80s Band Recruitment (2-3 PNMs)

[victoriana]

Originally Posted by IndianaSigKap

I advised at a campus that tried partially structured recruitment for a few years and it worked fairly well for us because the PNMs were required to attend at least one 30 minute event at each chapter. If they did not visit each chapter at least once, they were not eligible to receive a bid. I think this is the key to partially structured. PNMs don't get their hearts set on one without ever seeing what the other chapters are like.

I agree. That's the biggest problem we have here. If we made that change, things would improve drastically. I think that's the first step in moving to a fully structured, RFM recruitment for us. It would be such a dramatic change between our current set up and RFM that it would really hurt recruitment numbers for at least the first year or two.

[WhiteRose1912]

Originally Posted by victoriana

I agree. That's the biggest problem we have here. If we made that change, things would improve drastically. I think that's the first step in moving to a fully structured, RFM recruitment for us. It would be such a dramatic change between our current set up and RFM that it would really hurt recruitment numbers for at least the first year or two.

Why not just stay with partially-structured? My campus changed from fully-structured to partially-structured during my time there and our quota numbers definitely saw a bump.

I just don't get how you can do minimally structured with that many chapters and be successful.

[victoriana]

Originally Posted by WhiteRose1912

Why not just stay with partially-structured? My campus changed from fully-structured to partially-structured during my time there and our quota numbers definitely saw a bump.

I just don't get how you can do minimally structured with that many chapters and be successful.

We're actually classified as minimally structured due to some other rules we have that I haven't talked about on here. Each group can only spend $1000 including t-shirts, food, decorations, etc. No one can have any matching item of clothing. No skits allowed. Plus we have no time limit for PNMs at the parties and they can do pretty much whatever the hell the want and they will not get dropped from recruitment.

It's successful for about 3 chapters (perceived as the "top" groups by some, but I don't really buy into that) who are consistently at or near total and only take about 3 girls through winter COB. For several other chapters, it's unsuccessful. Some groups may get a large new member class but only retain half of that class before initiation, so they have a really high turnover rate. Some groups may only get 5-10 girls and stay around 25-35 members out of a possible 55 total. Then there was a group on campus that struggled so hard with numbers that they were closed by their nationals. Chapters seeing issues with numbers only started when we switched to this god-awful system. Pre-RFM, my chapter was at or near total most of the time. Now we have just around 30 girls.

In my opinion, the system perpetuates the idea of the large chapters staying large and the smaller chapters staying small. Of course, if we restricted PNMs to only attending chapters they were invited to and requiring them to attend all the chapters they were invited to, this would not be as much of an issue because they would be forced to look at other chapters. But Dee already covered most of this so I'm not going to rant anymore (I could rant all day about this).

[Mevara]

Originally Posted by victoriana

We're actually classified as minimally structured due to some other rules we have that I haven't talked about on here. Each group can only spend $1000 including t-shirts, food, decorations, etc. No one can have any matching item of clothing. No skits allowed.

I don't think this has much to do with minimal structured recruitment. At the campus I advise we do exactly the same except our budget is $2500.

Originally Posted by victoriana

Plus we have no time limit for PNMs at the parties and they can do pretty much whatever the hell the want and they will not get dropped from recruitment.

This part is what I think needs to change the most as you and others have stated.