No Frills Rush

Siobhan · #1 06-21-2000, 06:57 PM

UBC's Panhel abolished theme parties a few years ago (1997 rush). Our panhel got rid of them for a few reasons: NPC wants to see them gone eventually; to much extra work/money/stress for Rush, etc. I have only ever experienced theme parties as a rushee and thought they were a lot of fun. I'm curious to know what other opinions are out there regarding abolishing theme parties.

[This message has been edited by Siobhan (edited June 21, 2000).]

PenguinTrax · #2 06-21-2000, 11:45 PM

FSU has no-frills Recruitment, but theme parties have not been abolished. What did your campus consider to be a 'theme party'?

More information would help us to help you.

Barbara

Siobhan · #3 06-22-2000, 12:01 AM

At UBC Theme parties were held on the third night of Rush. All the chapters choose a particular theme. My sorority choose an under the sea theme - the room was decorated with blue and green, pearls, etc. Others did outer space, movie night and dressed up like movie ushers; another was a beach theme and all the girls wore matching sun dresses and decorated their room like a beach, etc.

[This message has been edited by Siobhan (edited June 22, 2000).]

Texas Alum · #4 07-28-2000, 09:37 PM

The theme parties Siobhan is referring to are often known as a skit party or "Skit Night". It gives the chapters a chance to show off their creativity and to help distinguish them from other chapters in your mind -they want to WOW! you. You visit with your host active for a while, and then watch the sorority perform skits related to the party theme and to how great their sorority is.

I think that NPC's reasons for wanting to move away from Skit Nights are sensible = it can be expensive, and prohibitive to smaller chapters financially; it takes a lot of time to plan and prepare for; Skit Nights can be very stressful for the sorority.

Personally, I know that Skit Nights seem to be the only thing left to really make rush fun and exciting, other than the prospect of conversation. Maybe the way to make it fair to all the chapters, and reduce the frills, would be to put a reasonable spending cap on the party, which would have to be verified by PH. ???

Kymberleigh · #5 08-05-2000, 02:43 PM

At my chapter we start rush with an open house, then the first night we do a skit/dance/song that promotes NPC and rush as a whole. Third night we have our philanthropy and the rushees watch a video and we (actives and rushees) work together to make things to send to our philanthropy (flower pots, etc). The fourth night we have a skit,song, dance, and it is more concentrated on discussion of our house. During this entire time we utilize three rooms in our house for each evening.
Then the last night we have more of a special flair and get to show rushees what makes us special, we get to show them why we are sisters, and what it means. We wear special dresses that the house owns, we have special food, and we decorate the one room we use in a very special and unique manner. I would be devastated to learn that rushees wouldn't get to experience this tradition.

I know that our campus hasn't had many problems. Perhaps you could research putting a price cap on what each house could spend for the evening. Our house utilizes the same theme each year for that night. It is symbolic of our house. Thus, the costs are limited to food, and any little things we need.

PhiBear · #6 11-02-2000, 08:18 PM

As an alum from UBC I can tell you about the reason behind abolishing Theme Parties. Yes it was partly about the expense, some chapters were spending hundreds of dollars to change their rooms from "Sitting Rooms" to jungle paradise or "under the sea." But it was more about the time and energy. We should be spending our time preparing for RUSH by focusing on conversation skills, body language, etc.
We found that, with the Theme Parties, girls would spend weeks preparing the room/etc. and then, when the RUshees came in, we would all stand around smiling and saying, "isn't this great?" We forgot to talk to the girls! We forgot that our goal is to get to know THEM.

Now that we no longer have meeting rooms and have to have rush in classrooms, it would be nice to have something of a theme back. However, I believe in the principles behind that decision and believe that we have a stronger rush because of it. If you ask anyone who was around at that time, I believe they will agree with that assessment. ALL of our rush prep time was being spent painting murals, designing cute outfits, organizing theme appetizer trays, coming up with skits and songs and all the paraphernalia that goes along with that... Rush today is much more focused on CONVERSATION and WHO WE ARE.