Help me save my chapter, danger of losing it

[gtdxeric]

QFP

Originally Posted by tkeman89

A brief history of my chapter:

We were restarted in 2005 and I pledged in 2006 because the guys in the frat were really excited to be founding fathers and promise of making my name and holding leadership positions excited me.

My first year, everything seemed to be going great. We were a new house on the block and everyone considered us rising fraternity, we captured 3 of the 8 IFC seats because no one really considered us a threat and old rivalries caused people to look at us as a compromise.

Sororities were starting to look at us and we were doing good at getting events, but we never really had a good amount of guys to build solid relations. We had GFB, a medium tier sorority, become very close with us and would come hang out at our house every once in a while.

My first year I had a blast. We had great brotherhood and solid events for a new chapter, decent sorority relations, IFC representation, and solid guys.

Unfortunately it all began to change by my 2nd year. Putting pressure on us to recruit and grow, nationals forced a quota of a 30 man pledge class for fall of 2007. We literally had to scramble, as our chapter was about 35 people deep and we were looking at doubling the pledge class over one quarter. We bid 30 people and crossed 25 this year, but unfortunatly due to the large demands a lot of them were not exactly TKE material. I like all my brothers but by the end of my 2nd year it seemed a schism had developed between the people who were down to drink and party and those who were more intellectually inclined. This started to give us the reputation of being a "nerd/creeper" house that followed us throughout the year. During our spring recruitment we only pulled in 5 guys, because we didn't recruit well enough and our reputation really hurt us during rush.

During this year our reputation plunged as low as it can go. Houses who had 15-20 guys consistently had a better rep than us. Sororities stopped hanging out with us and we had little money to throw raids or big parties. Everything fell short, people didn't pull their weight. Every event we threw was horrible: parties became saussage fests, brotherhood events started to be very empty, and less than half of the chapter attended our meetings.

Me and the other brothers saw what was happening and over summer worked our butts off and worked hard for the fraternity, determined and well believing that next year's fall rush would bring us back on track. We had never worked this hard before but unfortunately we were only able to pull 19 men during fall. To make things even more complicated, some of the better guys in our chapter unexpectedly dropped over summer: brotherhood chair, and pledge ed quit, as well as a handful of other members citing money issues.

The 19 guys we recruited were solid guys, but then they started dropping one by one. All claimed that there was not enough time for a frat or they didn't have money, but the truth of the matter was that it was obvious our fraternity was doing poorly. We have 10 pledges left and 1 is likely going to drop before initiation in 2 weeks.

To complicate things, most of the house has become apathetic and several key members have said they will likely drop the house by the end of the year.

Brotherhood is at an all time low, as losing all of these members has made us too poor to put on any events.

The same is said of sorority events. We have had 1 in house raid this quarter and only %30 of the chapter showed up. The sorority has already stated that they pissed off that only a few guys came and they felt stupid bringing their own chapter and will likely not do events with us again: And this was the only sorority willing to do events with us.

Right now, everything is looking bleak. Dues collections are not up to date and several members owe us a lot of money but ignore requests to contact or collect.

If we continue like this it will mean that we will probably have a membership review or nationals is going to come pull the plug and restart. Right now we're actually lying to them so they don't see how many people have dropped the chapter.

Of the remaining people, I can probably say that 5% are hardworking and still dedicated, 50% are meh, and 45% are close to dropping because we aren't doing much.

Or reputation is still very bad though it has recovered from last year because we recruited a good looking pledge class and our social chair has been good with contacting sororities and trying to maintain some sort of relations. Unfortunately we have so little money that we can't throw many events and when we do throw them less than half of our chapter shows up.

This has been a nightmare and headache for me personally, and I am feeling my personal life has begun to suffer with all this trouble. I do not wear my letters around school anymore because of our bad rep. and I find that I get farther with girls if I don't mention I'm in TKE.

Sorry if I come off as superficial or stupid, but I really do want to save my chapter. If we don't fix this my chapter is finished or will become like one of the many 15-20 man chapters on my campus and both of these situations are bad.

Can anyone help ?

[nittanyalum]

Can you pull in alums? Are the guys who restarted it still around or in touch? How about alums from the past? If you don't want to go to your HQ, try to find local alums that might be able to pitch in.

[PANTHERTEKE]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Can you pull in alums? Are the guys who restarted it still around or in touch? How about alums from the past? If you don't want to go to your HQ, try to find local alums that might be able to pitch in.

I have a strong feeling I know which chapter the OP is from, and if I'm right, then no.

[RU OX Alum]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Can you pull in alums? Are the guys who restarted it still around or in touch? How about alums from the past? If you don't want to go to your HQ, try to find local alums that might be able to pitch in.

from the way i read it, the guys that re-started it are all still undergrad


it's really nothing that out of a place for a new/ recently re-established chapter

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by RU OX Alum

from the way i read it, the guys that re-started it are all still undergrad

If this was true, then all of the guys who helped re-instate the chapter would, for the most part, have had to have been freshmen at the time, and I highly doubt that's the case.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

If this was true, then all of the guys who helped re-instate the chapter would, for the most part, have had to have been freshmen at the time, and I highly doubt that's the case.

Or they could be on the 5/6/7 year plan. (I'm going with this scenario.)

[fantASTic]

Honestly...it looks to me like you need to tell HQ what's going on. You can hardly be worse off, right? And considering you just colonized, I doubt very much they will shut you down.

[fivestarpikapp]

Coincidentally, through out my "greek life career." We had a similar problem. The Chapter was falling apart, low membership, and we were in debt with nationals. Nationals wanted to shut us down. To solve your problem, you need to have a step by step process based on priority on what it needs. What we did was:

First recruit people who follow what the leaders of your organization. Recruitment at this point is definately more important than anything else.

Next slowly figure out everything else afterwards. If you have money problems, solve that next. Then start doing things based on what your fraternity believes in.

Keep in mind, every fraternity never started on the top. Reputations come and go, and you always have time to rebuild your reputation on campus. When you guys start having that confidence when your fraternity is doing well, then your reputation will slowly redevelop.

[CdnPhratBoy]

Wow. I would really love to hear how this worked out for you. Considering that i'm part of a local that is possibly thinking of going national.

[tkeman89]

Regarding our alums, we have had a couple of Alumni events with decent success. Most of the alums are really old .. from the 60-70-80s and none of them appear too rich or involved, none of them donated though we never asked regardless. Sorry - relying on alums isn't gonna help the chapter at all.

[lucgreek]

Originally Posted by tkeman89

Regarding our alums, we have had a couple of Alumni events with decent success. Most of the alums are really old .. from the 60-70-80s and none of them appear too rich or involved, none of them donated though we never asked regardless. Sorry - relying on alums isn't gonna help the chapter at all.

A strong alumni base is a backbone for a strong chapter. Saying that relying on the alumni base won't help the chapter makes it seem like you don't really want things to work out...

[33girl]

Originally Posted by lucgreek

A strong alumni base is a backbone for a strong chapter. Saying that relying on the alumni base won't help the chapter makes it seem like you don't really want things to work out...

I agree. A chapter up at my school is recolonizing and considering the history I NEVER thought the alums would get behind it...but the men recolonizing reached out and the alums definitely have. It was one instance where I was really happy to be proven wrong.

You (tkeman not lucgreek) sound like the only thing you think alumni are good for is monetary donations. Get out of this mindset immediately - especially since your problems have zero to do with money. TELL THEM WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE CHAPTER. Don't sugarcoat it. They want to help - they don't want their names on a chapter full of wabols and slackers. They may have more and better ideas than you could imagine.

[RaggedyAnn]

Originally Posted by tkeman89

Regarding our alums, we have had a couple of Alumni events with decent success. Most of the alums are really old .. from the 60-70-80s and none of them appear too rich or involved, none of them donated though we never asked regardless. Sorry - relying on alums isn't gonna help the chapter at all.

Those really old alum have business connections and life experience. They would have also been around when fraternities were called "secret societies" during the war, so had to struggle with their own recruitment issues. They may not contribute to a "social" fund, but they still can contribute to the chapter.

[SWTXBelle]

Your nationals needs to be part of the solution. I guarantee you they've dealt with similar situations, and can give you the support you need. They want their chapters to be strong - and I can't believe they will let you fail (especially so soon after chartering) without trying to help. Part of that support may be alumni advisor's - alumns with experience who are willing to mentor the officers and provide support (perhaps including financial, but perhaps not.)

One big difference I have noted between sororities and fraternities is the involvement of alumni advisors. Sororities tend to have alumnae boards - advisers for recruitment, finances, etc. - while quite often fraternities have one alum who is a faculty member who signs off on the required university paperwork, and that's all. Guidance from those who've been around the block a few times can be useful. 'Fess up to nationals and ask for help - that's my advice.