ways to invite sororites to mixers?

[pythagoras]

I was wondering if anyone could help me by sharing how they went about inviting sororities to mixers, and/or what way was the most effective. We have a great reputation on campus, but we're relatively new, so we don't have a lot of experience in this category. Recently we've secured a few by emailing the social chair, but other emails we've sent have simply not been returned, and we're not sure if they were received or not....Is there a more formal way (i.e a written invitation mailed to the house, etc....) that would have a better response? Is it better to contact friends in the sorority rather than the social chairs? The suggestions of both fraternity and sorority members would be very helpful here...

Thanks!

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by pythagoras

I was wondering if anyone could help me by sharing how they went about inviting sororities to mixers, and/or what way was the most effective. We have a great reputation on campus, but we're relatively new, so we don't have a lot of experience in this category. Recently we've secured a few by emailing the social chair, but other emails we've sent have simply not been returned, and we're not sure if they were received or not....Is there a more formal way (i.e a written invitation mailed to the house, etc....) that would have a better response? Is it better to contact friends in the sorority rather than the social chairs? The suggestions of both fraternity and sorority members would be very helpful here...

Thanks!

Ask them.

With the NPC sororities, our social chair had to make a formal presentation at the specific chapter's meeting, and the sorority made its decision after our chair left.

With everyone else, it was just a matter of asking a member and having them relay the information to their chapter.

[jmagnus]

Get some mini-flags made. Put one of each (yours and the sorority you want to invite) into a basket of flowers. Go to the house when you know many of them will be there (don't go during grey's anatomy...I know from experience). Sing them a nice little song (you can usually get some from nationals) and have one person go forward with the basket and an official invitation. Also, have everyone wear a shirt and tie...I've heard it looks pretty impressive.

If you are known for doing things like this around campus, it can only help your reputation.

[RaggedyAnn]

Nothing makes an impression like a formal invitation.

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by jmagnus

Get some mini-flags made. Put one of each (yours and the sorority you want to invite) into a basket of flowers. Go to the house when you know many of them will be there (don't go during grey's anatomy...I know from experience). Sing them a nice little song (you can usually get some from nationals) and have one person go forward with the basket and an official invitation. Also, have everyone wear a shirt and tie...I've heard it looks pretty impressive.

If you are known for doing things like this around campus, it can only help your reputation.

We used to loooove when boys would dress nice and come over to ask us to do stuff. Flowers were a nice touch and a song was usually the deal-maker. (and LOL at the Grey's Anatomy thing)

[FSUZeta]

if your campus greeks have houses, and have meals at the houses, go during the meal and make an announcement.

back in the day, a sorority member had door duty during the meal hour. the fraternity members would ring the door bell, be invited in and escorted to the dining room . the sorority member would ask the housemother(discreetly-in a whisper) if abc fraternity could make an announcement. permission granted, the sorority member would stand at the dining room door, diners would tap their glass with their spoon to gain everyones attention, and the sorority member would say,"excuse me, some gentlemen from abc fraternity have an announcement to make," and the men would then stand in the doorway, excuse themselves for interrupting the meal, say something to the effect of " the gentlemen of abc fraternity would like to invite the ladies on xyz sorority to a party on thursday." they would give a brief description of the party and the details, thank the sorority and leave. the sorority would applaud, and the men would leave a written invitation with the door girl.

other times the fraternity would come by after dinner and serenade the sorority and then invite them to a party.

if you serenade or announce your invitation, make sure that it is well rehearsed. always dress nice. most often the social chairman or the fraternity had contacted the sororitity's social chair had contacted each other prior to that, and the executive officers of the sorority had approved the event.

[skylark]

Originally Posted by jmagnus

Get some mini-flags made. Put one of each (yours and the sorority you want to invite) into a basket of flowers. Go to the house when you know many of them will be there (don't go during grey's anatomy...I know from experience). Sing them a nice little song (you can usually get some from nationals) and have one person go forward with the basket and an official invitation. Also, have everyone wear a shirt and tie...I've heard it looks pretty impressive.

If you are known for doing things like this around campus, it can only help your reputation.

How totally sweet! I'm swooning just thinking of it :-)

[Zeta13Girl]

It depends upon what kind of a campus you live on I think. On our campus our social chair calls the social chair of the fraternity we want to mix with and vice versa... Sometimes they will even start setting up mixers at the end of a semester for the choice weeks of the next semester.

[PhiGam]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

if your campus greeks have houses, and have meals at the houses, go during the meal and make an announcement.

back in the day, a sorority member had door duty during the meal hour. the fraternity members would ring the door bell, be invited in and escorted to the dining room . the sorority member would ask the housemother(discreetly-in a whisper) if abc fraternity could make an announcement. permission granted, the sorority member would stand at the dining room door, diners would tap their glass with their spoon to gain everyones attention, and the sorority member would say,"excuse me, some gentlemen from abc fraternity have an announcement to make," and the men would then stand in the doorway, excuse themselves for interrupting the meal, say something to the effect of " the gentlemen of abc fraternity would like to invite the ladies on xyz sorority to a party on thursday." they would give a brief description of the party and the details, thank the sorority and leave. the sorority would applaud, and the men would leave a written invitation with the door girl.

other times the fraternity would come by after dinner and serenade the sorority and then invite them to a party.

if you serenade or announce your invitation, make sure that it is well rehearsed. always dress nice. most often the social chairman or the fraternity had contacted the sororitity's social chair had contacted each other prior to that, and the executive officers of the sorority had approved the event.

Two silhouettes?

[SKlove]

Usually the boys call our social chair at the beginning of the semester to set aside dates for mixers. If we have open dates, we may call a few fraternities we don't do much with and see if they'd like to set something up. We've had several newer/less well known fraternities bring us flowers, cookies, write us notes, etc. to try and set up a social and this usually works well... we may only do something on a Wednesday or Thursday (usually Friday and Saturday are the best nights for mixers at my school) but the boys usually go all out and if we have a good time we definitely keep them in mind the next time we're making up our social calendar. One fraternity asked our president if they could stop by during chapter to make an announcement and came by in suits and listed 10 reasons why they'd love to have us over... definitely scored major points with us!

[BigBroseph]

Usually the social chair calls the sororitie's social chair. It's not a very complicated process.