Sorority in Development

missbabyblue · #1 03-12-2004, 08:19 AM

Howdy ladies!

My name is Laurel Zimmer, and last evening I attended the first meeting regarding a Sigma Alpha chapter at the University of Idaho. It was organized by an alumna from University of Tennessee, I believe, Erin Mosely - she's really excited about helping us get it started.

Anyway, we had ten women present at the meeting this evening, and everyone seemed pretty interested in following through with it. We're going to present the concept to incoming fresmen at the University of Idaho "Vandal Friday" event on March 23rd, and try to contact potential members over the summer as well. Then, we hope to have a solid core group for our charter class, and begin our Sorority in Development period in Fall of this year.

This forum seemed to be pretty active, so I thought I would check it out and see if y'all have any advice for us as we are just getting underway. Due to the incredible amount of financial responsibility associated with being a Panhellenic Greek organization on our campus, not to mention actually having a house of our own, we think we're probably going to at least start off with our chapter being run more like a professional club/sorority, rather than a more professional/social sorority, like many are. Has anyone else had experience with this? I know Erin said that was the way things were run back east, where she had experience with Sigma Alpha.

Anyway, sorry for the lengthy post, but any and all advice you could give us at this point would be more than welcome! We need ideas on everything from recruiting interested charter members, to fundraising, to ... well, you name it. Feel free to respond to this post or email me at zimm2723@uidaho.edu.

I look forward to joining y'all in sisterhood in January 2005 - wish us luck!

Sincerely,
Laurel Zimmer

AlphaAlum · #2 03-12-2004, 11:31 AM

Yea!

Each of the chapters is unique in its own way. The Alpha chapter is more of a professional sorority than the social. We are not member of women's pan at OSU. Basically we get the best of both worlds, we do social when we feel like it but keep a professional focus on our meetings and activities.

With a house it will be easy to fill in the social aspects. The girls will naturally gravitate to the house and all of a sudden you have all kinds of social stuff happening!

Good Luck! If you have any questions feel free!

AlphaAlum · #3 03-12-2004, 11:31 AM

I need to edit my signature it looks like

missbabyblue · #4 03-12-2004, 03:45 PM

I re-read my last post, which I wrote at some ungodly hour of the morning, and realized based on AlphaAlum's response that I might not have been totally clear - we're NOT going to have a house, at least for a while. Just wanted to clarify that so that y'all totally understand what challenges we're looking at - I'm excited to get this underway anyway, even without the panhellenic ties! I think it'll be better for all involved if we at least start off without that extra challenge. Anyway, I'll look forward to hearing from more of you - thanks for the response, AlphaAlum!
-Laurel

Allie · #5 03-15-2004, 09:23 AM

No worries about a house or no house. Gamma has had a house for three years now and it has increased our numbers, it seems to work for us, but we also did fine without one for many years.

I hope you all have a great turn out for an interest group, best of luck!

RRRastani · #6 03-27-2004, 05:58 PM

Laurel-

Best of luck to you and the group in Moscow, Idaho. It's a lot of hard work getting a chapter started, but it's definitely be worth it in the long run. You'll have so many great experiences and you'll meet tons of women in agriculture along the way. I know Erin is very excited to help you all in this process.

Robin