How long is your bid day?

[sarahbizarre]

I'm planning bid day this semester and my chapter is new so I'm just wondering how long the average bid day is? Also, what exactly do you do? I know this sounds really lame but I honestly have no idea what a giant sorority does on bid day. My bid day was long and it was basically another event (and we didn't have food...) so what do you guys do? Thanks

[Titchou]

What do other chapters on your campus do? I think that's the most important thing. What's the culture there? Someplaces have social time and then a meal and then a formal pledging ceremony. Some take them away for an overnight retreat. Some go to an alum's house for a pool party, some to the beach, the lake, whatever.

[Griffins&Quills]

When/how are bids distributed? That makes a difference.

For example, in previous years, my campus allowed PNMs to pick up their bids at a location between 2p-5p, to allow convenience around class schedules, and they would hang out for a bit with a small group of sisters who were there to greet them, then when a big enough group was there, they came back to the house to hang out for as long as they could. Then, after 5p, Pi Chi/Rho Chi/Rho Gam reveal happened, and then dinner was served at the house. So bid day was kind of an all day thing.

This year we transitioned to all PNMs picking up their bids at 6p, where the chapters were there to greet them at the green space on campus, then reveal happened, then everyone went back to the house for dinner.

ETA: We have our pledging ceremony on a different day than Bid Day. The whole first week is kind of like a Bid Week, with activities and such

[aephi alum]

I was in charge of Bid Day one year back in the Mesozoic Era.

PNMs had a window of 2 hours to meet individually with their rho chis and either receive a bid or be told "sorry, you didn't match" (PNMs who didn't match didn't get phone calls ahead of time ). Each chapter had an assigned room in the student center. If a PNM received a bid, she could either accept it, defer it for a specified reason (e.g. she wanted to talk to her parents about the finances), or decline it. If she accepted or deferred, she was sent to the bid day party. So new members and PNMs who'd deferred arrived one at a time.

We served cake and non-alcoholic sparkling cider and did some icebreakers. Those who had signed got their goodie baskets. The party ran ~3 hours counting from the beginning of the bid pickup window. At the end of that time, anyone who had signed was ribboned. We held another ribboning for anyone who'd deferred and later signed.

We had a full week before classes began, so we'd set up a bunch of events for our new members before we had to start worrying about lectures and problem sets.

[APhiO&ADPiGal]

My college's PHC has Bid Day on a Sunday every year. We usually have all of the NMs meet up at 12pm, go through a 1hr long Rho Gam Reveal/speech from the Dean/misc information. Then, we open up bids, run to meet our chapter's Rho Gams, and take lots of photos before running home.

Once we run to the chapter, there's usually about 30 mins - 1hr of time out on the lawn, meeting and greeting people and taking lots of photos. Women also meet their Bid Day buddy and get a Bid Day shirt during this time. In my chapter, we then headed inside to grab food and introduce everyone for an hour. Then, we had a meeting to sign forms and inform NMs of the details for the formal pledging ceremony later that evening. (While they were doing that, actives were talking and setting up things for formal pledging.) Usually, we were done by 3PM and had everyone back for formal pledging about 2-3 hours later. Afterward, we'd have dinner and do an activity together until about 9-10pm. The year I pledged, we went bowling together. My senior year, we played board games and ate cookies/treats.

As Titchou already noted, the culture of each chapter and school is always a little different. Other chapters at my school did crafting activities, visited an indoor trampoline place, or even had another event later in the week to bond with NMs. Find what works best for your school and all members' time commitments. Plus, it never hurts to ask the chapter what they want to do and get some input from your sisters.

[ggforever]

Check with you Panhellenic. At our university there is a very specific time that bid day ends. The PNMs pick up their bids and all go to their houses within 30 minutes of bid distribution. Bid day has to conclude by a specific time.

[LAblondeGPhi]

Definitely check with your panhellenic advisor - s/he usually has a good idea about what the other chapters do and what events seem to be successful. Also, check the facebook pages and social media from the other chapters to see their bid day photos - you should get a good idea about what kinds of activities happen.

Keep in mind:
-Spending lots of money doesn't necessarily equal quality bonding time. Resist the urge to have a big splashy event if you'll be spending a ton of money and time on a bus.

-Being a new chapter means that there will be bumps in the road that hopefully get worked out in subsequent years. If you can, get feedback from the younger members in your chapter about what they think would be fun to do - it will be helpful if you establish a good event that's continued in the following years so it gets perfected over time (ditto everything else in a small chapter). In the early days of my re-colonized chapter, we'd change philanthropy events, recruitment themes, and bid day events pretty much every year. It made it really hard to make incremental improvements.

-Try to provide both "bonding activities" (events in which the sole focus is on getting to know each other), AND fun activities in which women get to know each other naturally.

-Consider providing the new members with something distinctive to wear, so that they can easily recognize a sister from another new member.

-Popular things I've seen: having a party at the house - lots of candy (think candy buffet), food, a dj, etc.; bringing a food truck to cater food; photo booths (with props, of course), casino/carnival themed events, taking limos to a local restaurant, bowling/skating/theme park/arcade/etc.