Recruitment vs. Sisterhood

[greeklife25]

To start with, it obviously shouldn't have to be either "Recruitment" OR "Sisterhood". But recently its become a problem in our chapter, and I'm hoping someone can help me.

I'm a chapter officer in a small but growing chapter. Our numbers are below those of the other sororities on campus and we're working very hard to try to bring them up (and we've been very sucessful in the last few years). Since we have deferred recruitment, a lot of our fall is spent promoting our chapter and trying to recruit freshmen to go through recruitment in the spring.

Unfortunately because so much focus is put on recruitment events during the fall, we don't have as much time for sisterhood activities. There are activities held, of course, but there is a certain group of women in the chapter (who were just initiated last year) who feel that all we do is recruiting, and that there's not enough "fun stuff". On the flip side, many of these women don't participate in the fun activities or try to spend time with other sisters.

On the one hand, we've tried to explain that sorority life is what you put into it and recruitment is ALWAYS intense in the fall, but they're not buying it. They're still new in the chapter and don't really understand how things work.

This group has actively threatened to disaffiliate because they feel that we're more concerned with recruiting than with acting as sisters. We obviously don't want to lose them! We would miss them tremendously because they're really great girls, and from a recruitment perspective, we cannot afford to lose any members with recruitment in just a few months.

How can we strike a balance between recruiting (so our chapter can survive and improve!) and keeping sisters engaged? What can we do about these unhappy sisters?

Sorry this is such a long thread! I'm at my wits end.