Second Night Party Ideas HELP!!

[mets31grl]

My sorority has decided to scratch its plans for the second night less than a month before rush! The plans just weren't coming together right and it just wasn't workign for us. We decided instead to do our philanthropy night that night. for the phiulanthropy they will be making flower pots. However that won't take enough time to fill up the whole party--What else can we do top keep them entertained? We thought about flipping through scrapbooks. Any other ideas?

[Dianne]

Have a speaker come to talk about your philanthropy. Ours is breast cancer awareness, so we try to get a breast cancer survivor to come talk about her experience, or someone who works for Race for the Cure, etc. It can make your philanthropy seem much more personal to the rushees, and if you're worried about filling up time, it will do that, too. BTW, what is your philanthropy?

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"Seek the noblest."
Zeta Love! <3

[twinstars]

be careful about the scrapbook idea... i mean, the rushees don't really know you guys yet, and it's not that exciting to look at pictures of a bunch of girls you don't know. my house makes a 3 to 5 minute slide show (power point) set to cute music with pictures of us at all our mixers, service events, etc. that way, they can see us having fun together but it's not too tedious or boring.

all the sororities at my school have philanthropy night the opening night of formal rush. the craft doesn't take up the whole party, but it shouldn't be difficult to fill, say, 35 minutes max. here's what we do: the rushees come in and we each take one to guide around for the party and to introduce to more sisters... we walk around with our girl for about 7 minutes, then the president announces that it's time for everyone to sit down and do the craft. the girls in charge or organizing that night of rush stand up and talk for maybe 2 minutes, explaining what our philanthropy is and how the craft will be done. we are pre-assigned where we are supposed to sit during this time and we are in groups, so that there will be like 4 sisters (of different pledge classes) and 4 rushees sitting in a circle. this way, each of the sisters in the circle can meet and vote on the others' designated rushee for the party. the craft takes about 15 min. to complete. someone comes around and picks up the finished projects, and then we stand up again and keep "mingling" until it's time to lead the girls out of the house.

in the early rounds of rush, it seems more important to focus on talking and making introductions, rather than on showing scrapbooks or having lots of activities to keep the rushees busy. girls will cut a house where they feel like they didn't know anybody or they didn't connect with the people they talked to. from the sorority's point of view, the more sisters that meet a rushee and know her well enough to form an opinion, the better chance the house has of picking a strong pledge class.

[This message has been edited by twinstars (edited July 26, 2001).]

[mets31grl]

Our national philanthropy is altzheimers. So you would suggest focusing on making the philanthropy personal to the potential new members as well as just talking with and getting top know them? You would suggest avaoiding scrapbooks. I think now that I see that side of it that makes sense to me.

[twinstars]

i would suggest not doing the scrapbooks as early as the second round of rush. the rushees are probably still visiting a whole lot of houses, and at that stage it's more important to make sure they feel like they know some girls at your house, which is best accomplished by talking and making introductions. my sorority doesn't do the power-point show until the round before prefs, in which the rushees only visit 3 houses. the theme of that night is "sisterhood" (at all the houses) so the slide show is appropriate. just make sure not to overdo it (make it too lengthy) because while that sort of thing is a real hoot for the girls in the house, you have to keep perspective and realize it can be not that exciting for a bunch of girls who don't really know any of you guys.

i would definitely suggest trying to make your philanthropy personal to the rushees. you can do it without being overly dramatic... just have everybody sit down and your philanthropy chair (or maybe even a sister who has had a family member w/ altzheimers) stand before the group and talk for 2 or 3 minutes about how your sorority raises money to support research (or whatever)... talk about your various service events and how you get the campus involved... you could say something like, "i'm sure a lot of you know someone who's dealt with altzheimers..." because probably a good number of them do, and it will mean a lot to those rushees.

[MooseGirl]

I've posted a similar question in the community service forum. We've not done a phil. night in several years...suggestions for events?

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Delta Epsilon -
Phi Sigma Sigma

[This message has been edited by MooseGirl (edited July 27, 2001).]

[mets31grl]

So far we have decided to focus on the conversations. We decided that you are gonna return to where you felt at home, not to who had the prettiest or coolest scrapbooks filled with people you don't know! Any other ideas?

[twinstars]

do you know what the other sororities on campus typically do during the second round of rush parties?

you wouldn't want to do anything that's too "out of line" with what the rushees will be seeing and doing at the other houses they visit.