Building a stronger chapter

Your first rush, can you remember it, from the beginning to the end, it is like we are on show trying to make ourselves look more appealing. When it comes to the end and all the rushes are done, we hope that what ever they saw it is enough to get a chance to come to the last rush. Judgements on the day of the closed rush, its almost like a job interview when at the end it is basically a don’t call us we will call you. When we call upon you you then have to go through an orientation of sorts, a process where you are a membership candidate. During this you learn vital information that you will need to  become a sister of Tau Beta Sigma. The day comes you are now a voting member of chapter an important part of a team or a cog to a machine.  What happens when a portion of the team, or machine stops working, or starts to hiccup, what do you do? You have to try and fix it work with it, but what if it gets clogged and catches fire then it can take other pieces down with it. Eventually after you put the fire out it is time to mend the wounded and rebuild what was burnt down.

How does this work? Well it’s a process that does not happen over night. For after losing a member it is not easy to just pick up the pieces, because there is a bond that was broken a trust issue that can only take time to heal. What we have done as a chapter is to first and foremost discuss the topic with your chapter as a whole. During this discussion you can talk about how each member is feeling and is there anything about the situation that dose not make sense. You ask the basics, then each person states how they feel and if there is anything else that is bothering them even if it does not have to deal with this specific situation, you make everything out in the open.  For this is a free talk where you can say what you want and how you want to say it, this includes if others are making you made, or what they are doing to upset you. During this time anything said is to be dropped or worked out personally between the two having the issues, and nothing is to be said out side of the room or time being discussed.

Other things you can do is to reaffirm your vales that you are taking and have an honorary, life member of a sister outside the chapter read them to yo u so as to almost relive your process and the promises you made during it. Another is to have a sisterhood weekend where there are no electronics to be use unless there is some emergency situation happening. During this weekend you can eat, talk play games, and just bond as a chapter,with no interruptions. Basically use this time to become a chapter that is not only doing things for the band but doing things to help out the chapter as well.  As well as the previous two things you can also hold communication, leadership and many other workshops so to make sure that all members have had the same knowledge to make then run their positions and events smoother,so we can be out standing members. Over all our goal as a chapter should to build better bands but we cannot succeed with this until we build a stronger, healthier chapter.


Sarah Currie
Tau Beta Sigma-Epsilon Upsilon
Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania