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Approved by the Eta Rho Chapter on 12/4/2016
==Highlights of 2017==
Eta Rho has reached its fifth year at Cal Poly with an exciting and successful year! Our chapter continues to grow and evolve as we establish ourselves and make our presence known on campus. Our philanthropy events—Kappa Splash and the Kappa 5k run—have raised thousands of dollars for Reading is Fundamental and Jack’s Helping Hands. We hope to continue raising more money every year to help make a difference in the San Luis Obispo Community and the whole country!
We started off 2017 with our new council members and the excitement of Winter Recruitment. We invited amazing women to our preference night at the house after meeting them for a coffee date earlier in the week. Informal recruitment was a success with our newly recruited eight wonderful Thetas that have shown to be an amazing addition to our chapter. We celebrated our new members with a fun bid day at the house with desserts, snacks, and sisters! Our first event with the new members was a dinner with the men of Beta Theta Pi. The rain did not stop us from having a great time and we always enjoy spending time with their fraternity! Our first sisterhood event with our Theta class was a space themed bowling night with pizza at Mustang Lanes. We had such a great time meeting our great new additions to the chapter at both the dinner and sisterhood!
As February approached, so did Parents Weekend! We kicked off the weekend by hosting an open house at the Kappa house where families were able to tour the house and meet the ladies that live in. We hoped the parents would now understand why we love our house so much after seeing it for themselves! We finished off the weekend with brunch at the Madonna Inn. Our families arrived with hundreds of books to donate to Reading is Fundamental and it was great that we could get our parents involved in our national philanthropy and show them how much it means to our chapter! During the meal, we introduced our chapters council members and sang for our families. We loved being able to introduce our families to each other and be able to show them what Kappa is all about!
Before we knew it, semi-formal season was upon us! The theme was Kappa Kappa Gatsby and it was at the Marriott. We danced the night away with our dates and sisters, and had an awesome time. On March 3rd, we celebrated Eta Rho’s fifth birthday with an event at Suspended Aerial Motion. We split up into two groups and had the opportunity to climb, flip, and twist on silks. It was an amazing experience that most of our sisters had never even heard of before, let alone attempted!
Winter quarter sped by and before we knew it, it was initiation week! We kicked off I-Week with a Zumba class at the Rec Center, an In-n-Out takeover the following night, and finished the week with a movie night watching Neighbors 2. Fireside and Initiation were beautiful and the Thetas were finally initiated into our amazing sisterhood. As winter quarter came to an end, we hosted our quarterly Senior Sendoff at our chapter meeting. It was bittersweet because we are going to miss our sisters so much but we know they are going to do amazing in the next chapter of their lives. We finished off the quarter with a day of service with the men of Zeta Beta Tau at Growing Grounds in San Luis Obispo. We were split up into different groups to perform different tasks for two hours. They are always very gracious when we go to volunteer and our sisters always work hard at these events!
Spring quarter finally arrived and we jumped right back into Kappa! We attended Farmers Market on the Thursday before the Cal Poly Open House in our cute Kappa tanks to show the Potential New Members how strong the Kappa sisterhood is. The following Saturday we joined the rest of Greek Life at the club showcase for open house where we setup our booth and chatted with PNMs and their families. We encouraged women to consider Greek Life because of the amazing opportunities that we are given with meeting new people, getting involved with community service, and being able to make the large Cal Poly campus seem a bit smaller.
Our busy spring quarter continued with a sisterhood event at the movies to see Beauty and The Beast. We then hosted our annual Kappa Splash Tournament, with proceeds going to Reading is Fundamental. The event went very smoothly and the men of Zeta Beta Tau won for the second year in a row! All of the participants loved the event and are looking forward to next year. After our philanthropy, we hopped right into competitive mode for the start of Greek Week. Our team was “Back to the Future” and the theme of the week was “Battle of the Classics.” We did an amazing job, winning many of the sports including bowling, basketball and flag football. Unfortunately, our team came in second place, but we improved greatly from last year and there is always next year to take home the victory! Our busy quarter did not slow down even when we neared the end. We hosted a Jolyn trunk Show, which was a huge success and girls really enjoyed it!
We also had a movie night at the house with In-N-Out and Magic Mike, followed by senior sendoff the next morning. Many girls came to “Roast and Toast” our seniors and it was a great sendoff. We are so proud of the amazing women who graduated and are excited to see what the future has in store for them!
Formal came the weekend before finals and it was well worth the wait. It was at Edna Valley Vineyards and catered by Taqueria Santa Cruz. The food was amazing and the venue was absolutely stunning with rolling green hills in the background, a perfect backdrop for pictures! It was a great event, just like all the other ones we had so far this year! We reached finals and had to part our ways from our sisters for summer, already anticipating the reunion in fall for recruitment!
Over summer, our sisters went off and did some amazing things! Some ladies were studying abroad, others were traveling, a lot of women had amazing internships, and many stayed in SLO and were able to be together all summer. As much fun as we had this summer, we were eager to come back and begin recruitment! We started off the school year with spirit week! We trained for the various days of recruitment, bonded with different activities, and even made time to take a trip to Disneyland. Recruitment was long and tiring, but completely worth it. We recruited some amazing women that are going to be great additions to Eta Rho and keep the chapter moving in the right direction! We hosted our fall bid night on a ranch with ice cream, donuts, dancing and lots of pictures. It was a great night and a great introduction to Kappa for our New Members!
For the Iota’s new member period, we planned as many events as possible in order to make them feel comfortable and welcome in Kappa. Our first event with our New Members was going downtown for Farmers Market. Actives drove our new sisters downtown to eat food and mingle with the new members. Our next event was a fun beach day, where we really got to know our new members a little bit better. We also had a bonfire on Grover Beach a few days later where we roasted s’mores, watched the sunset, and got to know the new members even more!
At our chapter meeting on the following Monday, we had formal pledging for our Iota class. They were given their New Member pin that they are to keep until the new member period is over in November. The following weekend we celebrated Kappa Kappa Gamma’s founders day at the Madonna Inn. It even featured a Kappa rap from our advisor Judith! To finish off October, Kappa volunteered for Cal Poly’s “Make a Difference Day” where we helped clean the kitchen of a summer camp called Granite Ridge in Creston with the ladies of Chi Omega. One of our most anticipated events of the quarter finally arrived, Kappa Krush! Everyone dressed up in “Dynamic Duo” costumes and had a great time chatting, dancing, and eating at SLO Brew at the Rock. The new members loved being apart of the event and are so excited for next year!
Initiation week was finally upon us! We kicked off I-week with the Senior/New Member spa night and continued the week with our popular In-N-Out takeover and going to the drive-in theatre at Sunset Drive-In where we watched Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy from the comfort of our cars! The week ended with Fireside and afterwards the New Members went to the Kappa house for a sleepover. This year, we decided to also have an active sleepover in order for the actives to also bond during this special week of the quarter. It was a great time and have now decided to make it into a tradition. On Saturday November 11, the Iota class was initiated and they could not be more excited. Girls went to brunch after initiation with their Kappa families to celebrate being an active member of Kappa! With initiation behind us, the quarter is coming to an end.
We can't wait to install our new executive board and ready ourselves for another exciting year in KKG! Our fraternity had great success this year with our recruitment, philanthropies, and events. We cannot wait to see what 2018 has in store for us and the excitement that’s yet to come!
Approved by Eta Rho on 11/13/2017
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