merging w/ other orgs

lauren1234 · #1 10-13-2002, 08:22 PM

Hi everyone!

I posted this in the Locals forum and someone suggested I post it here to get more responses and help. So below is my message that I had in the other forum. I appreciate your help in advance!
L
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Here is my dilemma:

I'm in a local, well regional sorority (that shall remain nameless) and we are sorta in a jam. Currently, we have 4 chapters. One is currently inactive b/c all the members have graduated and moved on more or less. Another one is doing ok, but they only have 3 active members. The other two are doing quite well (each currently have 7-10 members). Right now, we have been trying to expand and we currently have an interest group. Hopefully this group will complete all the necessary processes and become a chapter.

But this is the thing: I, along w/ several sisters, think we need to merge w/ another, more established sorority. Our sorority has been in existence for 12 years and we only have 4 chapters (technically 3 active ones). My sisters and I LOVE our org and we have been trying to work with our National E-Board to try to make things better. One of the biggest problems I think we have is compromise. One of our stronger chapters seems to have issues with our National Board. Every time some idea is suggested for improvement or change, they seem to have a problem with it. It's not ALL the time, but majority of the time. It's like they can't seem to compromise. Some of my sisters and I feel like we are constantly going in circles because of this, hence the reason we can't seem to get anywhere with expansion and other improvements we need to make. So we were thinking that maybe we need to merge with someone else. We are just at a lost and don't know how to solve all this back and forth. It really seems like when we take one step forward, we take 4 steps back

Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone's org actually merged with another one? How does that work? I'm assuming we'd have to pledge all over again if we did this, which is something we aren't looking forward to. But we are willing to if this will help us.

Thanks!
Lauren

DGWannabe · #2 10-15-2002, 11:08 AM

You have to do whats in your heart.If you truly feel merging with another org is good for you, then do it. You don't have to merg with an NPC sosority, you could check into other orgs like Theta Nu Xi, Gamma Sigma Sigma, Kappa Kappa Iota, etc. there are many "local" and regional and national non-NPC sororoties that are looking for great girls to expand to. There are also ways to incorporate you old rituals and traditions into he new org respectfully. One of the local sororites at my school went national and during bid day they "Pin" the new girls with ribbons in the color of their local and they wear those until pledging. They have the national pledging, then during the pledge period they learn about the local and national. They've incorporated some of their local songs into their rush skits (they just change the name/letters). So they do act as ABC sorority but they pay respect to their history in XYZ.

Kevin · #3 10-15-2002, 11:13 AM

I'd echo that. There are many ways to not lose your identity while being assimilated into a larger organization. You'll find that the support, advice and information support you'll get from a larger organization will help you quite a bit.

Belonging to a larger group has its good and bad points. You just have to weigh them and do what's right. The easiest thing you can do is start researching groups with which you'd like to merge and then contact the ones tha interest you.

Good luck!

lifesaver · #4 10-15-2002, 12:13 PM

In 1939 Theta Kappa Nu merged with Lambda Chi Alpha. If you are considering a merger, the first step is to get your girls support for "putting out feelers" to see if anyone is interested in a merger. If you find a group, then you'd begin to have informal talks about what each group would bring to the other. Then I would assume that formal merger talks begin where you all negoitiate things such as disposal of chapter real property (transferring ownership), legal documents, fees, money, new member issues, what the new national board would look like, and how many from what group would compose it, preservation of traditions and how ritualism issues would be handled. Then each group taked the negotiated agreement back to their respective body and they vote on it.

With my org, ritualism was handlesd this way: TKN's ritual became our new member ceremony. All TKN's were instantly LXA's, and didnt have to go through LXA's ritual. TKN alums were encouraged to come out and witness a LXA ritual as soon as possible.

Several schools had chapters of both orgs. They were combined into the new LXA chapter (which had to be wierd I am sure). There was one chapter of TKN who did not want to affilliate withthe merger, so they were allowed to disaffilliate with TKN, and reverted to local status where they shortly thereafter went with a group that ultimately merged with Beta Theta Pi. (if I am aremembering this correctly).

Now the above mentioned scenario is for a merger, not an absorption.

that, I dunno about.