Another chapter founder here
I joined a local sorority that had initially been formed with the intention of going national, but the local Panhel hadn't wanted to expand at that time. Being in a small local was a lot of work, even though much of the groundwork had already been laid by the time I joined.
About a year later (after we had a pathetic rush
) Panhel changed its mind, and we decided we needed a national's support. We decided to approach the national we'd wanted all along - AEPhi. (We followed all the NPC guidelines, of course, but our stated preference was AEPhi.) Some of AEPhi's national officers met with us as a group and decided to accept our local as a new colony.
We pledged in February 1995 and were initiated in April, even though we didn't yet have our charter - AEPhi was pushing the new 6-8 week new member program, and that meant we got to be initiated in that timeframe even without a charter. Some great women joined us the following fall, and it was decided that we were now a viable chapter, so after their initiation, we received our charter - in November 1995.
The only irksome thing was that some of the national officers didn't want our Beta NM class to sign the charter.
They worked just as hard as we did, albeit for a shorter amount of time. The compromise reached, was that there are two columns of signatures on the charter: the Alpha sisters (former members of the local) signed under one column, and the Beta sisters signed under the other.
Hybrid Mode
