Tips for getting elected recruitment chair for a weak recruiting chapter?

[Titchou]

Originally Posted by sisterlylove

Thanks for your response I will start making more of an effort when I wear letters- I don't think I ever look like a complete slob going to class but I usually wear my letters with my hair up and leggings. Even if I wear them with Nike shorts like other chapters on my campus, I could make sure that my hair and makeup look pristine.

What do you mean by account models?

You're reading it incorrectly. She's saying to be sure any social media accounts you may have reflect positively on you and your group.

[sisterlylove]

Originally Posted by Titchou

You're reading it incorrectly. She's saying to be sure any social media accounts you may have reflect positively on you and your group.

Gotcha- thank you! Hopefully our new social media chair will do a better job- our current one does not even post more than once a month and I think it could make a difference. I have thought about running for social media as a backup but I would so much rather have recruitment!

[Titchou]

We're talking about even your personal social media accounts...

[sisterlylove]

Originally Posted by Titchou

We're talking about even your personal social media accounts...

We've had talks about this at chapter- we haven't had any major issues (our standards chair asks people to take pictures down if necessary) and our risk manager has talked about how to represent ourselves well!

[ComradesTrue]

Originally Posted by sisterlylove

We've had talks about this at chapter- we haven't had any major issues (our standards chair asks people to take pictures down if necessary) and our risk manager has talked about how to represent ourselves well!

No she doesn't mean that.

What she was saying is use your own social media accounts to constantly PR for your chapter. Show you and your sisters in letters. Post photos of your sisterhood, philanthropy, and social events. Comment about how much you love your chapter, as well as what an encouragement your sisters are to you. Brag on the accomplishments of your chapter and individual sisters, etc. Show everything that is special about your chapter and its members. In other words, the types of messages, and frequency, that should be going out over the chapter's social media can be sent out via your own accounts to accomplish the same thing. Make them your own personal testament and recruiting tool!

It may even be more effective that way. First, your accounts will reach your own sisters who will see your excitement and passion for the chapter. They will see how you understand that PR and social media is part of the (year-round) recruitment process. Perhaps your enthusiasm will be contagious and other members will also share in the PR blitz on their social media. Now you are a trendsetter!

Even more importantly your personal accounts are going to reach your non-Greek friends who may have their interest piqued about your chapter. This includes people on your campus as well as high school friends who may be PNMs at your school next year. In addition, it will reach your Greek friends who may not realize everything that is special about your chapter. THAT is how opinions can change.

Good luck and now get to work!!

[FSUZeta]

If you feel that the other greek chapters talk badly about your chapter, kill them with kindness. Bake cookies for each chapter to welcome them back to school, "The sisters of ABC welcome the sisters of EF back to campus. Here's to a great year,". Send them a written note of congratulations when appropriate:" Congratulations to the women of GHI on winning Homecoming Sweepstakes. Your float design was so creative and your school spirit was inspiring. Sincerely, the sisters of ABC." Send congratulations on their chapter anniversary and their founders' day.

Support others' philanthropies. Make sure they know you all are supporting them.

If you have sorority houses where meals are served, perhaps you could initiate an exchange dinner program. On a designated night "x" number of ABCs go to the YZ house and the same number of YZs go to the ABC house. You have designated sisters in the foyer to greet the YZs. Treat it as a rush event. (The chapter members can hone their rush skills) Your goal is to show the YZs what a great sisterhood you have and how happy you are to get to know them. This is done once a month. It is a great way for the sororities to get to know one another outside of competitions. If you don't have houses, your sorority could plan a sisterhood event with another chapter. Do one every month with a different chapter.

Make it hard for them to say unkind things about your chapter.

[LAblondeGPhi]

Originally Posted by sisterlylove

Would it be a bad idea to mention possibly changing this when I'm trying to get elected? I don't want to make any empty promises, but if this is something that actually could happen I would like to do it.

Yes - this is a bad idea. I doubt you'll be able to change how may women you're allowed to invite back. You'd be making empty promises to your chapter, and telling your recruitment advisor that you don't know what you're talking about.

As far as social media - quality over quantity. I doubt you'll get a whole lot of return with your target demographic - PNMs - by beefing up your social media that much. By all means, make clean up the content: make sure the photos you post are great photos with lots of well-put-together, smiling sisters doing fun activities. Highlight the fun activities the chapter is doing, etc. But think about this: the other chapters and students on campus aren't judging your chapter by your social media, they're judging it by personal interactions they have with your sisters every day. Likewise, the PNMs will be most influenced by their personal interaction with your chapter during recruitment and during the school year; next, they may be influenced by tent talk/reputation; next, outside experience with your organization (friends and family, etc.)

I understand your pain on getting women to get on board with conversation practice. I find that most "conversation practice" can be silly and boring: lots of partnering up with each other and practicing fake conversations. Most women wind up goofing off during these workshops.

Instead, think of ways to incorporate people from outside the chapter:
-Other sororities on campus
-Other chapters in your region
-Alumnae

The best practice is with women outside the chapter.

Also, figure out more fun workshops, and/or workshops where the girls have to do the practice. Examples:
-Group women in groups of 4-5. Have two sisters practice a mock conversation in front of the others, and have the others give helpful critique afterward. Rotate through the group.

-Group women in groups of 4-10 for "popcorn conversation": have someone lead the group by saying something a PNM might say in conversation (ex: I'm a sociology major), and then point to a sister to have her come up with something interesting to say or ask related to THAT fact. Then point to another sister for the same fact, and so on. I find that poor conversationalists have a hard time using the information that the other person has said to ask follow-up questions or give interesting follow-up anecdotes. The point of conversation is to get onto interesting tangents via give-and-take, but nervous people tend to just fire off a lot of random questions without LISTENING to the other person, OR they go off talking about something the PNM doesn't care about.

Also - talk to the recruitment chairs of the closest chapters of your organization for ideas. Talk to your recruitment advisor, etc.

[IndianaSigKap]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

If you feel that the other greek chapters talk badly about your chapter, kill them with kindness. Bake cookies for each chapter to welcome them back to school, "The sisters of ABC welcome the sisters of EF back to campus. Here's to a great year,". Send them a written note of congratulations when appropriate:" Congratulations to the women of GHI on winning Homecoming Sweepstakes. Your float design was so creative and your school spirit was inspiring. Sincerely, the sisters of ABC." Send congratulations on their chapter anniversary and their founders' day.

This^^ is excellent advice. Be the chapter that sends positivity out there. One of the chapters in my organization is great with twitter. They routinely congratulate other chapters on awards, wish them a happy founder's day, retweet philanthropy events on campus. They wish everyone good luck on finals. They RT any mentions they get from other chapters.

They also use instagram for promoting the chapter. Look to other chapters in your national organization to see what they do. I am sure there are some excellent examples within your own organization.

[33girl]

If you end up with more PNMs at the first rounds of parties than you have sisters, do NOT assign 2-3 PNMs to talk to one sister. We get complaints about this on GC all the time from women going through rush - there's usually one PNM who dominates the conversation and the other two are left out, so you have 2 bad things happening: PNMs feel left out and sisters don't get to talk to PNMs. Instead, keep sisters in groups of 3 and bring 4-5 PNMs to the conversation. The sisters need to keep on point with making sure all PNMs are included - and it's easier for 3 sisters to do this than just one.

[sisterlylove]

Originally Posted by Titchou

We're talking about even your personal social media accounts...

Originally Posted by ComradesTrue

No she doesn't mean that.

What she was saying is use your own social media accounts to constantly PR for your chapter. Show you and your sisters in letters. Post photos of your sisterhood, philanthropy, and social events. Comment about how much you love your chapter, as well as what an encouragement your sisters are to you. Brag on the accomplishments of your chapter and individual sisters, etc. Show everything that is special about your chapter and its members. In other words, the types of messages, and frequency, that should be going out over the chapter's social media can be sent out via your own accounts to accomplish the same thing. Make them your own personal testament and recruiting tool!

It may even be more effective that way. First, your accounts will reach your own sisters who will see your excitement and passion for the chapter. They will see how you understand that PR and social media is part of the (year-round) recruitment process. Perhaps your enthusiasm will be contagious and other members will also share in the PR blitz on their social media. Now you are a trendsetter!

Even more importantly your personal accounts are going to reach your non-Greek friends who may have their interest piqued about your chapter. This includes people on your campus as well as high school friends who may be PNMs at your school next year. In addition, it will reach your Greek friends who may not realize everything that is special about your chapter. THAT is how opinions can change.

Good luck and now get to work!!

Definitely agree! If I am elected I will encourage everyone to do this. I do this myself a little bit, like at least one post a month, but I definitely could do more and be more specific about which sorority I'm in. I fully admit to not advertising my own philanthropy because I don't want to annoy people on facebook but if other people do it I don't see why I should have a problem with it!

Thanks so much

[sisterlylove]

Originally Posted by LAblondeGPhi

I understand your pain on getting women to get on board with conversation practice. I find that most "conversation practice" can be silly and boring: lots of partnering up with each other and practicing fake conversations. Most women wind up goofing off during these workshops.

Instead, think of ways to incorporate people from outside the chapter:
-Other sororities on campus
-Other chapters in your region
-Alumnae

The best practice is with women outside the chapter.

Also, figure out more fun workshops, and/or workshops where the girls have to do the practice. Examples:
-Group women in groups of 4-5. Have two sisters practice a mock conversation in front of the others, and have the others give helpful critique afterward. Rotate through the group.

-Group women in groups of 4-10 for "popcorn conversation": have someone lead the group by saying something a PNM might say in conversation (ex: I'm a sociology major), and then point to a sister to have her come up with something interesting to say or ask related to THAT fact. Then point to another sister for the same fact, and so on. I find that poor conversationalists have a hard time using the information that the other person has said to ask follow-up questions or give interesting follow-up anecdotes. The point of conversation is to get onto interesting tangents via give-and-take, but nervous people tend to just fire off a lot of random questions without LISTENING to the other person, OR they go off talking about something the PNM doesn't care about.

Agreed with what you said about social media- I think we need to post more often though because the current chair only posts about initiation, big events like senior night, and philanthropy. We need to get sisterhood events, socials, and small things on there as well!

I LOVE your ideas for conversation practice, especially with having girls judge mock conversations AND participate in them. If no one is giving feedback about conversations, no one can improve.

[sisterlylove]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

If you feel that the other greek chapters talk badly about your chapter, kill them with kindness. Bake cookies for each chapter to welcome them back to school, "The sisters of ABC welcome the sisters of EF back to campus. Here's to a great year,". Send them a written note of congratulations when appropriate:" Congratulations to the women of GHI on winning Homecoming Sweepstakes. Your float design was so creative and your school spirit was inspiring. Sincerely, the sisters of ABC." Send congratulations on their chapter anniversary and their founders' day.

Support others' philanthropies. Make sure they know you all are supporting them.

If you have sorority houses where meals are served, perhaps you could initiate an exchange dinner program. On a designated night "x" number of ABCs go to the YZ house and the same number of YZs go to the ABC house. You have designated sisters in the foyer to greet the YZs. Treat it as a rush event. (The chapter members can hone their rush skills) Your goal is to show the YZs what a great sisterhood you have and how happy you are to get to know them. This is done once a month. It is a great way for the sororities to get to know one another outside of competitions. If you don't have houses, your sorority could plan a sisterhood event with another chapter. Do one every month with a different chapter.

Make it hard for them to say unkind things about your chapter.

I am not sure if things like the cookies happen because that is up to the girls who live in the house (there are 6 of them), but I THINK that happens currently so that's good! I don't know how much it's doing though. As far as I have heard people think we're really nice, but they think that we're weird and give bids to everyone who wants one.

We had an issue with philanthropies this year being on the same day but I am on Panhellenic and our VP of communication is trying to fix that. She wants to make a calendar that will have everyone's events because this semester, three sororities had events on the same day (ours being one of them so none of our girls could attend the other ones)

I am sisterhood chair of panhellenic and I started a thing called chapter-to-chapter bonds. Each semester, every sorority is assigned to another sorority and they must have a social together. I got really good feedback from this so hopefully when we do it again we'll keep creating better relationships with the other sororities! We do have houses but they aren't like in the south where there is a chef and everything- it's only slightly fancier than regular campus housing.

This is definitely great advice- I'll keep working on it

[sisterlylove]

Originally Posted by 33girl

If you end up with more PNMs at the first rounds of parties than you have sisters, do NOT assign 2-3 PNMs to talk to one sister. We get complaints about this on GC all the time from women going through rush - there's usually one PNM who dominates the conversation and the other two are left out, so you have 2 bad things happening: PNMs feel left out and sisters don't get to talk to PNMs. Instead, keep sisters in groups of 3 and bring 4-5 PNMs to the conversation. The sisters need to keep on point with making sure all PNMs are included - and it's easier for 3 sisters to do this than just one.

We usually avoid this! It happened with two sisters during one round this year and that was it- I totally agree, it doesn't work. I like the idea of doing group conversations because we do that during informal and it's more comfortable (although that's only 1 PNM to 3-5 girls, not 2-3 PNMs to 3-5 girls)

[33girl]

Be careful with having too many sisters talking to only one PNM because that can be considered hot boxing and dirty rush.