Retro Recruitment as we wait . . .

[33girl]

This is why importing a chapter is bad bad bad! No matter how small you are!

They would have been better off to start as they meant to go on and say they were looking for a group of girls to rebuild the chapter, rather than waste the rushees' time talking to women who they didn't even go e school with & come across as looking shady.

[IndianaSigKap]

I just had a feeling roomie was a Posh legacy. But what happened to the Scary house? Did they close? Or did they get 15 girls?

[jolene]

I'm confused. Did Beth pledge Posh or Ginger? It sounds like she got a Posh bid and changed her mind. If you drop out of your pledge class, you normally have to wait a year to pledge again. Is Beth the roomie?

[SweetTeaParty]

Sorry, Jolene, I 'm trying not to confuse anyone.

No - - Beth isn't Roomie.

Beth REGRETTED her invite to the Posh Pref party (and pledged Ginger). (Who knows where she would have ended up on Posh's bid list.)

Most PNMs have "Stars in their eyes" (and cotton in their ears) so that when they got an invite to the Posh House Preference Party - - they thought they were going to get a bid - - not so.

The RFM system actually helps with this because if you're not high on their list - - you are released early, in time to consider ALL your options.

What I meant was, "Beth had a perfect invite list (ie, invite to ALL the preference parties) - - and she regretted Posh.

Roomie accepted her Posh bid - - then resigned (and whoever was #20 on their list didn't get a Posh bid because Posh "wasted" it on Roomie - - who NEVER would have made it through to initiation, anyway. I know, they couldn't help it - - Roomie WAS a triple legacy)

[SweetTeaParty]

The next thing to do, National asserted, was to sharpen our interview and conversation skills. Really, a few lessons in this, and most poor recruiters would do better.

So our District Adviser came and spent 2 weeks with us to work on this. She told us that National's plan was for us to have our formal in early March and invite our COB candidates to attend. (Not really a bad idea) We even underwrote the cost of the candidates' tickets so we could truly ask them to come as our guests. We also came up with extra cash to hire a LIVE band (instead of a DJ) and upgrade to a nicer location. The Jr/Soph actives were asked to invite at least one person each – and the Freshmen were asked to invite two.


The Adviser had us to practice, practice, practice engaging in conversation and trying to put others at ease. (What a great life skill!) We had about 10 ladies to accept our dance invitations; From that core group – we had 5 sign up for COB the next week. And, all 5 of them accepted bids.


We were so excited to have actually reached the fall quota. It was the first time in several years. National told us to concentrate on getting to house total – 60? Most members thought that was impossible. But not Beth – she just focused in and said, it CAN be done!

[SweetTeaParty]

We returned to school in the fall ready to start with a recruitment retreat, a first for our chapter. Beth and I were now assistant recruitment chairs and we had spent most of our summer in conversation with our National Office about our image and skills – we broke it to the chapter that there were to be new guidelines we would have to follow.

The biggest change was we were to no longer call ourselves a “Sorority for Non-Sorority Women”. We had to wear letter shirts on designated days and start getting dressed up (INCLUDING our pins) for our weekly meetings (previously, members wore whatever they wanted). You also had to sit at our designated table in the cafeteria for at least one meal each day. And the meal prior to our meeting was REQUIRED, even for those who lived off campus, then we would walk over to our house for a meeting – TOGETHER.

We WERE a sorority, so own it!

Although our skit was bad, we didn't replace it (THAT year) but rehearsals were called several times each week to improve it. It was revamped to be less trashy and beautiful sparkly 1920s style “Flapper” costumes were rented.

In short, we did everything we could think of, including a group of us moving into the “Sorority Dorms” to give us more presence.

[SweetTeaParty]

I think we startled the other groups when we started showing up in our letter shirts to campus events and sitting together in the cafeteria and at football games. Being on the “other side” was a real eye-opener. We could see right away which freshmen the other groups were actually interested in – and which ones we wanted, or didn't think were a good fit. And our new conversation skills were put to the test. Through all of this, the “Sorority for Non-Sorority Girls” was becoming a much closer sisterhood. (Also, a shout out to Sandy, who was now “Assistant Sisterhood Chair” - she worked soooooo hard to build a cohesive sisterhood.)

Recruitment weekend arrived quickly and we went to work. The renovations we had made to our house were quite the conversation with the other GLOs. We now had a very nice house and were competitive with the Sportys and Babys. We didn't fill it with expensive antiques like Posh, but that wasn't our style anyway. One of the member's mother was a caterer - - she made tasty cookies in the shape of our mascot and symbols for our Chapter Party. NONE of the other groups had ever done this.

Beth was in charge of our 'Chapter Night' party. It was revamped and we all had on our new matching GLO jerseys. We celebrated our philanthropy and our sisterhood. We welcomed them in by name and sang our hearts out (in harmony) to those PNMs - - the great thing was, we now believed the sappy, “I love my GLO” songs; we were living the ideals of our founders and we were happy to be a Ginger!!

I worked on Skit night until it was vastly improved. Gone were the trashy costumes and as our self confidence improved, so did our show. We found new skills as we rehearsed – we all learned to tap dance (well, some better than others) and presented quite a different show from the previous year. (We “Razzle-Dazzled” them with “All That Jazz”)

At our preference party, all of our sisterhood work was evident. We were passionate about the love we had for Ginger and our sisters. We could attest to helping each other and growing within the group.

Previously, the Gingers had a very non-emotional presentation as we said, “this is who we are, and what we do. Please join.” Very flat.

We added an emotional symbolic ceremony to the closing of the party; as we were to add our GLOs flower to a vase, we would announce the best thing about our chapter. Of course, we rehearsed it - - but the actual ceremony brought tears to my eyes at every round. Then, as I looked around some of the PNMs were crying too. In fact, we were were ALL tearing up. What a change from the previous year!

[FSUZeta]

I was crying! Hooray for you and AOII!

[AZ-AlphaXi]

Great story. Wonderful writing. Thanks for adding the following year.

[jolene]

If it's cool, I'd love to know who the other orgs were.

[sigmagirl2000]

awesome story. how long ago are we speaking here? (decade?)

[ColdInCanada11]

This has been absolutely brilliant- what an incredible chapter, to make it so far!!

[jolene]

I'm hoping it's long enough ago where she doesn't mind sharing the orgs. I feel bad for Scary. :'(

[33girl]

I have to ask. Did the dressing up for meetings, cafeteria hours etc go over ok with all the older members?

If they did All That Jazz I'm guessing this is 1980ish.

[SweetTeaParty]

Yes, 33.

That's why we had to wait until the new fall semester to implement the "dress codes". Most of the Seniors were so "non-Sorority" that they threatened to resign if we changed THAT much in only a few months.

National just told us to wait them out.

The best thing is the Junior/Soph members were READY for a change. They welcomed the changes - and, OH! the difference it made in our sisterhood.