Positive Reinforcement from Standards Chairman?

[33girl]

Originally Posted by psy

Contrarian, but I kind of hate this idea. I could see it turning into one huge popularity contest where the same group of sisters praise each other or get praised week after week, and it generating seriously bad blood, especially as it's likely, IMO, to lean heavily toward live-ins and ignore live-outs.

I'm sure you could make a rule (although you shouldn't have to) not to repeat sisters over the course of a semester/year/whatever. Although, it can be a wakeup call. If you realize you have no one in the chapter who feels close to you like that, or that you feel close to, maybe you need to put some more into the sorority and stop waiting for everyone to come to you.

The only way it ignores live-outs is if the live-outs never bother to come and visit the house. It's everyone's house, not just the girls who sleep there. Again, if you make no effort to be in the center of things, the center of things is not going to pick up and go to you.

The more you put in, the more you get out. The less you ask of people, the less they will do.

[psy]

Originally Posted by 33girl

The only way it ignores live-outs is if the live-outs never bother to come and visit the house. It's everyone's house, not just the girls who sleep there. Again, if you make no effort to be in the center of things, the center of things is not going to pick up and go to you.

In my experience, not true--it didn't matter how often live-outs came over or if they were on E-Board, etc--there was still a TON of live-in groupiness/clique-y behavior (of course, there was also plenty of live-in drama). Live-in inside jokes, live-in 2am spur of the moment dance parties, live-in rooommate cliques/drama/gossip, etc. etc. You could be over there multiple times a week, and you still wouldn't be there for the live-in midnight/3am drama/gossip/bonding which inevitably happened. Not saying live-outs couldn't form close friendships within the sorority (I was a perpetual live-out for reasons completely outside of my control [no, not finances], and I definitely made some amazing, close friendships with my sisters, as well as more casual, "fun" ones), but there was definitely a divide between live-outs and live-ins. YMMV.

[33girl]

Which is why things like were mentioned above are a great way to try and lessen that. There are always going to be the house girls, the girls on intramurals, the girls who all party at TKE, etc etc etc. Instead of throwing up your hands and saying "oh well" - do things to make it better.

If anyone wanted to sleep on the couch in the living room...they were more than welcome to do so and participate in all the 2 AM house nuttiness. Many sisters did. The girls who were negative and said "the house is all cliques and drama" were plenty busy forming their own, usually even tighter, little cliques.