Small club's growing again?

[BeeVee]

AnotherKD: The three big clubs at my school all capped their pledge classes last year (which is 51 pledges, if I didn't mention that before), so they have around 100-150+ members each. The other club on campus is not as small as us, but they are facing the same situation we are in regards to getting PNM's interested. About 5 or so years ago I believe we had around 100 members, but we have (obviously) been on a rapid decline since then. Three years ago the Social Club Office decided to change the pledging process and try some new things, but instead of helping the small slubs, it only hurt them and aided the big clubs even more. We are currently going though legislation changes so that the process will change again, but they haven't decided on what they want to do yet.

ree-Xi: I'm not sure about the class schedule idea. And I'm also not sure how the other clubs send out their invitations. Every club does Facebook events, so the more popular a club is, the more members will be attending the event, so all the more reason a PNM would want to go to that one. And word of mouth works really well for big clubs since there's so many members, but since we're extremely small, we can't rely on that as much. I had an idea about getting all the freshman girls' mailbox numbers and then mailing them all invitations to the rushes. Does that sound like a good idea or is that crossing over the boundary into creepy territory?

Thanks so much for helping! I really appreciate it and any advice anyone has to offer I will gladly accept!

[ree-Xi]

Originally Posted by BeeVee

ree-Xi: I'm not sure about the class schedule idea. And I'm also not sure how the other clubs send out their invitations. Every club does Facebook events, so the more popular a club is, the more members will be attending the event, so all the more reason a PNM would want to go to that one. And word of mouth works really well for big clubs since there's so many members, but since we're extremely small, we can't rely on that as much. I had an idea about getting all the freshman girls' mailbox numbers and then mailing them all invitations to the rushes. Does that sound like a good idea or is that crossing over the boundary into creepy territory?

Thanks so much for helping! I really appreciate it and any advice anyone has to offer I will gladly accept!

I think that you should really take a look at what other clubs do, for direction on what is "acceptable" vs. "creepy". Take your cues regarding the spectrum too intimate to too casual from the types of approaches other clubs use. Is that secret info? It wouldn't be hard to find out. Didn't you all go through rush? Did you get invitations to other clubs? How did they deliver them?

There is a book (I haven't read it, but a lot of people swear by it) called "I Heart Recruitment". Again, you'd need to tailor your ideas to suit your campus culture.

I also wanted to tell you that it IS possible to grow again, but it's a commitment on behalf of all your members. Recruitment should happen every day. Are there alumnae among the faculty/staff? Celebrating them in some way is a great "everyday" type of recruiting that is so important. So is wearing your club's colors/symbols, having club lunches in the cafeteria, sponsoring or volunteering as your club at campus events, etc. If there are say, 10 of you, commit to talking to 2 new girls a day each - just as a potential friend. Over a week, that's 100 girls. (So get moving...now!) Some of these girls may learn or know of your membership (that's where wearing colors or symbols comes in handy!) over the course of normal conversation.