ok so i just have to post to tell yall about how amazing things have turned out for our chapter over formal recruitment and this past week!
i should preface.... our chapter consists of the 'normal' girls' on our campus - we have an amazing sisterhood and have alot of fun - but for some reason just didn't have the allure that the others do... the thing that seems to go around during formal is "oh yeah they're nice buy you'd rather be an abc or xyz, etc" however, we really have had impressive growth since my freshman year... while quota my freshman year was 21 (the largest it's been in YEARS and went down to 14 or so the past two after that) my sorority pledged 9 sisters... while the other three chapters made quota. now, we've always managed to cor up to quota over the course of the following semester or so (i was cor'ed a month and a half after formal my freshman year) which has helped us but has been an incredible amount of work for the chapter. we've always been constantly having cor events, and the chapter's heart isn't always in it by the end of the semester...
so, on to the present.... this past formal recruitment went from jan. 13 - 18, and while i'm home for the semester taking classes here, i got to go up for first nite, fourth nite and bid day...
we seemed to do really well first and second nite - the overall theme for recruitment was candyland - it's never been sweeter to go greek - and we used our gingerbread letters from the shirts for some decorations and nametags and the girls thought it was cute.... for philanthropy we decorated ornaments to send to ronald mcdonald house for next year (it's a great craft - the girls like decorating, and it's Cheap to get clearanced ornaments after the holidays!) and they could hang the ornaments on a few trees we had around the room... well third nite (skit nite) comes around and our returns are pretty much the same as always - well, we think, at least they didnt' go down, and the women coming back are awesome
.... the skit goes really well (we did grease, with the girl characters, sandy wants to go adpi - and the pink ladies decide that yeah, adpi is cool enough for them too) the girls were heard to say that we really looked like we enjoyed one another and had fun with one another etc...
well we get our acceptances for fourth nite back on the off day before pref and THEY WENT DOWN. yeah. one of my close sisters, the formal chair was pretty sad about it. but we thought hey chin up -- the girls coming back are the top of the list of who we want and we are going to rock this pref and every girl there will want US. well, we are getting back 16 girls for pref... and quota going into pref is 16. wow. we don't know what will happen. well thanks to an amazing tcc and her wonderful ideas for the little details and the amazing spirit of our sisters, and with fate on our side COMPLETELY (timing was amazing, lets just put it that way, our party started late and the sigma rho chi's knocked for us to end the party while we were still doing the ceremony - but at a PERFECT part where it totally looked like we planned it that way).
so the next day we turn up early in the suite to get ready for runout (an allegheny tradition for bid day) and we finally hear the numbers and who we've got..... bid matching took FOREVER and snap bidding went way later than planned.... and it turns out that while quota was sixteen, ONLY ONE CHAPTER MADE QUOTA off the bat.... AND the other two sororities got 13 girls each and WE GOT 12!!!!! and we definitely got women that wanted us and put us as their #1 choice, and got women that the other chapters really wanted (including someone else's legacy).... we got 12 women that fit in with the sorority amazingly well and will be wonderful sisters
bid day went extremely well - they recognized the past panhel council and as i stood up in front of the women of the sororities at our bid day bash i looked over them and realized that while we are the smallest (though not by much now!) sorority, we had the most members in attendence.... and we looked so good! we didn't look like cookie cutter girls, even though we all had on the same bid day shirts, we were all paying attention and being polite (which i can't say for all the groups) and when we were dancing and having fun during the party, we were truly having fun with one another, as well as mingling with the other sororities -- while people in the some of the other groups sat around and didn't interact, even with their own members... i was so proud...
now cor right after formal recruitment is something that the chapter has opposed to in the past - they feel that it's the new members time - and we shouldn't push numbers so soon after recruitment when we have such a great group of new members, but our tcc really helped out and said that with being only four away from quota there's no reason not to have two sisterhood events and try to fill those spots within the first week - that way we won't have to worry about it for the REST of the semester - for the first time in years - and there was no reason that it couldn't be approached to the new members in a positive way so that they could bring prospective women that they would want as sisters too.... so we had two events this past week, gave bids yesterday afternoon, and we have 4 new alphas as of today!!!!
we met quota, we should now be at total for the first time in a few years and the women we picked up are awesome! including a friend of mine who is a junior and made my nite last nite when she told me that she was going to accept her bid -- she's had adpi written all over her since the beginning, but never wanted to rush and now she's going to be my sister!
i honestly couldn't be happier, and it's the greatest feeling in the world to know that all of the hard work and belief that you have in your chapter have paid off and that the campus has noticed.... we're the only sorority that cor'ed this past week, so we're the first of the three groups that didn't make quota to cor up to it.... i'm just so proud i hope you all don't mind my amazingly long story but i just had to share how happy i am
see...
so glad!
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