Letters on Bid Day???

[AOII Angel]

In AOII we give new members letters immediately. There is no prohibition. They may not know the meaning of AOII yet, but by our selection process, we choose girls who unknowingly live it anyway! (I'm sure every other group does the same!!) We were not allowed to have lavaliers or roses until initiation, but I think that was a local tradition. I have not seen the new member manual in years, so I don't know what it says about this issue. Since we don't have a crest and our rose is usually substituted, my chapter reserved red roses for intiated sisters. I've seen other chapters do the same...giving PNMs pink roses at recruitment instead of red and wishing with them that the rose will turn red.

[angelove]

At least in the mid-80's when I was an active, it WAS Pi Phi's international policy not to allow pledges to wear letters, it said so in the pledge manual. I guess changed internationally a few years later. We also weren't allowed to wear the arrow (not just the badge, but any arrow) but I don't remember if that was just our chapter or an international thing. Time to get the old pledge manual out of the attic.

[cuteASAbug]

Originally Posted by angelove

At least in the mid-80's when I was an active, it WAS Pi Phi's international policy not to allow pledges to wear letters, it said so in the pledge manual. I guess changed internationally a few years later. We also weren't allowed to wear the arrow (not just the badge, but any arrow) but I don't remember if that was just our chapter or an international thing. Time to get the old pledge manual out of the attic.

was your new member different back then?

[angelove]

Originally Posted by cuteASAbug

was your new member different back then?

Not sure exactly what you mean, but everything was different back then. Pledgeship (now known as "new member period") was at least a semester long, usually not initiated until Feb after pledging in August. Frills rush, scavenger hunts, initiation in the order of your gpa, etc.

We couldn't even write the greek letters or draw an arrow. I don't know if this was just our chapter, but we couldn't even have anything with letters or an arrow on it. Seems kind of harsh, but I never seemed to really mind as a pledge. I just looked forward to being able to wear them after initiation.

[cuteASAbug]

Originally Posted by angelove

Not sure exactly what you mean, but everything was different back then. Pledgeship (now known as "new member period") was at least a semester long, usually not initiated until Feb after pledging in August. Frills rush, scavenger hunts, initiation in the order of your gpa, etc.

We couldn't even write the greek letters or draw an arrow. I don't know if this was just our chapter, but we couldn't even have anything with letters or an arrow on it. Seems kind of harsh, but I never seemed to really mind as a pledge. I just looked forward to being able to wear them after initiation.

I thought the Pi Phi new member pin is an arrow?

[carnation]

Originally Posted by angelove

Not sure exactly what you mean, but everything was different back then. Pledgeship (now known as "new member period") was at least a semester long, usually not initiated until Feb after pledging in August. Frills rush, scavenger hunts, initiation in the order of your gpa, etc.

We couldn't even write the greek letters or draw an arrow. I don't know if this was just our chapter, but we couldn't even have anything with letters or an arrow on it. Seems kind of harsh, but I never seemed to really mind as a pledge. I just looked forward to being able to wear them after initiation.

I just remembered that for prefs, we were given an arrow lavaliere. But you're right, it was so wonderful to finally be able to wear the letters and crest! After initiation, we raced to our cars to slap on crest decals!

[angelove]

The new member pin is actually a dart, so not technically an arrow. We did have a wooden arrow (kind of like a paddle) that we would have all of the initiated sisters sign, then we turned it in before Christmas break and then got it back after initiation all decorated.

It was kind of funny because all of our event tshirts for the whole chapter would have Pi Beta Phi spelled out so that everyone could wear them, then once initiation came around all of the tshirts would have greek letters on them.

And yes, I remember I couldn't wait to put the decals on my car! And find a piece of paper so I could write out the greek letters!

[honeychile]

We got our first "official" letter shirts during Friendship Week, but there was never a problem with wearing them prior to then. We did, however, have to wear our pledge pins at ALL times - even to bed!

[aephi alum]

Alpha Epsilon Phi does not allow anyone other than an initiated sister to wear the Greek letters. New members, significant others, et al can wear shirts that say "Alpha Epsilon Phi" spelled out, or "AEPhi", but not the Greek letters. We waste no time giving our new members bid day gifts and ribbons, but they have to wait until initiation to wear the letters.

A number of NPC sororities don't allow new members to own anything with the crest. AEPhi's new member pin actually is the crest, slightly modified to remove the Greek letters.

You say tomayto, I say tomahto.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by angelove

At least in the mid-80's when I was an active, it WAS Pi Phi's international policy not to allow pledges to wear letters, it said so in the pledge manual. I guess changed internationally a few years later. We also weren't allowed to wear the arrow (not just the badge, but any arrow) but I don't remember if that was just our chapter or an international thing. Time to get the old pledge manual out of the attic.

Wow! Y'all couldn't wear arrows?

I had to have a T-shirt specially made that spelled out Pi Beta Phi because I wanted to shout out to the world that I was a Pi Phi! And back in the day, people usually wore their letter shirts only in their GLO's colors, so I remember when we ordered our first letter shirts right before initiation and it was a big deal:do I choose wine with light blue or blue with wine? Or maybe be really radical-haha!-and choose light blue with white!

One pledge sister accidentally bleached hers and she was the only girl in our chapter to sport a lavender letter shirt.