Summer Recruitment Questions

[SNUIGC]

Hey guys, what's up? I just found this forum after a guy at CoC told me about it. I'm from the Mississippi State - Iota Gamma colony that was recolonized in the Fall and are 17 members strong currently.

Anyways, my question is, what are y'all doing for summer recruitment, if anything? Right now we have the usual info booth set up for whenever the people come for orientation, talk to them, etc. ...and we also know that our main push will have to come in the Fall.... but, it just seems like we should be doing something else right now.

Also, if y'all have any other ideas/tips for just getting started they'd be appreciated. (it sucks when even your execs haven't done anything like this before and we're all just starting out with not much of an idea how to "properly do" things.

[banditone]

WELCOME!!!! Great to hear from the Mississippi State group; I hope you stick around and keep us abreast of how things are going.

Now, for your question. I guess it depends on what kind of rush your school has. Are you in the midst of continuous "open" Summer Rush? Or do you only have a standard "formal" Rush the week or so before classes start?

- How is your Alumni Support? We used to have little BBQ gatherings in different area cities that were sources for incoming freshmen. We'd have them at our Alumni houses in said cities.
- Isn't the Ole Miss chapter about 70miles away? I'd see if it would be possible to co-ordinate some functions for incoming freshmen with them. That is a HUGE chapter with resources that are better then pretty much every chapter out there.

p.s. Love the website http://www.sigmanumsstate.com
YOu may want to shoot an email over to headquarters@sigmanu.org and tell them to update your chapters link on the nationals site (they are hela-slow about updating the links).

[Kevin]

Absolutely. Y'all are in the South, so you ought to be in full tilt recruitment mode about now. There are always the passive things you have to do (booths, posters, etc.) that might help to get a few kids by chance.

What we did when I was active was we'd have the whole chapter sit down and list every potential rushee they knew -- graduating seniors, etc. I remember once we did this by getting a list of incoming freshmen from the campus life director. We also obtain a list of incoming people on leadership scholarships and particularly focus on them. At any rate.. we list them and put their names on a big posterboard which hangs in the house. We then assign different people to these kids and have those guys make phone calls, hang out, etc.

Everything they do is documented on that posterboard so that we can make sure no one is falling through the cracks. Those guys generally stay in touch with the rush chain and EC so that we can reallocate resources as necessary.

-- it's been awhile. If there are any Mu Tau members lurking, please let me know if this is still what's going on.

At any rate, summer is a far better time to line up a class than Fall. You might want to pay a visit to another SEC school (or any school close by) just to see what they're doing and whether or not they can offer you anything.

[SNUIGC]

Well, our school has a pretty informal rush... they do sign an interested list and there is rush week and all that...but no formal house tours or any of that stuff.

As to our alumni support...we're...really not sure about that yet. It's been almost 20 years since we lost our charter and, just from sending out letters and all, a number of alumni have died, moved without updating their address etc. On a good note, there are still some around and have been writing a few checks, so, that should help us get started out. (plus, our dues are $550 a semester, which are high, but will help us get a bank account going)

Yeah, the Ole Miss chapter is about a 2 hour drive north... however, we've had limited contact with them... we've asked for some help but either they were busy or ignored us or who knows what. The Southern Miss chapter is about 2 hours away, as well... however, they have 7 members and need more help with recruitment than we do.

Kevin, the idea about the poster board actually sounds like a really good idea...except, we don't have a house so it'll have to be in one of our apartments. haha ...but, it's kinda cool, we actually have 3 apartments right next to each other where most of our people are going to be living at for the year.

We had thought about sending our a mass letter to everyone on the incoming freshmen list (which HQ said they would help and mail them for us)... which, hopefully might get some more interested people out there... like, say, send a letter and to those we know might be more interested a MD as well.

[Kevin]

The thing is -- passive means of getting guys like sending letters are expensive as hell. Further, they produce minimal results. Think about it -- have you ever heard of someone joining a fraternity because they got a really awesome letter? Nope.

That said -- we send those letters out as well... or at least we did a couple years ago when I was active. We'd get a list of all incoming freshman men, we'd go through the list and cross off a few names, then we'd do the mailing.

The only reason we did this was because there was another fraternity doing it and we wanted to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak.

It's a hell of a lot cheaper and a whole lot more successful when you use direct contact methods. If the school has phone numbers, call up kids from your hometowns. Take them to lunch. Do that whole VBR thing when you meet them. I presume you've been to a recruitment institute by now? If not, some guys from your colony were surely at the CoC, so they just spent about a week or so living and breathing that stuff. It may sound hokey, but let me tell you, that stuff works.

Finally, if you'd like, PM me, I'll put you in touch with our recently graduated recruiting guru. Perhaps he could be of assistance?

[ZK761]

I know the chapter or colony can also sign up for a recruitment visit. Basically someone from Hq comes out and helps you guys out on how to recruit. It helps out a lot.

http://www.sigmanufraternity.org/rec...tmentvisit.php