what to do
 

My frat is pretty low tier and with a bad reputation on a pretty big greek life campus. We want to grow our social presence with sororities. Is it weird to bring flowers to a sorority house and ring the bell and start striking up conversation?

Fraternities serenaded sororities back in my day, and we were quite impressed when they did! One fraternity in particular would sing the Beach Boys song "California Girls", substituting different sororities for the northern girls, southern girls, etc., and substitute California Girls with the sorority they were serenading. Several of the brothers accompanied the group on guitars. We could tell they had practiced a lot because they were so good and sang in harmony! It was impressive. After they sang that song, the president stepped forward and said(in a clear voice so that all could hear) "The men of ABC fraternity would like to invite the ladies of Zeta Tau Alpha to a (what type of party) on (the day and date). I am sure their social chair had contacted our social chair prior to this to avoid a date conflict. They handed our president a bouquet of flowers, sang a fraternity song and left. Our house was abuzz for days after that and we looked forward to the party with them.

Perhaps send flowers to all the groups during work week before recruitment with a note wishing them a good recruitment? Or deliver them yourselves but arrange in advance with the vp:recruitment when would be a good time to "make a delivery" to them.

Wouldn't it be awkward especially with sororities we don't know at all to take it to a bit more of a provocative level when you barely know any of them?

What on earth in that post was "provocative"?

Provocative was the wrong word. I meant too forward with an organization you have little association with.

Maybe serenade first and ask them to a party later. Girls love when guys sing to them! (See: Ewan McGregor, Moulin Rouge) Keep the song sweet, not sexy.

ETA: how do other fraternities on campus interact with sororities? Are the best-liked fraternities that way because of things they actively do, or are they riding on a long-term reputation or a nice house?

At my school, serenading is not big at all. Most fraternities seem to have both but mainly the reputation I believe. It seems as if most of the smaller and bottom fraternities do not make an effort to bond with sororities but I am not entirely sure. Is going to their house and bringing their chapter flowers a rather childish idea?

Provocative? Not hardly. Just telling you what worked successfully, was very impressive, and had the attention/jealousy of the other sororities.

Do you have any ideas of your own? We might yea or nay them, if you are willing to share.

We are definitely going to do serenades ( even though they are not big at my uni) once we have established some ground with the sororities. My chapter decided this after I discussed it with other chapters in different schools to see if it may be a little too early to do serenades if we have little to no connection with the sororities. Last semester, we went to two different sorority houses with about 6-7 guys to introduce ourselves during a chapter meeting and while it seemed to go smoothly it was not very personal and awkward in some sense. To make it more personal, I thought a couple of well dressed pledges/actives with flowers and a card go to the respective sorority and just chat with whoever is in the house at that time and exchange contact information.

All of the above is excellent advice. This is for other groups that may be lurking out there.

If you are a chapter of a national fraternity, I'd add this:

1) Contact your national office and tell them your problem.

2) Ask them for a short list of their most successful chapters that have been on campus (for say) six years or less. Hopefully, there will be at least one in your region of the country.

3) Contact the current (or former) president of each chapter and find out what they are doing now and what they did in the past to remedy the problem you are facing.

4) Try to adapt what they did to what your particular chapter is capable of doing now. Don't spend a lot of time trying to reinvent the wheel here. And don't invest a lot of time into something where success is not guaranteed. For example, if another chapter had a winning routine for Anchor Splash, ask them to send you a video of it and copy the routine. If the chapter has a successful rush event, copy it. You need things that you can do successfully now. But be sure to stay within the IFC and university rules.

The other chapters of your fraternity do want you to succeed - and they will help you do this. But you will have to ask them.

Good advice has been given above.

Just as a programming note - you appear to be the same poster from before ("boyyy"), who is now registered under a new name. Don't forget that we already gave you some good advice previously. We also cautioned you a bit about trying to focus too hard on mixing with who you feel are the "higher tier" sororities and calling them "entitled".

See here: http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/se...rchid=15394491


I like your current thread (this one) better. Just keep in mind to not over-do it with the sororities so as to not come off as desperate. You already told us that your fraternity had been kicked off last year and the chapter is now back. You have a little bit of a hill to climb to repair the broken reputation. Trying to associate with who you feel are the "better" sororities in order to up your reputation is disingenuous. Be the better men and everything else will start to come around. Slow and steady wins the race - over time, be friendly, polite and act like gentlemen. People want to be around other people who are having fun. So, if you fellas have a nice BBQ cook-out or something, don't act like total drunk dorks or something. Be stand-up guys to each other in the fraternity and to your classmates. Doing well in the all-Greek competitions, scholarship, charity events, etc. will also go a long way. I liked someone's previous suggestion to participate in the sororities' philanthropy events. That will give you an opportunity to get the know the women without being awkward about it.

We want to see you all grow and succeed. Good luck.

The post that you referred to doesn't seem to be working. All of the advice has been great and i'm taking little parts from each especially PhiTau to reach out to national chapter. The hard part is it's like almost starting from scratch so technically we are in competition with other fraternities for the sorority's time whether it's some superficial ranking of "tiers" or not.

Are you near any of your fraternity's other chapters? And by near I mean a 6 hour drive or less. I'm guessing yes. So why not invite your brothers from the other chapters over. Make a social or philanthropic weekend event out of it (or better yet, do both!) and invite the sororities. It's a nice way to not only make your fraternity and chapter look better to the girls, it also helps your image with potential rushees. Plus it builds brotherhood with the guys in your area (think: job network after college) and gives them an excuse to go on a road trip to your campus! Just be sure to show them some good hospitality while they visit!

Do you not have a local chapter adviser? That would seem the logical place to go first. They're going to have a better understanding of your campus culture than GC or your national HQ.