Chapter Anniversary

[Little E]

Good luck!

I planned my chapter's 5 year anniversary this spring. We went a different route than you seem to be headed.

Friday night: BBQ at the house, (it is a new, college owned house, that we recieved after most of them left) did house tours, some alumns brought presents for the house, so we did that, we had cake, name tags. etc. It was hard with the BBQ to get people to break out of the groups they knew. We have a kinda shy chapter, so unfortunatly a bunch of our sisters just sat in the kitchen and did nothing w/the alumnae, oh well, their loss.

Saturday: We did a 'reaffirmation' ceremony. We essentially made it up, based on our chapter's candle lighting and the nat'l reded ceremony. We wanted something that was more of our chapter, more personable, and one that really incorporated the different levels of membership collegiate/alumna. it also honored our former advisor and current advisor. it was beautiful. then we went to the campus art museum for a brunch and photo ops. We had a professional photographer do the photos and they looked wonderful.

After the brunch, they had like an hour to relax, maybe less, then we held an alumna/collegiate chapter meeting. We went over the state of affairs, and then we gave the alumnae our request for and organized support team and left them to it to plan how the whole shabang was gonna work. They really used the time well and got a lot done. We gave them the petition forms and whatnot, so that got signed and because they were together, they made a ton of progress that would have otherwise taken forever. We gave them our thoughts/concerns and needs and they came out with something that really reflected what our chapter needed.

Finally, (I know, everyone was tired) We had formal that night and the alumnae were invited, we gave some special awards to those alumnae who were especially giving that year, and then we had the founders cut our anniversary cake, and we partied.

It was pretty tiring, but everyone really had a great time and we got to reconnect with our alumnae. One thing we have thought about, as we began to plan, ie set a date for, our 10 year, is that people will at that point have kids and husbands. So the affair that we had will need to be altered. We set our next date for homecomign 2009, lol it was pretty funny to see the faces of the alumnae when we set that. I guess they found our rational funny, (husbands and kids). I would definatly take that into consideration. But also don't forget to use the chance to ask the chapter what they need and what the alumnae can do for them. It is hard, esp as a young chapter to learn to ask, but also how to ask. Ok sorry this is so long and possibly incoherent! Let me know if you'd like to know more!

oh yea! We did this on a horribly tight budget. I had $500 for Friday and Saturday (we only had 30 alumnae back, though considering we only have 50ish not too bad). Then we did formal on $250 with tickets at $30 for alumnae, $25 for actives and $20 for dates. Then we had about $500 from alumnae in parlor fees.