Do many people join Greek organizations that aren't Nationals?

[yellowrose890]

I know no offense was meant by any one here (at least I hope not), but I just have to chime in. This is going to be a very long message, so bear with me.

I went through recruitment at a school that had a local among a few other sororities. When I went through recruitment, I got to meet a wide variety of girls who were from different backgrounds and who were all fairly pleasant and who I truly liked. However, like many of you have all previously experienced, there was one house that I fell in love with right away. One house shined just a little brighter to me because I felt an instant connection to the girls. I still liked the girls in the other houses, but the girls in that one sorority just made me feel at home. I knew this was the house for me and when it came to signing my pref card, I only put that sorority down. The next day I received a bid. Flash forward a couple of years. I am currently a senior in my last semester of college and there has never been even a millisecond where I regretted my decision to join a local sorority.

For those of you who question local sorority pledging processes, my sorority completely bans hazing. Aside from the fact that hazing is completely unnecessary to make the lifelong bonds of sisterhood, we feel that because we do not have a national organization to back us up in case of legal problems or issues with the school, it is too much of a risk to even consider doing something that could be considered hazing. So just know that there are some locals out there that don’t haze.

For the next point that we might not have super meaningful rituals or traditions. Our sorority has a fairly long history. We were originally a national sorority. However, we broke away due to significant disagreements. We have repeatedly been given the chance to re-affiliate with our national (by the national itself) but have chosen not to because we love our rituals and our sisterhood and we feel that it would be so painful to give that up. The traditions and history of my sorority are incredibly important to me. I am not kidding when I say that I get incredibly emotional during our rituals because I am so moved. I think about how hard it was for my sisters to stand up for something they believed in and to take a chance to create something new and beautiful (please don’t take this as me bashing national sororities, it was just a different time). We have had founding sisters come and visit our house and it is just such a meaningful experience for both sides. It is amazing for me to meet my sisters who created our rituals and traditions and it is amazing for them to come back and see how much we’ve flourished.

The next point I'd like to address goes into how our chapter functions. We have a house. We have a cook. As a former treasurer, I was in charge of creating and maintaining two different budgets. One budget is for dues and our other budget is for our meal plan. I was in charge of paying our cook and working with our accountant when it came to her payroll taxes. I was in charge of paying bills. We have two separate bank accounts. We also work with an insurance company for our sorority that covers any events we might have . Since our school owns our house (that is a crazy story I’ll have to share at a later date), they are in charge of the insurance costs for anything that happens inside the house. We used to have a house resident, but in the mid-90’s our house resident wrote a report to the school that essentially said she trusted us to be on our own. We still have a school security guard walk through the first floor at 11pm and 3 am to make sure everything is okay.

Now my favorite part… Okay, we don’t have hundreds of thousands of alums around the country. I am too tired to count the composites, but I’m going to make a rough estimate that we have over 1,500 alums. Yes, that’s a lot smaller, but that doesn’t make it any less important. It’s a small world. I have a friend studying abroad in Europe who met an alumna of my sorority walking down the street. I was in the airport the other week and met an aunt of an alumna. It’s still possible to make those connections. For personal experience in applying for a job, I am working with 3 sisters next year who put in a good word for me. One of my friends just got an internship working at another sister’s company. It is still possible. Please don’t think that just because there are fewer local sorority alums we aren’t able to have that same instant connection or that we aren’t able to reap the benefits of sorority membership. At our Alumnae Weekends, we have alums come from across the country. We are currently working on a 5 year plan to make significant renovations on our house. Our alums are very active and involved.

I’m sorry this is so long, but I just had to say something. If you have any questions about anything feel free to PM me!

[33girl]

Originally Posted by yellowrose890

The next point I'd like to address goes into how our chapter functions. We have a house. We have a cook. As a former treasurer, I was in charge of creating and maintaining two different budgets. One budget is for dues and our other budget is for our meal plan. I was in charge of paying our cook and working with our accountant when it came to her payroll taxes.

Just to clarify, I didn't mean that the OP's group didn't have a housemother/cook/etc because they were local, I meant that they didn't because I doubt that anyone on that particular campus does.

[Titchou]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Just to clarify, I didn't mean that the OP's group didn't have a housemother/cook/etc because they were local, I meant that they didn't because I doubt that anyone on that particular campus does.

And I was just talking general concerns that I would have with any local - not OP's specific chapter. Her original post was generic and therefore so was my answer.

[yellowrose890]

Originally Posted by Titchou

And I was just talking general concerns that I would have with any local - not OP's specific chapter. Her original post was generic and therefore so was my answer.

I figured you were generalizing so I wanted to explain how one particular local handles those things

[adpiucf]

I think it is a lot easier to say one's organization does things better than another, whether you are local or national. We're a self-selecting group on this board who are very proud of the organizations we have joined and which we contribute our time and efforts to.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by adpiucf

I think it is a lot easier to say one's organization does things better than another, whether you are local or national. We're a self-selecting group on this board who are very proud of the organizations we have joined and which we contribute our time and efforts to.

I disagree. If you're saying that your [and I mean your in the general sense, not as in adpiucf] organization does things better, it's probably a sign of hubris unless you have real insight into how other groups operate.

Now, I know for a fact that on a national organizational level and in terms of property management expertise, ADPi runs circles around my own organization. The amount of guidance we get on our house corporation is that we should probably start one, but no one at HQ really can be of much help because corporate and not-for-profit laws vary from place to place.

A couple of times here recently, I was ramping up my own chapter's House Corporation, leases, subleases and whatnot because it looked like we might acquire some property. Most of my information came from a couple of very helpful sorority members from GC and from my undergrad days who now sit on their House Corp boards and it was far better than anything I could have come up with on my own.

It seems like I've digressed, but I haven't.

With respect to property management, I pretty much understand what it's like to be a local. You have to reinvent the wheel. From my direct experience with a couple of major NPC groups, NPC groups do not have that. They have tried and true organizational approaches to similar problems, they have a deep bench of alumnae volunteers networked across the nation.

My first rule these days in approaching any property related issue is to find out how an NPC group would handle that and then emulate that as best I can.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Kevin

With respect to property management, I pretty much understand what it's like to be a local. You have to reinvent the wheel. From my direct experience with a couple of major NPC groups, NPC groups do not have that. They have tried and true organizational approaches to similar problems, they have a deep bench of alumnae volunteers networked across the nation.

My first rule these days in approaching any property related issue is to find out how an NPC group would handle that and then emulate that as best I can.

Right, and don't forget, the NPC groups are pretty open with sharing stuff, helping each other out, etc. While obviously there is inter-group competition on different campuses, at the national level, there's a pretty decent amount of sharing best practices and such, and locals just can't compete with that type of strength in numbers.

[adpiucf]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I disagree. If you're saying that your [and I mean your in the general sense, not as in adpiucf] organization does things better, it's probably a sign of hubris unless you have real insight into how other groups operate.

OP is clearly a collegiate member. The AVERAGE collegiate member who isn't here to gripe about their chapter (not a Greek Chat alumni member who is likely super involved with their organization and is very aware of other groups' policies and practices) will think that their organization does things better. They have no other experience and little insight into what other groups are doing aside from what they may hear on the street.

At the end of the day, this thread serves no purpose other than locals defending themselves and national groups asserting the benefits of national membership.