Bid Day Shirts
 

I feel like this is a really stupid question, but it's something I need to figure out.
I'm in charge of formal recruitment this year and I really want to get bid day shirts for the NMs & for the sisters. I was wondering how you go about having the shirts ON bid day...but since we don't know how many girls we will get, how do you know not to order too few or too many shirts?
It's my first year of formal on the "other side" so maybe someone with more experience can let me know how this works.

Thanks!

better to order too many than not enough. You should have some idea of how many members you can take. Keep the extra shirts for new member ed prizes for the next pledge class.

I have told my VPM to order how many you got last year (new member number) and then about 5-6 more for COB's... you can use them for the spring COB class OR give to advisors during rush that help out as a thank you, house corp, visiting field consultant, or as room decorations for the following formal rush/COB events... and prize give aways...

Remember to order for all actives even your Rho Chi's :)

Find out from the company you are ordering from when the last date to give them a number is first. Then have your Membership Chair or Advisor call Panhellenic to see if numbers are similar to last year at this point (a good indicator if there will be about the same number of women going through recruitment). If it is looking the same you can plan for the same number that quota was last year + the number of ALL women returning to the chapter + 5.

It is unusual for quota to go up more than 5 or 10 between one year and the next unless something major happened (lost a chapter, PH did much better PR so recruitment numbers are way up, using the new release figure method etc.).

As was said previously - don't forget your Rho Gams (or whatever your school calls them) and your PH exec members and or Delegates (basically anyone that is not with the chapter for recruitment b/c they are working with PH). It's always better to have to many than to few - you can always sell them to NM's or give them to alumnae that come to help.

We always order a couple "extra" shirts for everything we do, because sometimes we have sisters abroad or just on hiatus due to a heavy workload (i.e. they couldn't make it to the meeting where we ordered shirts). The ones that don't get worn or given out, we keep to hand down to pledges at the end of the year.

You can order a few extra shirts, whatever you have left after you give them to alumnae, sisters that were abroad, advisors, etc., you can trade with other Sigma chapters for their shirts. Also depending on the size of the new member class that you expect, you may be able to do iron ons. One of the sororities at my school always does iron ons, they make up the designs ahead of time, and then as each girl accepts her bid, they ask her for her shirt size, and the NM mom makes them and gives them to the girls on bid night. They always end up looking really cute. However, this will only work with a small class or chapter, because you don't want to be making shirts for like 60 girls. Also, one year my sorority made our own shirts with a stencil and spray paint. They ended up looking really cute. We just asked the NM's when they accepted their bids what size they were (or you can eyeball it) and made them up for them when they got to bid night.

You should also be aware of shirt sizes when you order.... Of course not knowing who you will get presents a problem when trying to order a shirt to fit her! And how embarrassing would it be if you pledged a fluffier lady and only had small shirts. We generally do it by percentages of who is in the chapter now. For example, we have 65 active members - 60 order smalls and 5 order mediums. We always get 35 of everything for our new members, and for tshirts we are getting 32 smalls and 3 mediums which is somewhat on the same scale of our current membership. I like to throw in a large as well, just because you never know.... If we wind up not using it, there's always an advisor or someone who will want to buy it and put a little money back into the budget.

Of course these are unisex shirts - NOT fitted. Keep that in mind as well. Ask your tshirt company to send a sample of a small, medium, large, x-large so that everyone can determine what will fit them. Depending on the company and how much business you do with them, they'll send them free of charge or calculate the cost of the samples into your final bill. Don't forget to check with local businesses too! We use a local guy for everything so he pretty much sends us whatever we want for free cause we've built up the goodwill. (Plus his prices blow everyone else out of the water and we don't have to pay shipping!!) It's always good to keep your money in the local economy! :)

In the event that you haven't ordered enough shirts for everyone (which happened to us 3 years ago), ask for volunteers amongst your membership to allow a new member to wear her shirt until more can be ordered. Then be sure those members wear the same color shirt so they don't stick out in the pictures! You don't want to risk alienating a new member on her first day by saying "sorry, we didn't order enough, and YOU are the unlucky one!"

Don't worry, they can always give it to the "fluffier" alumna too :rolleyes:

God forbid a chapter gets a "chubbier" girl. Or maybe some girl who's like 6 foot tall and an athlete. The horror.

A side note...someone needs to tell my campus Panhellenic that NOT EVERYONE FITS INTO A BABY DOLL T and that buying them for recruitment SUCKS when you get get above a size "XL" which is really a MEDIUM.

AMEN to that!

Even if your girls all weigh 100 lbs., why would you get shirts in anything other than larges and XLs? They shrink the first time you wash them.

Not to mention girls who have decent sized breasts will have a hard time fitting a medium, especially after washing, but even before washing

HEAVY COSIGNAGE ON THAT ONE!!

If my post was offensive or derogatory to women of size, I apologize. I posted this only in the spirit of helping a young lady who had no experience in purchasing shirts for women she does not know. PinkSigma3, it looks like you are getting a lot of good advice - best of luck with ordering your shirts and with your recruitment! Being in charge of formal recruitment can be very stressful yet very rewarding, and it sounds like you are thinking way ahead and trying out fun new things for your chapter.