Oh, Teresa!! What a horrible situation. No matter what, just remember that you did the right thing. As a Beta Sigma Phi (and simply as a human being, I believe), you are obligated to display honesty and integrity at all times. So, forgive yourself this minute!! Your testimony against the legacy may have hurt a number of people, but her actions are what brought on this rift between sisters in the first place.
Now on to the fun part...I'm telling you now...doing a Friendly Venture for young women is the greatest thing I have ever done (except marry my husband of course). It has been so much fun! Hard work, but so rewarding. The most important thing is to not give up if you have no names after like 3 weeks. These things take time. Remember...I started looking for sisters in July, and we didn't charter until November. All that time though, I kept in touch with the Betas on GC, and I corresponded with the girls at the Int'l Membership department. They kept me motivated.
You only need seven women, so here are some things to get started:
*Contact anyone you can think of that is in the age range you hope to attract. Even if your friends or family aren't interested in joining, they might know someone who is. At the very least, they might be able to provide you with a few names.
*My chapter is not a campus org, and we are sponsoring another chapter that will be for college-aged women but again not a campus org. Nonetheless, most of my advertising for my chapter was done on campus. I plastered the dorms and common areas with cute flyers. But the "technique" that was most successful was going through the Student Activities list, looking at the websites that were available for the organizations, and "stealing" the e-mail addresses of officers. Some of the websites even listed the WHOLE membership list with e-mails. I sent out probably fifty e-mails this way. I'm in the process of doing the same thing for the new Friendly Venture. I already have over 100 e-mail addresses.
*Post flyers at public places where young women hang out...the YMCA, the YWCA, the library, stores, cafes, a daycare facility, at any nearby colleges, especially in the gym, outside of restrooms, in dorm lobbies, etc.
*You might want to set up an easy to remember e-mail address for people to contact you and later, your chapter. We use
betasisters@yahoo.com, and I just set up
fivecollegebetas@yahoo.com for the new Friendly Venture.
*Wait for a couple of weeks for people to contact you. Once you have a few girls, I would say at least two others, host a meeting/party. My first meeting included me and just four other girls. It was very relaxed. I explained Beta Sigma Phi to them, and we brainstormed about ways to attact members. The best part was just talking about how much we would like to have a close group of sisters. By the next meeting, we had 6 women. Then, we agreed to meet at Starbucks just to get to know each other better, and 11 girls showed up. We almost couldn't fit in Starbucks! One dropped, but we had our 10 ladies! It was very exciting. And all that sudden growth was just from word of mouth.
This can be done!! And it can have wonderful results!!
I really want to help you through this process. So feel free to e-mail me any time at
umassbeta@yahoo.com. I'm really excited for you. You deserve to still be BSP. Don't let the summer's troubles keep you away from the sisterhood.
Beta Hugs,
Erica
P.S. I'm working on a Rush brochure and some new flyers. I am using photographs of my chapter sisters since they are all in the 18-23 age range (except me...I'm 24). I think the way you present BSP determines whether or not young women are going to be attracted or not. Just think about the things YOU like. Good luck!
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