University of Alabama NPC recruitment 2019 thread

[QueenD]

Originally Posted by Titchou

But the women themselves are driving those chapter budgets! If it was too out of line, THEY would self regulate. The budgets are not handed down from their national orgs. Certainly there are national dues, pledge fees, etc.. As a former financial adviser for moe than one chapter,I can tell you that the largest single item outside of the required ones is "social." And getting that under control is like pulling hen's teeth. Alabama is a VERY social school..so their chapter bills are going to be higher as a result. I assure you -the advisers would change that if they could!

In many cases, the most expensive costs are driven by the house corporations not the collegiate chapters. I don’t know how other house corporations run, bu5 for Kappa Delta, there are only two voting collegians on the House Corporation. From a practical perspective, it’s incredibly difficult for collegians to influence anything House Corp is responsible for, including out of house / parlor / CAM fees (which is where things like meal plans are covered).

[navane]

Originally Posted by QueenD

In many cases, the most expensive costs are driven by the house corporations not the collegiate chapters. I don’t know how other house corporations run, bu5 for Kappa Delta, there are only two voting collegians on the House Corporation. From a practical perspective, it’s incredibly difficult for collegians to influence anything House Corp is responsible for, including out of house / parlor / CAM fees (which is where things like meal plans are covered).

Having been a member of a house corporation board for 13 years, I can't imagine that any board worth it's sisterhood is trying to sucker it's members out of money when setting the room and board fees. Running even a modest size house is an expensive ordeal! The monthly utility and deferred maintenance costs are quite high. That didn't even account for unexpected mishaps like the heater going out or the roof leak we got over winter. There has to be money in the house corp account for that.

Also, members sometimes forget that money doesn't grow on trees. For example, we've had situations where the members were flushing paper towels and personal products down the toilets in spite of our pleadings that they not do that. One year we spent thousands of dollars on emergency plumbing calls for the backed up toilets. After about the 4th time, we told them they would have to start paying the plumber for any future issues that turned out to be personal products or paper towels. It happened again a couple times and they had to pay out of their social budget. All of a sudden, they stopped clogging the toilets.

Another year, the members asked for 24/7 coffee, juice and snack (granola bars, chips, cookies) availability. Ok....we are happy to provide those comforts to our women; but, that does cost money. That year, they plowed through the food and drinks like it was going out of style and the live-outs and non-member guests were also helping themselves. We couldn't afford the expense of paying triple the amount of the original budget without raising prices. We left the coffee, but took away the juice and snacks.

Those Alabama houses are HUGE mansions and y'all are like, "I don't understand why house corp board can't lower the fees".