Phone tree

[phitheta376]

Hi guys,

I am a newly initiated member of my fraternity (Lambda Chi Alpha), and I have been elected to the position of High Gamma (Secretary) for 2010-2011.

One of my jobs as the secretary is to build stronger chapter communication - historically done in the form of phone trees. Basically, the way it works is that I send out a text message or make a telephone call to a small group of members, and then each one of the members sends the message either via calling or texting it to another group of members. The idea is that a message that originated from me is sent to every member of the organization in a short amount of time.

Lately, we have been having a lot of trouble with the messages getting out in a timely manner - people "don't get them," they're miscommunicated, etc. To make matters even more complicated, the chair in charge of Brotherhood, the High Beta, has stressed that everyone calling one-another increases the bonds among our members, and has made it clear that he would like to see them be made into call-only phone trees (with no texting). The obvious problem here is classes and other activities - there is no way I can expect three guys to always have the time to call eight other guys.

So that leads me to a question - how do you guys typically handle this within your chapters? Are phone trees the most efficient method? And do they really build bonds among members of the chapter? What are some of the guidelines or rules you have for these?

Thanks,