Gamma Chi ritual poll...

[volgirl2376]

Originally posted by FuzzieAlum
From an alum perspective, for those of us working, any time is as good as any other, but I agree, a new member ceremony now would be good. Can we get pledge pins that we can later use as chapter guards? And it would be best to hold off on initiation until the students amongst us are not dealing with finals, which given all the different calendars would be at least late June.

I agree, as an alum, that anytime is as good as another. But I do have a question. I was invited into Gamma Chi - but I havent heard anything about an initiation or pledge pins etc...how do you do that online??

[Lady Pi Phi]

I think a ceremony is a great idea. I also think summer would be the best time to hold this.

Pi Phi love and mine,

Emily

[SigkapAlumWSU]

I think that a new member ceremony is a great idea. I also vote for a summer initiation, before rush this fall. There are a lot of us going to schools that require us to be back in early August to start preparation... I can't wait to see how the ritual turns out!!

[mmcat]

perhaps a cyber version...?
mmcat

[navane]

Hi!


I'm with the rest of the alums on this; anytime is good. Of course, if I had to narrow it down, I'd say that "asap" is good for a new member initiation and late July or early August would be good for initiation.

It sounds like it's implied that the ceremonies will be online/in a chat room? A few considerations:

1) Time differences matter. Especially if I move to England this July! I'd be 4-8 hours ahead (In Pacific time, where I currently live, we're 8 hours behind England). If I had to do an initation at 3am, I'll be preeetttyyy sleepy!

But, more importantly....

2) I am a Macintosh user. In general, people like to use chat software that is not compatible. Or, people assume that everyone has AOL (and I don't...) etc.

Even more imporantly....

3) If this is done online, that means that there will be ritual appearing in text on a screen. Anyone could simply copy it and save it to file. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of a secret ceremony? Or, perhaps it's not meant to be secret...I don't know.

I'm not complaining or anything...I just thought of some ideas that perhaps you all didn't think of. No biggie! I think it's cool that you got online and asked our opinion. Thanks!!

UNFSigmaChi, check out the thread in the Greek Life forum called "An Idea." It thoroughly covers everything that you'd ever want to know about what Gamma Chi is and what we're doing.


......Kelly

[Lady Pi Phi]

just a question. Is Gamma Chi supposed to be secret?
In a previous post it was mentioned that if we do a ritual people can just copy our ritual off the forum. In that case, my assumption would be that it's not a scret. I think we just need some clarification.

PPL,

Emily


P.S: If anyone needs some help writing a ritual I would love to help out. Email me at ladypiphi@hotmail.com
[IMG]C:\My Documents\My Pictures\letters_pbp2[1].gif[/IMG]

Cultivating Sincere Friendship Since 1897

[EM1843]

An idea if the ritual will be chat room style...use AIM chat rooms. Everyone can download AIM if they don't already have it and it is available for all OS's. Simply create a chat room for it.

[Lady Pi Phi]

Hey everyone,


I just wanted to run this by you guys. Maybe we should have a list of dates that might be good for doing our ritual. Then we can all vote on it.
Maybe we could have 1 -3 dates to do the new member ritual so that we could try to accomodate everyone.
Also maybe we should have a Gamma Chi forum here or somwher else so that people can access Gamma Chi information more easily rather than having to sift through all these posts to find out what's going on with Gamma Chi.
I don't know just and idea. Or even if we don't have a forum maybe the headings of Gamma Chi messages should make a reference to Gamma Chi.

Pi Phi Love and Mine,
Emily
[IMG]C:\My Documents\My Pictures\letters_pbp2[1].gif[/IMG] - Cultivating Sincere Friendships Since 1867
Gamma Chi - Sharing Common Themes from Around the World

[aephi alum]

Yes, I was thinking that rituals would be held in a chat room. I like the AIM chat idea.

Keeping the ritual secret... that's the plan. We have come up with a few secrets that would be known only to initiated members. Obviously we wouldn't just post the ritual and have everyone download and read it. If we do a chat room, yes, someone could copy and paste the ritual, but that's ok, because we'd all be new initiates anyway. We would just have to make sure that no one is in the chat room who shouldn't be.

I was thinking that we would hold several sessions of the NM ceremony and of initiation, to accommodate everyone's time zone differences, work/school schedules, etc. You would just "attend" whichever one is easiest for you.

[James]

I am not sure what the "purpose" of Gamma Chi is . . . other than a social internet (are those mutually exclusive terms?) extension of Greek Chat . . . however I have some generic suggestions:

1. The sooner the better. Always ride the wave of enthusiasm. It improves retention. So start "affiliating" members right away. Like starting as soon as you have a NM Ritual program. Now would be good.

2. You may want to consider the stage you are in now to be a "colony" time. Because its very similar to a new starting chapter or organization where you are still involved with writing the operations manuals and developing some specific "points" such as a purpose that is not vague.

So you may want to initiate people into your "colony" and assign committees, officers, etc to develop your operation manuals (which you are in the process of doing). This also allows you to create a time table where all the programs will be written and finished. At that point you will have "completed" the colony program and be ready to initiate into the fully formed organization. It also creates a nice piece of suspense as people come to know when they will be full Initates.

And also, its easier to finish all of the relevant programs (in writing) if they have to be done BEFORE initiation. Enthusiasm only goes so far.

[theta sig agd]

This Gamma Chi thing sounds like a good idea if I understand it...How does one participate in this?

If I were involved I would think to go ahead and do a NM ceremoney and then initiate the first group over the summer so you could get another "new member group" going. Just an idea

[navane]

theta Sig agd,

To find out more about participating in Gamma Chi, please located the thread in the Greek Life forum called "An Idea."


......Kelly

[James]

No comment on what I wrote future Gamma Chi's?

Originally posted by James
I am not sure what the "purpose" of Gamma Chi is . . . other than a social internet (are those mutually exclusive terms?) extension of Greek Chat . . . however I have some generic suggestions:

1. The sooner the better. Always ride the wave of enthusiasm. It improves retention. So start "affiliating" members right away. Like starting as soon as you have a NM Ritual program. Now would be good.

2. You may want to consider the stage you are in now to be a "colony" time. Because its very similar to a new starting chapter or organization where you are still involved with writing the operations manuals and developing some specific "points" such as a purpose that is not vague.

So you may want to initiate people into your "colony" and assign committees, officers, etc to develop your operation manuals (which you are in the process of doing). This also allows you to create a time table where all the programs will be written and finished. At that point you will have "completed" the colony program and be ready to initiate into the fully formed organization. It also creates a nice piece of suspense as people come to know when they will be full Initates.

And also, its easier to finish all of the relevant programs (in writing) if they have to be done BEFORE initiation. Enthusiasm only goes so far.

[navane]

Originally posted by James
I am not sure what the "purpose" of Gamma Chi is . . . other than a social internet (are those mutually exclusive terms?) extension of Greek Chat . . . however I have some generic suggestions:

Hey, thanks for your comments! You make a good point. At this juncture, Gamma Chi's purpose is unclear. The way I understand it, Gamma Chi is supposed to be an organization which promotes Greek unity. Greek Chat is a place where members from a huge variety of organizations and backgrounds come together to talk about greek life. Gamma Chi wants to take that one step further. It's like our outward display of unity for everyone to see.

Someone mentioned the idea of outreach very early on. That idea sticks with me. That person mentioned going to high schools and college campuses to promote positive aspects of greek life (for high schools) and greek unity (for colleges). I think this should be a strong push for Gamma Chi.
Otherwise, this would just be the fraternities' fraternity.

1. The sooner the better. Always ride the wave of enthusiasm. It improves retention. So start "affiliating" members right away. Like starting as soon as you have a NM Ritual program. Now would be good.

We're workin' on it! The whole point of this thread was to address how to go about this.

So you may want to initiate people into your "colony" and assign committees, officers, etc to develop your operation manuals (which you are in the process of doing). This also allows you to

As you noticed, this is in progress.


......Kelly

[theta sig agd]

Okay....so I wanted to help out with ritual ( I make crests, and coat of arms with discriptions) but if you have too many people on your committee let me know! That way I can go find another area to help out in!