Colony Rush Strategy

[archangel689]

Hello fellow Greeks,
I am Co-Rush Chair of a PKT Colony at Duquesne University. The school is pretty small (4000 students)... We currently have 14 men and being a rush chair is stressfull at this time :-)

Even with our small size we made an incredible appearance in greek week placing in almost every large event (including greek pageant and greek sing).

NOW that we look good on the greek front, we would like to make ourselves look good on the non-greek front... we can rush ALL YEAR... until we get our chapter...

We also have the assistance of the chapter at PITT which is nearby and composed of 60 men and a house--parties.

I've come up with many rush event ideas... however it doesnt seem like its working... we had a poker night (by invite only-- the other rush chair said "we dont want to many people") well we didnt have ENOUGH people!!!!

I've compiled a list of rush event Ideas ( 5 pages long)... and I would be willing to share my ideas with anyone willing to tell me how to get this colony off the ground!!!

[PKTSU01]

Hey man, this all sounds too familiar.
I was one of the original founders of the NYT chapter of PKT at Syracuse. We started, oddly enough, as 14 guys who wanted something different. Well, that was in '99 and two years later, we have a chancellor's cup for best fraternity on campus as well as 2 consecutive homecoming kings and homecoming week 1st place finishes.

I've since graduated and am doing my thing here in NYC, but I do have some advice on the colony thing. First, be REALISTIC about numbers. Do ya need 20 pledges? No. Will 20 hurt you? Hell no. While quality is important, you need to be competitive in number to stand a chance of growth and expansion. Second, keep up spirits and keep kicking ass on campus. If you are constantly beating everyone at their own game, there is NO WAY they can avoid the existence of the group. Even if they don't like ya, they have to respect the hardcore effort. Meet guys everywhere, and i mean everywhere. You have the luxury of not having to worry about dirty rush because you aren'ta full fledged chapter yet, so meet people in as many places as you can. Rush leadership, because that is what is going to keep the group strong after the initial drive of the founding fathers is gone. Trust me on this one, its from first hand experience. And finally, be straight up. I know that greek system is image and rep oriented. And anyone who says otherwise is nieve, a dreamer, or full of it. The key to succeeding, especially with a new group, is to stay true to the beliefs that made your group come about in the first place. In doing that, you'll attract quality, and the increased positive attention will create the rep that will allow for bigger and better rush numbers. We started out at 14 and a year later we were at 52. While SU is bigger in number than your campus, the same attitude will work anywhere.

Get potential members to believe in you and what you are trying to accomplish by being HONEST, and there's no way you won't make it really.

Good luck,
ITB

[greeklawgirl]

Originally posted by archangel689
Our president also won the first round of the chicken fight swimming event (carring a Alpha Gamma Delta that weighed more then he did).

Normally, this is the sort of thing that I would laugh off, but seeing as how I have no sense of humor this morning: Was that comment really necessary to get your point across?

Think CAREFULLY before you answer that.

[greeklawgirl]

Thank you for editing your post to clarify what you meant. The way you originally wrote it seemed just plain mean-spirited, although you obviously did not intend it to be as such.

Thanks again, and welcome to Greek Chat. This really is a fun place to be.

[aephi alum]

As a chapter founder, I was in a similar situation. When my local became a colony of AEPhi, we had ten members. By the following fall we had 22, enough to be chartered.

Our biggest source of new members was formal fall rush. Is your colony permitted to rush at the same time as the chartered fraternities? If so, rush aggressively during this time. If not, do whatever you are allowed to do to get your name out.

We had an informal spring rush and an informal fall rush. Every sister was required to find at least one unaffiliated freshman or sophomore and invite her.

Use the Pitt house if you can, and ask the brothers if they'll help you out. (They should!)

Above all else, don't just go for numbers. It's much better to have 5 quality new members than 20 people who don't care and who are just in it so they can, say, live off campus and get out of having to buy the school's meal plan.

Good luck!

[DeltaSig]

Hey what's up man,
I know exactly how you feel in regards to the whole colony situation. While I transferred from a colony to a chapter in texas it really is a big transformation. We started out in spring of 2000 colonizing. We had about 12 guys in feb. and we just continually rushed more guys and by summer we had 31 guys initiated. Then my pledge class came along we were the alpha class. 16 awesome quality guys who made it all the way through. Since then we had 10 in Spring 2001 and Fall 2001 I found out the guys had a pledge class of 23. We are already the third largest on campus I think, but the key to our success when I was there Fall/Spring 2000 was that everyone thought we were down to earth guys and plus we also had the best parties. ONE MAJOR point of advice I will give you is that becoming a chapter is difficult. You have to make sure everyone devotes themselves to becoming a chapter because if not you could be in major trouble. Just make sure your name gets around campus, and try to get as many of your brothers involved in student organizations as possible. Get involved with as many sororties as possible except for the ones that are snobby ( for example the ones that only mix with a certain fraternity etc...Keep in constant touch with nationals that way they know that you are making progess and before you know it you should be on your way. By the way I heard our colony was getting chartered this December. Good Luck

[antidrama]

hey man:

i am a founding father of my Delta Upsilon chapter (we actually just chartered about 9 days ago!). we had similar problems, so i think i might be able to offer some advice. our campus is fairly small (9000 students), and it had just added two new fraternity chapters within in the last 5 years (sigma nu and pi kapp FYI), so a lot of people thought that three would be impossible. however we had the help of two neighboring chapters (arlington and houston - THANK GOD) and a LOT of help from IHQ.

we found out that "going by the book" as far as recruitment doesn't work on a lot of campuses. try it at first, and if you don't see any results, DEFINATELY try other methods. it took us several months (and a lot of wasted money) to figure out what worked best for us, so please learn from out mistakes. definately get REALLY involved on campus, not that you probably aren't already, but it will really help out. and finally, don't let all the BS get to you. have fun. as long as your guys are having fun and doing what you're supposed to do to get your charter, getting new guys will be EASY. we colonized with 17 great guys, lost a few, went through a long summer and OK rush, and charted with a strong group of 30 guys...with a current pledge class of 5, which makes 35 now.

aephi alum had very very good advice! its always better to get 1 great quality guy, than to get 5 guys who don't have the heart or aren't willing to put forth the effort to found a chapter.

and keep a good, positive attitude no matter what. the greek system is definately VERY image oriented, so make sure your guys are promoting the image and beliefs of your fraternity. make a first good impression, not a bad last impression.

feel free to give me an email or something if you need anymore advice. starting a chapter is A LOT of work, but worth every minute of it in the end. GOOD LUCK!