Quote:
Originally Posted by Titchou
Calling Zillini......
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Sorry folks. Family/personal life has kept me swamped this summer. Then with Recruitment prep and actual Recruitment, it has left me with no time for online posting.
So many comments and questions posted here. I probably should have taken notes. Hopefully I'll cover everything.
I can't lay my hands on my papers from early in the week, but to the best of my recollection there were 1657 PNMs signed up. However, about 10-15 withdrew before parties even started. Even factoring those in, the total # was about 100+ more than participated last year.
As posted earlier by someone, Freshmen Quota ended up being 83 and Upperclassmen was 5. It is my understanding that every chapter made Quota.
Now here is where things get interesting. Earlier in the summer Delta Gamma had requested a delay in making their official decision as to whether to colonize in fall of 2011. They were supposed to let the University/Panhellenic know by August 15, i.e. Bid Day.
Anticipating a "yes" from DG and them coming next year, Panhellenic voted the week before Recruitment to raise Chapter Total to whatever Chapter Average was after the completion of Formal Recruitment. That way any chapter that was below the new Total could issue additional bids above and beyond Quota in order to reach the new Total.
It was anticipated that perhaps 5-7 chapters would be below the new Total and could extend additional Bids. Some chapters would only be a few short while others might have been more. The thought though was the timing would be perfect to issue COB bids so that these new members could join right in with the other new members gained from Formal Recruitment. If bids were extended and accepted early enough, they could even participate in Bid Day.
After Bid Matching was complete, the new Chapter Total was announced as being 268. FYI, Panhellenic plans on reviewing Chapter Total again this year, possibly in spring 2011. If necessary it would be lowered.
(As a reminder or for those who do not know. Chapter Total had been raised last spring to 225. This is why there was spring Open Recruitment for the first time in years and 5 or 6 chapters took new members.)
Why was this done? Because it is NPC policy that any new (re) colonizing group can bid up to Chapter Average. Therefore it was only fair that the existing chapters get the opportunity to get up their numbers up to Chapter Average as well before that. And for the record, despite last year's increase there was still a fairly large discrepancy in numbers between the smallest and largest chapters.
Meaning, if Chapter Total had not been changed and it was still 225 any existing chapter that was at that, they could not take any more members. It would not be fair to them for DG to come on and be able to pledge up to Chapter Average since it turned out to be so much larger than what Chapter Total was set at.
OK, now about Bid Day and guests. Last year was the first year chapters tried to regulate who would be allowed inside the houses to eat. Let's just say it didn't quite go as smoothly as we all had hoped. This year we all did a much better job on communicating this policy to all Greeks (someone posted a snippet from the mass email that Greek Affairs sent to all Greek students including the guys), our own members, and the PNMs.
Each chapter was required to have security guards at their houses. How guests would be verified, who was allowed into each house, and the number of guests allowed was left up to the individual chapter to decide on.
I'll give ya'll an example of what we did at my chapter. We used unique colored wrist bands. We did not put limits on the number of guest allowed, however we did limit it to immediate family members of our new members and actives. Actives needed to sign up their family members on the guest list and were given wrist bands. Each PNM had wrist bands in their Bid Day bag for their family. If they needed additional bands because they had large families, then we got them some. Then at the door the security guards would allow anyone in with a wrist band or double check the guest list (if an active hadn't picked up hers up ahead of time) and gave them one.
I have no idea how things went at other houses, but it was pretty smooth at ours. Sure we had some random fraternity guys who tried to "test" the new policy out, but they were quickly turned away without much fuss. We also had some actives who were unhappy that their boyfriends weren't allowed in. ("But I haven't seen him in
two whole weeks!!!") Since we let the actives go once the new members and their families went into the informational meeting, they could see them at 12:30. They had to wait only a few hours. No big deal.
Why was this policy put in place? Simple numbers and the accompanying expense. Using the Chapter Average/new Total, that's 268 members per house. If each girl had their 2 parents in attendance that would mean 804 people trying to get in the house and eating lunch. Granted some girls parents weren't there and some had siblings, so it pretty much balanced out. Limits had to be put into place.
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