You didn't understand my bid day comment at all. You seem to think that making social Greeks feel equally welcome as prospective members means that we are recruiting from the same pool. It doesn't mean that at all. I would also say that rush events shouldn't be held on the same day as college football games. That doesn't mean we're focusing on recruiting football players, cheerleaders or the band. It's simply common sense. As is marketing positively, not negatively. If you are purposely omitting use of our Greek letters (no matter how small or incidental) because you're scared to death that some Greek-hating student might not come to a rush function if he/she sees them on a poster, that is anything but positive.
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Originally Posted by arvid1978
Avoiding your mentioned problem of the Bitter Betty/Bob goes back to values-based marketing and a quality values-driven pledge program. If you have those, then these people quickly weed themselves out when they see what we're really about, that their bitterness just doesn't fit in and the chapter has procedures in place to minimize it.
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I would hope that they are weeded out through pledging. The problem is when too many people in the same mindset get together and drive any other potential members (and sometimes current members) away.
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Originally Posted by arvid1978
The fact that you don't understand that a large majority of students these days either see Greek life as a bad thing or actively have no interest in social GLOs for a myriad of reasons shows that *you* are the one who doesn't get it.
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Please check out the "expansions" thread. Many colleges are adding social Greek organizations on a near-yearly basis because the interest in joining them keeps going up.
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Originally Posted by arvid1978
Some of the best brothers I have ever known who truly get what Brotherhood is all about would not have pledged their chapters had it been marketed with the greek letters as the front-and-center thing, because they were not looking for or interested in Greek life. The students use the term "fratty" in a pejorative manner because they see so much wrong with it, and to market ourselves in a way that mentally lumps us in with that is completely stupid.
Then again, what do I know? I've only been an alumni volunteer directly working with hundreds of APO students on multiple campuses for 8 years, watching as attitudes evolve and shift over time as the landscape of college changes. When a chapter markets themselves just like a social GLO, they do not reap success and lose out on recruiting the best possible students into the brotherhood. When they reach across and cast a wide net followed by a consistent values-based message, they are beyond successful both in quality and quantity of members, which leads to better service being done, which begets more quality and quantity of members, and so on. We're seeing this on a more consistent basis now that we have 3 years of data confirming the success of Membership Academy. I'll take that success any day over a chapter that thinks it's too good to recruit a variety of pledges.
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No, we should NOT market ourselves in the same way as a social fraternity. Never, ever did I say that. We should not put up posters that say
RUSH AP0 national coed service fraternity. We should not have tables at IFC fraternity or NPC sorority rush info sessions. We should not participate competitively in Greek Week. We should not be part of the Greek council/IFC/Panhel, and if the school tries to force us to do so, we should be able to explain why this is inappropriate. All of these have been done by chapters and discussed here on GC. BUT if it's gotten to the point that we're so much the other way that we're ashamed to put Greek letters on a poster, why are we still using them at all? Why don't we just become the LFS Club?
As far as the bolded...whew, pot, meet kettle. For a volunteer to reinforce asinine stereotypes on here is just really messed up and drives away social Greeks who could be great members. A less "values based" (ugh, can we stop with the buzzwords) action I cannot think of.
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