Conference attendance

[bubblegum]

I was wondering if any other GLOs have encountered this problem before and how they dealt with it. We're required to have a certain percentage of our active sisters attend conference each semester. Conference is always on the West Coast, because we only have two chapters on the East Coast. All our other chapters are on the West Coast. This semester, EVERYONE is saying that they don't have the money to fly out to conference. I've told them that we're going to get fined by our Nationals if we don't have the minimum number of girls at conference. They just say "Oh, well, I'll just pay the fine. It's going to be cheaper than a plane ticket." A lot of these girls are the same girls who still haven't paid their dues for this semester. I'm worried that these girls aren't going to pay up for the fines, and our treasury doesn't have enough money to cover all the fines while these girls work on paying their dues and their fines. I've stressed to them that it's not just about the money issue. I've stressed to them that it reflects poorly on our chapter. In addition, how can we convince our Nationals that they should give conference on the East Coast a chance when we don't show up at conference? How can we convince Nationals that they should have West Coast chapters visit us and help us out with recruitment when we don't show up at conference? I'm just so stressed and frustrated and discouraged as president. I don't know what to do.