A New Junior Circle Addition...

[DWAlphaGam]

The beginnings of the Philadelphia Area Junior Circle have been put into motion! I should get the list of alumnae in about 2 or 3 weeks and then I can start contacting people. I'm so excited!

Could those of you who started JC's post your stories here? How did you start? Did you have a co-chair or did you do things on your own? Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[theta sig agd]

I started the Omaha Junior Circle. I did it on my own and really had no idea what I was doing! We had around 200 alum in the area and I was told not to expect but a low amount of those women to attend. Anyway not all were 35 and under either. Of those that were for my first planning meeting I believe I had around 25 women show!!!!

I sent everyone and invite, then phone calls to the ones that were returned and then reminder post cards!

I had mine at the Garden Cafe which is a little resturant that is very popular in Omaha!

It was hard for me to get everyone as excited about the JC as me due to Beta Sigma at Creighton closing not to long prior. Many of the women felt abandoned and didnt feel the contection.

I had to move so I dont know if it is still active. I tried to get someone to take my place but that was harder than I thought too!!

All in all I had a blast doing it and if you ever need advise or just someone to vent to or help brainstorming let me know and I will pm you my phone number !!

Good luck!!

[chicagoagd]

I got approximately 250 names from IHQ of all the people within a certain zipcode range. Since I had no budget, I contacted only the girls with email addresses, I sent an Evite that a JC informational meeting would take place (date/time/place). Out of the 100 email addresses I used, approximately 25 women responded and 24 showed up. This started in January, since then I’ve been contacted and so far maintain a database of approximately 75 women that have indicated interest. Mind you, it’s a good showing if I can get 25 to show up to an event, but people come when they can and it’s not usually just the same people. My chapter sister helped me with the first few meetings, but I've taken charge since then.

We’ve had different formats to the meetings: fun restaurants, business meeting setting, pottery painting, and potluck. What I would emphasize is that if you have an alumnae chapter nearby, work/build/nurture that connection. If both are used in tandem, you can make the JC work. The alumnae group can allow you to do a fundraising event, like a silent auction/wine tasting because the JC doesn’t have a financial account. The JC is an informal way to get sisters involved until they want more structure that an alumnae club would provide.

By the way, I’ve been getting a lot of interest in one particular activity we’re planning. It’s basically a mixer with a twist to it. Several of the women wanted an event that the men in their life could go to. Since it left out the single women, we’re requesting that they and the couples invite their single male friends. One of the couples already promised about 4 men who wouldn’t mind giving a couple hours of their time. We’ll give the couples and the singles different colored name tags to distinguish their “status”. They say that most people meet their significant other via friends or work, so maybe we’ll generate some new couples from this. It should be fun…I’ll let you all know how it turns out.

Good luck with the JC, PM me if you have any questions...

LIEP,
Amy

[AGDLynn]

Best of luck to you!!!

I've been involved over the past 2 decades with JC and Reg. Alumnae Chapters in 3 states. It is very difficult to sustain membership, esp. at the beginning. Then, you have to fight officer burnout if you only have a few members.

I think that if/when the IHQ site is updated, perhaps there could be discussion boards like here at GC and one of them could be about Alumnae Chapters, and perhaps a separate one for JCs.

Coming Soon......

[DWAlphaGam]

Hello all,
I just wanted to update you on the Philadelphia Junior Circle. I got the directory listing on Monday and sent an e-mail out to those sisters with e-mails listed (there were about 50-55) that night. So far, I've gotten about 20 undeliverable e-mails and 8 or 9 positive responses. I haven't scheduled anything yet because I wanted to see what kind of response I would get and try to figure out the best time for everyone to meet before I planned something. I'm going to give everyone a week or two to respond and then figure out what to do next. I'm hoping to get a core group of people that want to help get things organized and will make some phone calls and who hopefully won't mind helping me foot the bill for postcards or advertising. I think we're going to have to do some kind of snail mailing because of the limited number of valid e-mail addresses. I also set up a Yahoo Group because we have one for the alumnae of my chapter and I think it's awesome. I made mine obnoxiously red, buff, and green and I love it!
Thanks so much for all of your ideas! I will keep you posted as to how things are going with me.
Tonya, how are things with your JC?
~Donielle

Well, I just got my listing of alumnae from IHQ on Monday. Out of the 77 women listed, only 11 have email addresses . So it looks like I will be resorting to the newspaper and sending out letters of interest. Also alot haven't updated their info in awhile, so I am hoping they all have stayed in the area. I am hoping for 10-15 positive answers to start out with (actually even 3 to help me get it started). But I will take more or less. I have to email Ms. Battle-Bryant back and tell her what a good time to get in touch with me is. That's all for now!

[agdbirmingham]

Hi!
I restarted the Birmingham JC here earlier this year. I think there's a few other threads along the same lines from earlier this year you may want to try and find. There was a lot of good advice that helped me out!

Anyways, sounds like you're doing great! Congrats! I wish you much success! Actually sounds like everyone is doing great!

When I started I got about 700-1000 (don're remember exactly) names from IHQ and that's just JC age! There's ALOT of Alpha Gams in Alabama! Anyways, I emailed everyone first, and then called. We're still making a lot of calls!

Then women that didn't have phone numbers I used several sites on the internet to look up their name/address and try to find phone numbers. You can do a reverse look up by address. I actually found a lot of women that way! And found that a lot of women had moved! It's a lot of work but I think it was very helpful.

I wouldn't suggest doing any mailings right away (just my opinion) because a lot of the addresses you have (and phone numbers and emails) will be outdated and old so you'll get a lot of returned mail and then women will start expecting mailings! Once I got an "email list" of interested women I emailed a few lists out to them. One of women that I had heard from that were interested in JC and one of "missing women", women that according to IHQ were in the area but I didn't have their phone number or email address. I got a lot of help from that! And I found a lot of women that weren't on IHQ's list.

I would also suggest using the internet which it looks like you're doing since you're here! Create a free website, use alphagam.net, and make sure they update IHQs website with your name for your JC. I've had a few women find us from the internet. I created a website ( http://www.geocities.com/agdbirmingham ) and also created an online survey that has been super helpful (through createsurvey.com) .

I was a little cautious to get other women to help me right away, because a lot of them said they'd love to help, get involved, and be super active, but then they never come to any events! But now I think we're just about ready to start committees and set up officers now that we know who the "active" women will be. So don't be surprised if you never see some women even though they sound extremely interested.

If you need any help, let us know!

Lisa

What do all of you seasoned JC starters feel I should do to start out. I have yet to talk to Rebecca Battle Bryant on the phone, but was wondering if you all could give me some tips before hand and then I could go over them with her.
I only have 11 email addresses out of the 77 alums listed and on top of that considering that most of the addresses are probably parents and a good majority havent been updated at IHQ since they graduated, on top of it all maybe 5 have listed phone numbers down *going crazy*. So all I have to work with is those old addresses. Advice?

[agdbirmingham]

Don't worry everything will fall into place! Don't go crazy on us!


I would suggest starting with what you have and go from there. I think the first thing you need to do is have a first event in mind, then find a few women, and then PUBLICITY. Once you get a group of women together you can go from there and plan future events.

These are my suggestions as far as how to start and find women. Invest a lot of time in the beginning as far as finding women, then it will make things easier as you go forward in my opinion, because then they can help you with other things and help find other women.

* Have some kind of first "event" in mind. That way when you're talking to women you can actually invite them to something. I'd make it a free and casual event to get women interested. A casual get together at your home may be a good way to start. And let women bring friends/spouses/etc if they're uncomfortable coming alone.

* IHQ list: Call & email everyone you can and ask them about other Alpha Gams in the area. About 90% of the time I got an answering machine so I usually said something like "Hi, this is Lisa, I'm an Alpha Gam alum here in Birmingham. I'm in the process of restarting the Birmingham Junior Circle here in the area which is an alum group for young Alpha Gam alums. I was calling to see if you would be interested or if you knew of other alums in the area that may be interested. We're having a casual get together at my home on xxxx. We'd love for you to come. If you're interested or have any questions please call me at xxx or email me at xxxx". The email part really worked! A lot of women emailed me!

*Do some research. Use the addresses and names you have and search on the internet. There's a few good sites: infospace.com, etc that you can do reverse lookups. Lookup the address and see if the names match and then you can get the phone numbers. If you think it's the parent's address call them anyhow, and they can tell you if their daughter is still in the area or maybe she has friends in the area. If the women have married & spouse names search for those.

*Contact all the collegiate chapters and alumnae groups in your state and surrounding areas, by email/mail/etc. Introduce yourself and ask them if they know of any alums in your area. And ask them to put your name & contact info in any of their newsletters that they send out.

*local newspapers- some have free classifieds or "social" sections that you can advertise, send pictures and event info, etc. This may be a "southern" thing, but the newspapers down here also put sorority/fraternity info about the bride and groom.

*internet - I would really suggest spending a little time creating a website and register it with some of the search engines. it doesn't have to be anything fancy or elaborate. www.geocities.com is a good free one and if you're not an internet expert I think they have "wizards" to help create one. Put your email and contact info on alphagam.net, and IHQs website.

*Other sorority/fraternity groups - Try contacting other alumnae groups in your area. It's a great way to get ideas as far as what they're doing and you can pass along your contact info. Their members probably have friends from other greek organizations and they may know some Alpha Gams. And maybe you can have an event with them at some point. Try looking at other sorority websites for help too. Some other groups have alumnae reports and alumnae sections that are helpful to get ideas.

As you start finding women that are interested it may start to "snowball" because they'll tell their friends, and then they will tell their friends, etc. It will get easier, don't worry!


Good Luck!

Lisa

[theta sig agd]

I would email the ones you have, call the numbers you have and then send out postcards to the rest, even if they are old addresses they may be forwarded, or the parents may even let you know the new address which occured several times when I started Omaha's JC.

You could even try (if you have the time and patience) making a flyer on your computer and hand deliver them into the mailboxes of those close enough to you. I would prefer the postcards though because then you know who to cross off your list!

I hope you have a very successful organizational meeting!!! Let us know how it goes!!