Selectivity And Apo

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by 33girl

And if there is anything I got sick of hearing while I was pledging APO, it was the pledgemaster saying "In Crows we did blah blah blah." It's 2 different kinds of organizations. PERIOD.

I agree with you. While it's one thing to compare the best practices of organizations (APO and social fraternities/sororities ARE nonprofit organizations with similar operations), it's another thing to intentionally misinterpret and misrepresent what Alpha Phi Omega is in order to craft a chapter or organization that one thinks it should be.

Some things you outgrow over time. At the very least, you understand what works for your chapter is not likely to be a universal truth in APO.

On the complete other hand all together, there are times in APO when experience with a social GLO scene is beneficial to a local APO experience. A Petitioning Group I am dealing with is made up of mostly BGLO members, and also being a BGLO member myself, I can relate to these students on a level that other volunteers can't or choose not to.

Being a dual member in that case makes some things easier -- all it takes is a conversation saying "In XYZ, you might do *this* but in APO that doesn't work because..."

Selectivity prior to the pledge process is one of those things I advise against.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

I agree with you. While it's one thing to compare the best practices of organizations (APO and social fraternities/sororities ARE nonprofit organizations with similar operations), it's another thing to intentionally misinterpret and misrepresent what Alpha Phi Omega is in order to craft a chapter or organization that one thinks it should be.

Some things you outgrow over time. At the very least, you understand what works for your chapter is not likely to be a universal truth in APO.

On the complete other hand all together, there are times in APO when experience with a social GLO scene is beneficial to a local APO experience. A Petitioning Group I am dealing with is made up of mostly BGLO members, and also being a BGLO member myself, I can relate to these students on a level that other volunteers can't or choose not to.

Being a dual member in that case makes some things easier -- all it takes is a conversation saying "In XYZ, you might do *this* but in APO that doesn't work because..."

Selectivity prior to the pledge process is one of those things I advise against.

I got a *real* heads up at my first section conference in terms of "what works in my chapter may not work in yours". My chapter's budget had single *line items* larger that the entire budget for at least three of the other chapters there, some of which were nearly our size. Trying to give the other chapters financial advice was a disaster.

One of the challenges to extension is figuring out what chapters are likely models for a new extension group and which ones are *not*. Trying to use the chapter George Washington University for a Model for a chapter at Howard University would be waste of *everyone*'s effort. (And vice versa). On the other hand, there are schools were existing models work fine. If I'm working on an extension to a Cal State University campus, I'll definitely try out the other Cal State campuses as Models.

There is only one case where I do advise a *certain* level of selectivity and that is in the area of super-rapid expansion. I wouldn't look badly on a chapter that tried to keep the number of pledges to twice the number of active brothers (or 15 if the number of brothers is less than 8). At that point though I'd ask staff to help in coming up with solutions.