Internal disagreements

MooseGirl · #1 08-19-2001, 10:51 PM

Hey all,
I just wanted some advice. Recently our Recruitment chairman designed and ordered our rush t-shirts. I was with her, and thought the design was fine. Well, the members found out this was done w/o their approval and are all upset and some say they won't pay for it cuz they hate the colour!
I understand that the chapter usually has a say in this(I was a past rush chair), however, everyone bailed last april when we were trying to make recruitment plans.
I advised the new chair(who had some input from various members during the summer) to go ahead and make all recruitment plans since September is upon us. Of course, most of these plans will be discussed at a meeting prior to school starting, however, with t-shirts, one cannot delay!

I understand that some members are hurt that they weren't consulted, but what more could the chair do? After all she was elected to that position...shouldn't she be able to make decisions without taking everything back to the chapter for a vote?

well, since this post is getting long, I'll stop ranting

Please share your thoughts

Heather · #2 08-20-2001, 01:10 AM

No matter what you do, you can NEVER make everyone happy! This applies to life in general as I'm sure you have noticed.

One year we had a bid day shirt that was the color the assistant GM had picked out. (It was her fav color). Most of the chapter thought it was quite ugly, myself included. But you know what? We got over it! The color of the shirts didn't really matter at Bid Day, everyone was too excited and busy and the new members were just happy to have the letters on their shirts. As it turned out the color actually looked surprising nice in all the pictures. I really think the chapter would be MORE upset if a decision hadn't been made and there wasn't time for the shirts to get in.

As for making decisions, there is NO WAY to consult the chapter before making every decision, especially in the summer. (We usually had this problem with social events, people never made any suggestions or offered help and then complained at the event. Go figure!) I agree that if a person is elected to a position, the chapter should have faith in him/her and any decisions made. Maybe next time the chair person could pass a rough draft of the shirt around, or tell the color, just so the members could say they were informed.

LeslieEMU · #3 08-20-2001, 08:36 AM

Here's an example of how you can't please everyone:

We recently added Purchasing Coordinator to our positions and positions like Social & Recruitment were excited about this because they were doing a lot of work without having to deal with shirts and favors. (This is my position by the way). So, everyone starts complaining to me that the chapter has to have imput on the shirts...blah, blah, blah...so, they got to vote on the Bid Day shirts and then half the chapter threw a fit because it wasn't the shirt they liked and the other half got pissed that they wanted it changed after a vote had been cast. I would have been better off choosing it myself!!!

GmuTeke · #4 08-21-2001, 10:13 AM

Another rush shirt horror story, this one just a few weeks old:

We're a heavily commuter school, so we've been having meetings all summer (a huge chunk of us are local so we can make the meetings), and our rush chair comes in with his T-Shirt idea. It shows a picture of Mayberry and has "the Beav" of Leave it to Beaver smiling and waving holding a football.

The Shirt said "Rush TKE, where the Beaver comes to play"
::insert terrible groan here::

The Chapter is not pleased, any girl we talk to is horrified and offended. Fortunately, we had a happy ending that he hadn't sent off the shirts to be printed, and that the chapter needed to at least give a verbal ok to the shirts.

Perhaps for those schools that can't meet over the summer you could make a design of the shirt online, then email the design in an attachment to them and see what they think.

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The Fraternity of Presidents and Kings: TKE

MooseGirl · #5 08-21-2001, 05:56 PM

It is not so much the design as the colour...a dark purple was chosen, and most of our girls like blue(which is one of our colours). I think it is silly. However, the treasurer is saying that since she doesn't like purple she doesn't think the chapter should pay for it at all(the chapter was going to cover 25% of the cost).

Thanx for the ideas and support

33girl · #6 08-21-2001, 10:26 PM

This is the perfect example of why the bride selects the bridesmaids' dresses and colors instead of the maids themselves...

James · #7 08-26-2001, 08:11 PM

Hmmm, while it is true that you can't make everyone happy you can take steps to clear up problems in the future.

What can be done is to select the shirt design before the end of the Spring semester for the Fall.

Procedure:

1. March, tell the chapter to submit design ideas to the appropriate person. (almost no one will, except mayeb a friend)

2. Pick out the 3 or 4 shirts you like the best and then submit the designs to the chapter for a vote. The vote should be held 4 weeks before the last meeting of the year. And if you want to really be thorough, the vote can be tabled for a week to give people time to consider (I don't really advise that).

Make sure you put the procedure into the by-laws under the job descrption for that position.

Obviously you still won't make everyone happy but the procedure becomes official, they had the chance to submit designs, they had a choice, and the procedure is part of the chair's job description.

By the way, there should be defined job procedures, descriptions, duties for all positions in the by-laws so that you have a way of evaluating whether someone is doing their job correctly!

Most by-laws are so frigging vague that you really have no tangible way of evaluating someone's performance. The by-laws should read what, how, and by when, almost like a checklist.