How To Get My Chapter More Involved

[YSUTeke1992]

I'm a freshman and a new member and recently made social chair of my fraternity. I've noticed that the other members are perfectly content to go to another fraternity's parties and go to the bar and club, and while all those are fun and I do it quite a bit myself, I think we need to have more things going around at our own house. As a newer chapter on campus, I feel like getting everyone to get out and both:

1. Go to other fraternity/sorority philanthropies and fundraisers can do nothing but attract other GLOs to come to our own fundraisers and events, and is positive.

To do this, I was considering proposing a reward system. For each GLO fundraiser you participate in (other than our own, of course), you earn a point. Possible rewards include reduced fees to the house manager and exemption from remaining sober at our next party.

2. Have more events at the house.

I feel like having more parties and social events at our own house is very important to increasing our reputation on campus, both with other GLOs and with the general student population.

I also think this would increase the number of people who come to our rush events next semester. Other members of my chapter disagree with this because they feel it's recruiting off of parties. While I see where they're coming from, it's not solely recruiting off of parties, and I feel like anything we can do to get more people to come to our rush events is a positive because we aren't obligated to give bids to everyone that comes to our rush events and if there's someone that we don't think is a good fit for our fraternity, then we don't have to offer them bids. It just gives us more opportunity to get more people we could extend bids to in the door, in my opinion. When looking at other fraternities and their pledge classes, I did notice a correlation between the number of events they had at their houses and how many new members they initiated. I just feel like this could be nothing but a positive.

All in all, I like the way my chapter socializes, we are on good terms with all but one fraternity on campus at the moment (a point to work on at a future point in time), but I feel like we should do it in a way that's more productive for ourselves as a chapter. If there are any ideas you could offer me that have worked for you or any advice you have for me, it would be very much appreciated. Thank you!