A Tough Fall Ahead

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by thetygerlily

Let's help him figure out how to get from 17 to 30 before we tackle completely changing campus culture to get up to your preferred amount.

Thank you! I just read this entire thread and thought, "Why is Firehouse calling for such drastic measures?" This is a chapter of 17 looking to gain 13 members (at the least)... not a chapter of 7, up against chapters of 50, ready to die out. Baby steps.

Originally Posted by Firehouse

Yes. Linfield has always been a pretty good chapter. I'm sorry that you're down, but good genes should win in the end. There was an old guy with a crew-cut - the mayor I think - who took care of the chapter; he may have died.
You should have at least 50 members. Dominate your competition. Grow fast and aggressive so there's a dynamic of excitement and so you can compete.
Here are some practical ideas. Ditch the "slag" idea - no one responds to promotions like that; they respond to men rushing men. Personal contact.

1. Pick one Brother who is in a position to drop out or take a lighter load for a semester and make rush his full-time job. Pay him by adding to the pledge fee or get alumni to make him an employee. The chapter has been good so you should have alumni suppport. He should concentrate on pledging numbers of good underclassmen and getting them initiated.

2. Make getting a good house a priority. Make ther alumni do this; the undergrads don't have the ability to get that done. Inspire the alumni with the promise that the chapter will be on top again. Define that by being the biggest and best.

3. Consider having two pledge classes per semester until you get your numbers back. Remember - and make sure the Brothers understand - against competition twice your size you cannot afford to 'get good' slowly. You'll never recover if you try to do it slowly. Do it quickly. Double your chapter size in one year and enjoy the effect of the increased optimism and excitement.

4. Make sure all the Brothers know that they must follow the leader, the rush chairman. Thier reward is a much better fraternity experience. Be prepared to lose a few. You may get down to 10 or 12 members. Some will leave becasuse they lose interest. Siome becasue they're embarrassed to be in what they view as a loser fraternity. But know: ON a campus where the top houses have 30 me, you can dominate and very quickly.

5. Don't fall into the psycho-babble crap about "every brother is responsible for bringing one new member in to replace himself'. That doesn't work. When everyone is responsible, then no one is responsible.

6. Pick a theme, an identity, and pursue that. Were you the jock house? The syudent government house? The smart, good-lookin guys? Did you have all the guys from a particular high school? At a small scholol with small fraternities, each fraternity usually has a specialized theme that distinguishes itself.

7. Great idea: find a sports club, like lacrosse or wrestling, or rugby, and pledge the entire team. They like to thikn of themselves as a fraternity enyway. This way they can be members of an important national fraternity.

Remember: Put someone in charge and make everyone follow him. Move quickly; no such thing as getting better slowly. Make alumni get you a house - you have to have a house if everyone else does. Don't be depressed when you lose some members; expect it. That actually makes it easier for the new guys to be accepted. Move now. Do it now. determine to have 40 brothers by the end of the 2010-11 school year.

Are you coming to the Convention?

I don't want to sound mean here, Firehouse... but I wouldn't agree with 95% of this.

1. They "shouldn't" have 50 members. If they want to plan out acceptable goals for themselves, that's fine. But as a chapter, you shouldn't be hard on yourself for not having 20+ members more than any other chapter on campus. "Domination" isn't necessary at this point. Evaluate where you are, where you're going, and where you want to be... and establish goals based on that.

2. Getting a good house should not be a priority right now. Getting good members should be. Without brothers, you won't be able to support a super duper fantastic house!

3. Having two pledge classes can work... and sometimes it doesn't. I've seen it go both ways. If you're going to do this, map out a solid plan to make this work. And don't overwhelm yourself! If you think it will be too much work right now, just focus on one class.

4. Greek life isn't about "following the leader". It's about collectively coming up with the best solutions to your problems. Don't just rely on the rush chairman to do everything for you. THAT's how you guarantee that no one else will step up to the plate.

5. Replacing each graduating member with a new member isn't "psycho-babble"... it just makes good sense. Hell, it makes sense to try and recruit two people for every guy who leaves. How else are you going to get above a chapter of 17? I'm not saying that EVERYONE should be recruiting hardcore (some people just aren't good at it), but use your best members to get more good members.

6. PLEASE don't pick a "theme" for your house! This is the worst possible thing that you could do! If you do this, only a fraction of the campus will be interested in looking at your chapter at all. Be as well-rounded as possible!

7. Don't pledge an entire sports team. If it happens, it happens. But don't make this your goal. Because the guys who pledge who aren't on the team will feel left out. Or again, you could be limiting who is looking at your chapter. We had it happen at my school. When I was active, a chapter was down to only 7 members (basically all soccer players) and closed. It was opened again a couple of years later, but at the time they had inadvertently "excluded" most of the campus, and then even the newer soccer players didn't want to join.

"Follow one person?".. "There's no such thing as getting better slowly?".. MAKE your alumni get you a house? Um... Really?

Originally Posted by PikesOnce

There is a lot of work to do to help rebuild for Linfield College.
I am the current President and we are facing a rush semester without a house and minimal members (Our house just recently became condemned and we are trying to get the money for a remodel).
For the best 3 years I have been here I have seen over 70% of our new initiates leaving along with the normal numbers of seniors graduating.
Our chapter now rests on 17 members and we are up against three other fraternities exceeding 30 members all with working houses.
Getting out and have a solid rush class is a must but its hard to get all the guys motivated and getting out to meet new potential brothers.
I am planning on launching a "What's S.L.A.G.?" campaign but I am afraid that won't be enough.
Any good ideas?

I will tell you to start by looking at Phiredup.com. Order the book "Good Guys" from the site. And PM me with any questions that you might have (because I don't feel like typing too much more right now). Good luck!

[Firehouse]

""Follow one person?".. "There's no such thing as getting better slowly?".. MAKE your alumni get you a house? Um... Really?"

Yes. Really. No disrespect intended. You're correct that there's no one-size-fits-all solution. But, yes: Give one man the authority and let him lead the chapter to success in rush. If they're down to 17 men and it's not the result of a large graduating class, then it is the result of poor leadership in rush. And yes, fraternities that don't get competitive quickly generally don't get much better. And yes, there are some tasks that the alumni must do; undergrads generally don't know how to secure housing.

I don't know anything about Linfield other then remembering that they were a pretty good chapter at one time. So, in the last hour I did some quick itnernet searches and found out more.

There are four fraternities at Linfield: Pike, Kappa Sigma, Theta Chi and Delta Psi Delta, the oldest local fraternity in the Northwest still in existence.

The original poster - the newly elected Pike president - says that 70% of the new initiates have left the chapter. That's not a good sign. He says that his competiting fraternities "exceed 30 members". That number turns out to be low. He says that the house was condemned, but they are trying to raise money to rennovate.
It tuns out that the Linfield Pike alumni have a very active facebook page, and planned an alumni work party at the house for July 17 (don't know how it turned out). They also are appealing for contributions from alumni to rennovate the house; I asume that is in order to "un-condemn" the house.

Delta Psi Delta alumni raised enough money through a capital campaign to pay off their house. The chapter photo shows a large chapter, over 40 men.

Kappa Sigma owns a house that holds 24 men. The 2010 chapter composite shows 53 members.

Can't find out how many members Theta Chi has, but they won a Chapter Excellence Award from their National in Spring, 2010, and members hold the Presidency and vice-presidency of Order of Omega.

My Pike chapter needs to grow to competitive size, and on this campus that appears to be 45-55 men. Their alumni seem to be in position to help with the house, and that should be their job.

Here's a revealing thumbnail look at the chapter's numbers. Our national magazine publishes chapter membership figures in every quarterly issue. These numbers were reported for Linfield:
Summer '10 17 members
Spring '10 15
Winter '09 10
Autumn '09 35
Summer '09 33
Spring '09 33
Winter '08 47
Autumn '08 47

This chapter's membership has dropped like a rock. I don't know why it happened, but I know this chapter needs to catch fire and quickly. If they only have 17 members, you cannot count on all of them to be there, especially if morale is a problem in the chapter. They have strong competition that is twice, even three times their size. They need bold action. They need success quickly that will inspire and motivate the members.

The alumni Facebook page appears to offer some hope for the house. It's an old chapter; one we do not want to lose. But they have hovered between 10 and 17 members for a year. They cannot survive with those numbers against that competition.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Firehouse

This chapter's membership has dropped like a rock. I don't know why it happened, but I know this chapter needs to catch fire and quickly.

Which is why it might be a bad idea for them to get a big house that they can't fill. Houses that are more than what a chapter can support can be the straw that breaks the camel's back where a struggling chapter is concerned.

Whatever happened, there is also IMO the possibility that "did you hear Pike HIRED someone to run rush because they're so far in the toilet?" would get scuttlebutted about. And I can't see that being a positive. It's kind of like the equivalent of a struggling chapter of a sorority bringing in members from one of the superduper chapters - which, if you read rush stories on here, doesn't fool rushees for a second.

I will say however that O of O offices and national awards don't necessarily mean a chapter is desirable to the STUDENTS on campus. Not a rag on OX there, just saying that it doesn't prove they are doing things the students want - it might just mean they're better at filling out paperwork.

[Firehouse]

I think they've had that house for a long time. From reading their alumni facebook, my guess is that it's "condemned" but it can be fixed up to be in compliance.

We can always find a reason to not do something, like paying one of the members to make rush his job for a semester. But, its obvious the guys have to do something or they're going to die. On a small campus there are few secrets. The other fraternities will probably know what the Pikes are doing. But, what does it matter if they're successful? It's going to be tough enough to re-build as it is. Might as well go all out.

And, there are worse things than the chapter dying. If they remain barely alive at 10-17 members and degenerate into the permanent campus bottom-feeder, that is worse. They had 47 memebrs just two years ago so their general chapter psychology might still be OK. They might still think of themselves as a good fraternity with a low membership crisis. You can work with that. What you cannot turn around is the small chapter that has been bad for so long that they fanticize their weakness as a virtue.

If this chapter is going to make a run at success it's going to have to happen quickly. The good news is thay can probably do it with the right help.

[itb2a]

I agree with Firehouse.

It's not as 'shocking' to some of us who have seen Rush Chairmen spent an extraordinary amount of time rushing new members. To have them paid, whether by a commission level, or by expenses and free summer lodging does make sense. As a parent, it would not be appalling to me in the least if the Rush Chair was compensated because it is a job! In fact I can think of several rush chairs who listed what they did on their resumes for job hunting when they graduated.

The only thing I can add is that PikesOnce might want to also concentrate on the area's Alumni as well as look at why the trend is going downward. The Area Alumni are important as they are a source of legacies as well as other recruits and resources for the chapter. I'd stress that heavy. PikeOnce can get a list of the alumni in the area from National, and he can also ask National to send a Chapter Consultant to help.

As for the Howard discussion, I share Firehouse's view. I also did not agree with the colony simply because it was not a fit nor did it show a possibility of sustaining growth. It always puzzled me that Howard would even allow the colony.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by itb2a

It's not as 'shocking' to some of us who have seen Rush Chairmen spent an extraordinary amount of time rushing new members. To have them paid, whether by a commission level, or by expenses and free summer lodging does make sense. As a parent, it would not be appalling to me in the least if the Rush Chair was compensated because it is a job! In fact I can think of several rush chairs who listed what they did on their resumes for job hunting when they graduated.

The crux of Firehouse's suggestion was for the person to take time off from school to do this as though bringing in members (paid or not) trumps being a student.

I also disagree with paying members to bring in new members. Membership is a privilege and having a role in bringing in new members is a privilege. I know all about membership intake as a fulltime job both as a collegiate and as an alumnae. But, it is a fulltime unpaid job, most of it voluntary (even when based on necessity), that is part of the privilege and hardwork of being a member. I don't think we should get paid by our chapters unless it is an organizational policy to do so.

If people want to get paid for such things, they need to apply to work for their local/regional/district/national offices of their GLO. They accept applicants.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by itb2a

I agree with Firehouse.

It's not as 'shocking' to some of us who have seen Rush Chairmen spent an extraordinary amount of time rushing new members. To have them paid, whether by a commission level, or by expenses and free summer lodging does make sense.

YOU ARE REFERRING TO SUMMER. HERE IN THE USA, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ARE NOT IN SESSION IN THE SUMMER. IT IS NOT THE SAME.

[Firehouse]

I have to think there is a different perspective depending on whether you're in a fraternity or a sorority. It's not unusual for men to hold full or part time jobs while going to school. Nor is it unusual for men to drop out for a semester and work, maybe in town or maybe on campus.
And in fact, more and more colleges and universities are operating year-round. Not long ago, fraternities got a free pass in he summer because the chapters weren't in session. Not now. Now - at least in Florida's public universities - many IFCs are fully operational in the summer. This weekend at FSU the major fraternities will hold huge parties at their houses. The chapters may not meet regularly but the officers are in charge and responsible. If you don't have an active rush program in the summer, and have your top rushees sign bid cards or take pins, then you're left to pick over whomever shows up in rush week.
Not so with the sororities. Fall, formal rush brings all the young women to all the chapters during one orchestrated week and the pledge classes are assigned by rigid rules. I doubt if the sorority rush chairmen have much to do in the summer other than paperwork - processing recommendations and planning. I doubt that the sororities are allowed to overtly rush and pursue specific prospects, or sign them to bids in the summer.
Men's rush is open and aggressive, competitive. In an open system the rushees are not brought to our doors. If we don't hustle in the summer, we fail. It's a good idea to have a man in charge who is responsible to lead the chapter and get the job done. If we can pay him, all the better.