Delegate Strength

[ladygreek]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Well, as an example, we had a chapter at UCLA from 1926-1951, so do the math on the age of the alumnae from there, and they are mainly all in one alumnae chapter.

Gotcha! lol

[sigmadiva]

In SGR we determine the number of voting delegates by chapter size, for undergrad and grad. But, we also let our Life Members vote. So, a Life Member soror has to decide if she will vote as a delegate *or* Life Member. She can't vote as both.

The chapters tend to vote as a 'block'. That is to say, we discuss the issues that come up for voting in the chapter meeting before we attend the conference so that everyone is on the same page when the chapter votes at the conference.

[sigtau305]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

At your national conventions, is each chapter given the same amount of delegates?

Are your number of delegates dependent upon the size of the chapter?

Do alumni chapters/associations have a vote?

Discuss.

For Our Grand Chapter Convention:
40+ member chapters : Three Delegates
Less Than 40 members chapter: Two Delegates
Alumni Chapters / Alumni Association: One ( as far as I know)

[33girl]

bumpity bump bump.

[nate2512]

Well you see, there are pledged delegates , then they have super delegates who screw everything up because their purpose really defeats the whole purpose of having pledged delegates............wait a second thats not a fraternity, thats the DNC.

[Zillini]

Thanks for the bump, 33girl. Interesting topic.

I find it surprising that many GLO's base the number of voting collegiate delegates on chapter size. Having been to many Grand Conventions of my own GLO, I can imagine that causing significant problems for some smaller chapters. I'm thinking particularly about proposals for increased fees. An example: For large chapters on competitive campuses, minor fee increases would be just that - minor. But for small chapters who are struggling and/or are on a campus where the whole Greek system is struggling, even minor fee increases can have a devastating effect on future recruiting and retention. I've seen it happen.

Again based only on my personal experience, collegiate voting delegates are the least knowledgeable in the workings of an I/national organization and have difficulties seeing the "big picture". It's simply due to inexperience within the org as well as in life. I've seen collegiate struggle to understand what a proposed change even means due to the formal/legalese way it's written. They have difficulty grasping how some change might have long term effects (good or bad) for their own individual chapter, other chapters across the country and the org as a whole. They often blindly follow Grand Council's, the Bylaw Review committee's or other "important" alums' recommendations simply because "these people must know what's best". That's not always the case.