Little Chapter, Big Recruitment: Spring 2009

[APhiAnna]

I think you'll be surprised about growing in size. Unless your chapter is under 5 or 6 women, there will be cliques and girls that don't get along amazingly. Simply by growing you are adding girls with more talents that will make everything (Greek Week, recruitment, socials, philanthropy) so much easier. And the names thing is not as bad as people feel it might be...I know women in GIGANTIC chapters that know who everybody is. I think it really depends on the culture of the specific chapter.

[FSUZeta]

my daughters chapter had each member design her own info. page. they used regular 8 x 11 paper, had photos of themselves-their sorority family, their real family,room number(or if they lived off campus) family pets, boyfriends, etc. and added their hometown, major, favorite books, likes/dislikes, other extracurriculars they participate in, etc. the pledge trainer made copies of each page and made notebooks for each new member.

my daughter found it invaluable and she now has fun designing her own page each year.

maybe your chapter could do something like this.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

my daughters chapter had each member design her own info. page. they used regular 8 x 11 paper, had photos of themselves-their sorority family, their real family,room number(or if they lived off campus) family pets, boyfriends, etc. and added their hometown, major, favorite books, likes/dislikes, other extracurriculars they participate in, etc. the pledge trainer made copies of each page and made notebooks for each new member.

my daughter found it invaluable and she now has fun designing her own page each year.

maybe your chapter could do something like this.

I second this! I loved making my sheet every year, though we did half a page. A lot of us got really intricate with our pages. They were called "Panda Pages."

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by APhiAnna

I think you'll be surprised about growing in size. Unless your chapter is under 5 or 6 women, there will be cliques and girls that don't get along amazingly. Simply by growing you are adding girls with more talents that will make everything (Greek Week, recruitment, socials, philanthropy) so much easier. And the names thing is not as bad as people feel it might be...I know women in GIGANTIC chapters that know who everybody is. I think it really depends on the culture of the specific chapter.

Very true. Alot of times you THINK you won't be able to familairize yourself with everyone, but you will. Chapters at my school average 60-80ish girls and we all knew each other very well.

The chapters at some larger schools aveerage close to 200 girls and they all manage to get to know each other as well.

Alot of chapters use the "we want to REALLY know each other" excuse as a excuse not to grow.

You can still have the community, but it just will take some time/work.

[APhiAnna]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

Alot of chapters use the "we want to REALLY know each other" excuse as a excuse not to grow.

GREAT point. I know the struggling chapters (both fraternities and sororities) at our school will often use the argument that since they are smaller they know each other better. I think, in some cases, it's used as kind of a defensive reason for why they aren't larger. Which is fine, but when they actually get a chance (like your chapter seems to be getting) to grow rapidly, they hold on to that excuse because they have internalized it so much. I would just focus on growing as much as possible and I think you will see that if you are truly pulling for quality and quantity, your sisterhood should stay the same.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by APhiAnna

GREAT point. I know the struggling chapters (both fraternities and sororities) at our school will often use the argument that since they are smaller they know each other better. I think, in some cases, it's used as kind of a defensive reason for why they aren't larger. Which is fine, but when they actually get a chance (like your chapter seems to be getting) to grow rapidly, they hold on to that excuse because they have internalized it so much. I would just focus on growing as much as possible and I think you will see that if you are truly pulling for quality and quantity, your sisterhood should stay the same.

EXACTLY.

silverpearls:

The types of things you're feeling/experiencing (feeling like you'll never get to know all the NMs) are very normal and they just come with sudden growth.

Sisterhood/closeness is not related to how big/small your chapter is. You can have a close knit community of sisters and be at total. Alot of smaller chapters tend to buy into a "smaller = more sisterhood and closer bond" thing and that is not the truth. I've interacted with small chapters who didn't care to know each other and weren't friendly to each other, so small doesn't always = more personal.

As long as you're making an effort to get to know them, you can still maintain the closeness that you feel your chapter is known for. It just takes a little more effort.

[silverpearls]

Thanks everybody for the advice in terms of size! I think a lot of you are correct in saying that we've gotten so "attached" to being small and promoting small = close-knit that we're automatically assuming big = distant. I'm sure we'll put in the work necessary to keep our chapter great and our sisters connected!

I'm so nervous for tonight. It's technically "invite-only", but all that means is that we invite back all the girls who have attended any of our COB events all week. We only have one round of voting, which is tonight. I'm very interested to see who comes back! There are a few COBing who went through Formal and dropped out/probably didn't accept our bid (they only Preffed us), so I'm very curious to see if they'll be back tonight. It's really commendable that they gave us a second chance after Formal but if they still weren't feeling it after trying one of the COB events, it's understandable if they don't come back to COB "Pref".

One of these girls is actually signed up for a rush event for a local, which I found very strange considering the group she's friends with. Her friends all went to the "top" chapter on campus while she only Preffed Venus. Now she's looking at a Local with a very, very bad rep on campus - and I say that coming from a sorority with a poor reputation here, too. The local is very small and is known for being "Panhel rejects" and losers. I have a lot of friends in the group and I really feel for them - trust me, I know how it feels to be in that situation! But they're honestly the polar opposite of the group this girl's friends joined - this group of freshmen consists of mostly big party girls, and this local is definitely not like that. So I'm interested to see where she ends up.

Another intriguing thing I found out today is that one of the "top" chapters on our campus barely made quota this Recruitment. They didn't match enough but were luckily able to snap bid up to quota. This was a huge shock for me - when I was a freshmen this group was THE sorority everyone wanted. They've since been surpassed by another group but are generally assumed to be just as good, so when I heard they almost didn't make quota it was very surprising. Their New Member class is still a strong group of women, but hopefully this will shock them into pulling their act together. They were barely a presence on campus this fall - they did almost no PR with the freshmen (every other sorority had booths or activities several times a month to try to get freshmen interested for Spring Recruitment) and were practically nonexistent at Greek Week. The general consensus is that they were resting on their reputation as being one of the best groups on campus and didn't feel it was necessary to put in the effort. Obviously, this wasn't the case... and it hurt them in Recruitment.

Anyway, enough Greek Gossip. I'm just dying to know how things will go tonight! I'll be back with an update, probably pretty late... after voting we have to call each PNM individually to extend an oral bid and wait for her to accept or decline (usually they decide on the spot, but not always). Fingers crossed!