together for Choose Children.

- Fiesta!: set up a taco bar

Those were just a few random ideas. I doubt you need a lot of help with that. There are loads of ideas: ice skating, hay ride, laser tag...etc.

The REAL reason I wanted to respond to your post is to offer some advice from someone who has been a PNM at COB events that weren't quite right. I once went to COB for a house that was having difficulty getting new members. Now, you didn't specifiy if this was your situation, but I thought I'd share anyway.

The problem was that these ladies had been having difficulty with recruitment for a couple semesters and they were starting to have low morale. This low morale, in turn, became evident during their rush events. It came across as an "Why should I bother? It seems like no one wants to be in our chapter anyway" kind of attitude. Myself and other PNMs would just sit around while everyone ignored us and just basically frowned. It was kinda strange really. I felt really sorry for them - I don't like to see people looking down! I didn't mind that they had low numbers, I was simply looking for a solid sisterhood. Unfortunately, no one was bothered enough to try. Not surprisingly, I didn't join. I'm sure they probably told themselves later, "See? I knew no one would want to pledge here." A self-fulfilling prophesy.

So PLEASE make sure that your sisters are careful about how they project themselves to PNMs. Now, I'm not saying that anyone should act superficial or "fake." Rather, make sure everyone remembers why they joined the chapter and what makes your sisterhood so special. When everyone is feeling good about themselves and the chapter, there will be more success. As the old saying goes, "Enthusiasm is contagious." Oh yeah and, "Quality, not quantity."

The best of luck to you!

......Kelly

[AXiDdancer]

Sorry I should have been more spicific. Our problem actually started before I joined (2 years ago). Over half of the chapter dropped out leaving 19 to rush. Over the last two years we've tried everything to get girls to join.

We have two COB parties a week ranging in everything from dinner to watching Friends to bowling or serenading Fraternities.

The problem is our sisters just don't care. There are only a few girls that bring over friends and classmates to the events and only a few girls are there to talk to them. We had almost every ELC last year come to try to pump up our chapter. It lasts only about a week.

Organizing my thoughts: It's partly the chapter just doesn't care about coming to help at COB events and it's partly that we do the same stuff all the time. And we can't get people to bring over potential members.

I hope this helps clarify. :-)

[fuzzie]

Ok, here goes with my suggestions for morale boosters. You have to work on this before you can get quality new members. First of all, I've seen others post this in the general forums as suggestions to other people with the same problem. Plan a sisterhood retreat. This would be an excellent time to find out what the problems are among the sisters and maybe make some new bonds that will get the less interested sisters to become a little more interested.

Another thing that we did was have each of the new members bring at least one friend to informal rush. This worked out surprisingly well. Some brought a ton of girls and out of a total NM class of 20, only 1 dropped during that semester. If sisters will do this, too, have them do it. This way you know the girls they are bringing share the same values as you or they probably wouldn't be friends with your sisters and NM's to begin with.

OK, now how to get the girls to do this could be tricky, but here are some suggestions. Reward those who bring people and those who show up. Each time someone brings a girl or simply shows up for the event, put their name in a basket. At the end of each month have an AXiD gift basket made up and raffle it off. The contents of the basket will obviously depend on your financial situation. One other thing we did was give out Xi dollars. You got one for just showing up to things and extras if you went above and beyond what was asked of you. At the end of each semester, you have an auction and the girls can bid on stuff with their Xi dollars.

I think the retreat would be the thing to start with. You have to get to the root of the problem before you can implement the reward system, because if they don't care about the chapter and sisterhood right now, they are not going to care about winning raffles of AXiD stuff.

Well, I've rambled about a lot of stuff here. If you have any questions, post or email me. I wish you the best of luck. I know what you're going through, because my chapter went through pretty much the same thing just before I graduated.

TFJ
Xi Love.
Mindy