How Do You Present Bids during COB?

[Kansas City]

Originally Posted by KappaKittyCat

The chapter president and membership chair just showed up at my door with my bid. It was pretty laid back.

This is how I've known it to be done since my chapter doesn't have to COB much. There is usually not a big production out of it since there is only one or two members taken through COB. The chapter will try and make the new COB members feel special and appreciated but it isn't anything too formal.

[lindz0722]

When I joined, the president and VP membership came to my dorm room with my bid card and one cream rose. After I signed my bid, I got a candy-covered poster with "Delta Gamma <3 Lindsey" on my door like the other girls in my new member class. I think it was a good cross between not dirty rushing and still making me feel welcome and included once I accepted.

[ASTalumna06]

Thanks everyone for your responses

Originally Posted by lindz0722

After I signed my bid, I got a candy-covered poster with "Delta Gamma <3 Lindsey" on my door like the other girls in my new member class. I think it was a good cross between not dirty rushing and still making me feel welcome and included once I accepted.

This is a cute idea. These are the kinds of ideas we're looking for. Since we only do COB, have a designated bid day, and need to give the girls 24 hours for them to sign their bids, it makes it difficult to try and make things special.

In terms of "surprising" girls, the only thing I could think to do would be to give out bids the day before bid day.

[Buttonz]

The local that I pledged before SDT only does COB. What they do is they have informal events and they tell you if you are going to get a bid you'll receive a call by a certain date. I only went to one event, the last one, so I didn't think I'd get a bid. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from the sister who I talked to all summer who convinced me to go to the last event telling me that I received a bid and if I wanted to accept to be at so and so's house Sat night. (commuter campus). Out of the 8 of us offered bids, 7 showed up.

For SDT, I joined through COB. I was just told what time to be at the library to sign my card, it wasn't done as a big deal. For classes after ours, it depended if we knew in advance that we would have a lot of COB's (like 3 girls who were going to go us who couldn't make Bid Day because of work), we'd do dinner and balloons and stuff, or not. We usually just did a nice dinner once we had the whole class.

[sherryanne]

If bid day for COB is on a certain day, how is it possible that chapters can extend bids throughout the semester? Is it only in the case that they don't make quota/total?

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by sherryanne

If bid day for COB is on a certain day, how is it possible that chapters can extend bids throughout the semester? Is it only in the case that they don't make quota/total?

Let’s see how I can explain this...

We don’t have quota and we only bid to total. Total is at 40. In terms of numbers, the chapters are all over the place. I’ve seen one of them hit total a couple times since I’ve been around (the last 5 years), I’ve seen another hit it once, and my chapter hasn’t at all. Since I was initiated, we’ve never had more than 19 sisters (but hopefully that will change this semester!)

So... Panhellenic designates approximately two weeks for recruitment. Bid day is always on a Tuesday (why this is the case, I’m not really sure). Bid day is designated as such because it essentially ends the period of “formal recruitment”. It isn’t a formal system, it’s just the period of time when all recruitment dates are to be submitted for approval through Panhellenic.

In April and November, each of the three chapters submits ideal nights and times for the following semester’s recruitment events to Panhellenic. The recruitment dates are reviewed, and if there are any conflicts, chapters will reschedule. Because there is no formal recruitment, Panhellenic tries to make sure that none of the sororities are holding parties on the same nights at the same time, so that PNMs are able to go to parties for all of the chapters. Sometimes sororities will have events on the same night, but they try to space out the times (one chapter’s party starts at 7:30, another one is at 8, another one is at 8:30). They’ll probably all overlap, but it gives time for PNMs to see all of the sororities that they wish (although they aren’t required to see all three).

So for example: This semester, we had our Kick-Off Recruitment Event (the one event where any PNMs that show up HAVE to attend all three parties), which was on Thursday, January 15th. Starting on Monday, January 19th, each chapter would hold their own individual recruitment parties. Any PNM can go. It isn’t by invite. Monday, February 2nd would mark two weeks of “formal recruitment”, and Tuesday, February 3rd is Bid Day. Basically, the chapters usually know who they’re bidding by that date, and the PNMs who have been coming around a lot know it to be as such.

Sometimes though, we hold more events after that. When my chapter has had an after-bid-day event in the past, we would have planned it the previous semester as a ‘just in case’, but we don’t always use it. And if we do, it’s usually because a PNM showed up to the last scheduled recruitment party, and it was the first one they attended. So we would hold that extra event to try and get to know her better. And that event didn’t need to be submitted through Panhellenic because it fell after Bid Day.

Hopefully that all made sense!