Motivate or punish?

[Gusteau]

In regards to point systems, I think they rarely work with fraternities. My colony (now chapter) had one that was already in disuse and abolished before I joined. I wasn't around though so I can't really assess why it didn't work. But if you don't have a lot of parties your punishment itsn't effective and certainly won't change their attitude. In fact, I doubt any type of point system will reinvigorate them.

I think the people in your chapter are the core issue, and a point system won't heal that. You need to motivate them, and get them excited about your fraternity again. Do you have chapter retreats? It's a great venue to get to the heart of the issue and find out a. why they're disenchanted with the chapter, b. what the chapter can do to reengage them, and c. to see who actually cares. From there you need to do two things. First, cut the dead weight. Get rid of the guys that are pulling you down, this isn't about "feelings" this is about the life of your chapter - get rid of them, they're poison to the rest of the membership. Second, start enacting the changes you need to reengage the remaining members.

How is your chapter's committee system? My chapter is similarly sized, so almost every member is a committee chairman. This is a great way to get these men actively involved in your chapter. Have the Vice President (or whatever corresponding internal officer you have) chair weekly meeting of all the committee chairman where they discuss the ideas they have for their committees and work with each other to make their events and projects successful.

Also, recruitment. Are you working to actively recruit better guys? It will likely happen that those four guys will do all of the recruitment work. Don't let them get upset by this, its the 80-20 rule at work (80% of the work is done by 20% of the members, a typical formula for most organizations, greek and otherwise), and there's not too much you can do to avoid that. Just be confident that your active motivated members are recruiting men like themselves who will work for your chapter.

Don't forget, you need to motivate your members enough to actually get them to do these things, so work on that first.