losing numbers
Sorry to hear about the dwindling active list.
My chapter has been doing the 4x4 for 3 semesters now, and we're just under 40 active brothers now. When I came in March '03 we were around 20.
Mainly though, we dont wait for rush week. We look at recruiting as an all year venture. In fact, we hardly use open rush at all. What we do is build as many friendships as we can on campus to find guys that we think will benefit the chapter. There is a courting process that goes on after a brother finds someone he thinks is Sig Tau quality. One of our best brothers was coming to the house to play halo and just hang out for around 4 months before we asked him to rush. That's about the time frame.
In fact, we don't even mention rush or anything recruiting related. The usual invite is along the lines of "Hey, I'm headed to the house to play halo/watch the game/whatever, you want to come hang out?" The fact that the kid is a potential is only talked about between active brothers during this time without him being there. We've found in doing that, the potential isn't initially guarded to a sales pitch, and can just hang out. This allows us to get to know the guy, and not some false image he thinks we want to see. After a while, the potential will, more times than not, bridge the subject of rushing before we can.
Hope some of this helps.
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