Motivating the Membership

[daisy7289]

Here's my initial question:

How do we inspire the membership without souring them on Recruitment with fines, pleas for participation and required meetings? How do we convey the importance of "putting in the time now" so that we can make Quota/Total and have fun events instead of CORing for a month?

Background Info to help with this question:

My sorority has a required recruitment training session every Spring in preparation for Fall Recruitment. It's set on the calendar almost a year in advance, and the fine for not attending is very steep. It is our major planning and preparation session so that the Fall is not so stressful. It was on a Saturday and it lasted four hours.

Even with these factors, over 50% of the chapter did not show up. We are a medium sized un-housed chapter. I am on Exec and heard every excuse. Most were "I was busy with school". Most were fined as this event has been on the calendar for months and talked up at chapter for weeks on end. There were even prizes!

We are set to have an amazing recruitment this year. All of the chairs are dedicated and the plans were set back in January. Everything is going so well compared to past experiences! This chapter has a history of not performing well during Formal Recruitment, and finally being in the right place as a chapter to do well and possibly bid quota & total this year is SO HUGE.

The biggest problem is the general membership. Five sisters have already said they can't participate in Recruitment at all (no real reason yet), and many others are saying that they may only be able to come to Preference and one other round - keep in mind recruitment is four months away! There are four rounds (frilly), and every sister is of vital importance - if we lose just three sisters one night we have to start taking two PNMs off the door. In the past sisters have showed up in the middle of a round (!!!) or walked in five minutes before parties start because they were "busy". In the recruitment chair's opinion, the girls just don't get the importance of finishing recruitment in one shot - we've said so many times that if we do it WELL once, we don't have to do it for another year! We drastically increased the fines at the last Exec for missing parties/arriving late and missing practices with no excuse as a very last resort to curb this problem.

Again, here are the main points I'm seeking advice with:

How do we inspire the membership without souring them on Recruitment with fines, pleas for participation and required meetings? How do we convey the importance of "putting in the time now" so that we can make Quota/Total and have fun events instead of CORing for a month?