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on their way. We are so proud of all of the accomplishments that Eta Rho had in 2015 and are
so excited to watch the new council flourish and make Kappa the best house that it can be.
==Highlights of 2016==
This year marked a pivotal transition year for Eta Rho. The remainder of our beloved Alpha class graduated in spring quarter, leaving us (and one remaining Alpha who is staying for fall quarter) to forge our own path in our fourth year on Cal Poly’s campus.
We started off our year with one of our favorite sisterhood activities--a movie night at the house hosted in the backyard complete with popcorn and candy. We bundled up and welcomed each other back from Winter Break. The next day our new Chapter Council dove right in with Leadership Day, where new officers were transitioned with the help of outgoing council as well as some of our advisors.
On January 10th we hosted our annual catered Academic Excellence banquet to honor the women in our chapter who received a 4.0, Dean’s List, and achieved their academic goals they set for themselves.
This year was the second year we have done winter recruitment. However, this year we took a more casual approach and got coffee with women that our chapter recommended. We got to know them one-on-one rather than doing an entire mini-recruitment at our house. We welcomed our Zeta class of 13 women with a baseball-themed bid day at the house.
February started off with Parents Weekend. Friday, February 5th, we opened our house to show our parents and loved ones. The following day we ate brunch at the Madonna Inn and got to hear about how Kappa has affected women in our chapter and alumni. That Sunday we hosted a hike for all sisters and parents to join.
The next weekend was filled with just as much fun for us. The following Thursday, we had a dinner with Delta Upsilon at their new house. The next day we celebrated Valentine’s day with a “Galentine’s Day” complete with cookies and note-writing. On Saturday we participated in Sigma Pi’s Home Run Derby philanthropy, where our sister Sarah took home first place!
The fun continued through the rest of February with fun social events. We had a librarians and barbarians themed exchange with the men of Delta Tau Delta and Phi Sigma Kappa. We also had our semi-formal, hosted at the Old Port Inn in Avila. We honored our seniors with a senior wine-tasting trip, hopefully a new tradition that the rest of the chapter can look forward to one day.
We celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday with a trip to C.L. Smith Elementary School to do a Reading is Key event. Our sisters love interacting with the children and seeing how reading is impacting children first-hand. Our philanthropic spirit continued into March when we participated in a beach clean up with the men of Zeta Beta Tau.
March 2nd fell on a Saturday, which meant we got to celebrate Eta Rho’s third birthday party on the actual day! Because Eta Rho was turning three, we found it appropriate to throw ourselves a third birthday party at our house--complete with party hats, face-paint, balloons, streamers, and other fun childhood games and activities. It was fun to let loose and celebrate our chapter and how much we have grown.
The quarter was almost over, which meant that it was time to participate in our quarterly Kappa Kappacino event. We hand out free coffee, donuts, and scantrons to the students struggling to get through Dead Week. So many of our sisters love this event because it really does brighten up students’ days and we love how thankful students are.
But before we knew it, Winter Quarter was over and it was Spring Quarter, which meant it was time to initiate our Zetas. We got to bond during I-week with Zeta Zumba and a sisterhood trip to the weekly Farmer’s Market. Our Zetas were initiated on April 2nd. We got to celebrate with something a bit unorthodox--a British acapella band made a stop in SLO, coordinated by one of our sisters and her mom. They came to the Kappa house and serenaded us with a beautiful performance! It was so fun (and higher quality than a normal fraternity serenade).
On April 23, we had an exchange with Theta Chi and Zeta Beta Tau. The theme was jerseys and jorts (jean shorts) and it was great to see all of our sisters go all out for the theme. Throughout the year, we also had an exchange with Kappa Sigma and Sigma Pi as well as a dinner with Cal Poly’s men’s lacrosse and rugby teams and another one with Zeta Beta Tau.
The weekend of April 30th, our sisters started a new tradition with participating in Wildflower. Many other Greek organizations pair up and help to volunteer at the marathon, so we joined in on the fun with the men of Beta Theta Pi. In addition to this, we continued serving our community throughout Spring Quarter. The next weekend we helped out with a water station outside of our house for the SLO Marathon. Another fun service and fundraising opportunity, Greek Week, was the following week. May 2nd through 9th was filled with fun activities that we got to enjoy with our partners, Sigma Nu, Alpha Epsilon Phi, and Lambda Phi Epsilon. Greek Week activities were not only fun competition but also raised money for Jack’s Helping Hand, a local charity that our chapter also supports.
Philanthropy efforts from our chapter continued on May 14th when we hosted Kappa Splash. We swapped out our usual spring philanthropy of a kickball tournament for something more unique and interactive. We hosted an innertube water polo tournament between fraternities and it was a roaring success. We had a great fraternity turnout and both the participants and women in our chapter were having fun tanning by the pool, splashing around, watching games, and taking pictures. We even heard participants talking after the event about their excitement for next year’s tournament. We hope that we have started a new era for philanthropy and can continue this positive energy and love for this event!
On June 3rd we hosted our senior sendoff ceremony. This bittersweet time is always hard for our chapter, but this year it was particularly hard to say goodbye to the women in the Alpha (and some Beta) class who were so influential in making our chapter what it is today. We thanked them for their courage to start a new chapter and we promised we would carry on their legacy.
Because we were so busy during spring quarter, we held our formal on June 4th. It was at the Avila Beach Golf Resort and made for beautiful pictures. We danced the night away under a beautiful tent with string lights that overlooked the beach. But, formal was bittersweet because it was the last time a majority of our chapter was together before school was out for summer!
Before we knew it, it was time to pack our bags and come back for Spirit Week. We went over logistics like how to line up, how to do pickups, how to introduce yourself, and how to walk down our front steps without looking down and without tripping. But Spirit Week is so much more than logistics. We held workshops where we got to bond with our sisters and get to know more about each other. Spirit Week is a time to come closer together and learn more about each other as well as yourself. Ice breakers, emotional note-writing, and silly activities helped to strengthen our sisterhood and ensure that we were ready to welcome new women into our chapter. And, of course, Spirit Week means our sisterhood trip to Disneyland!
Recruitment started on September 28th and proved to be the long hours we anticipated. However, all of the time and sleepless nights were worth it when we welcomed home our beloved Eta class with a Vegas themed bid day at La Cuesta Ranch on October 5th.
The Etas kicked off their new member period right away with a sisterhood trip to farmer’s, a fraternity dinner, and an In-n-Out takeover. Our chapter was kept busy with many sisterhoods as well as our annual Founder’s Day celebration, this year held at the Madonna Inn with a theme of “something blue.”
Once again, our Philanthropy Chairman blew us away with our fall philanthropy. Last year we decided to do a “Kappa Kostume Run” and we decided to take it on again this year, except we wanted to go much bigger and improve turnout. We could have never expected the turnout we got--over 300 people participated and we raised over $4,000 for Jack’s Helping Hand (to put that in perspective, that’s about as much as all of Greek life raised during Greek Week).
The fun continued with our annual Kappa Krush date party was held on November 11th at the Embassy Suites this year. We stuck with our theme of “perfect pair” but tried to do the dates differently this year--we suggested that our members ask a date for their buddy.
Finally, we held a very successful I-week the week before dead week of fall quarter. We watched our women win the championship of soccer intramurals on our team with Beta Theta Pi, watched Moana at the drive-in, and held our first ever senior/new member night where the seniors got to pass on words of wisdom and advice to our chapter’s future. We initiated our Eta class on December 3rd.
Although we faced challenges this year, we are so proud of how far we have come. We received the President’s Community Service Award for an on-campus organization that does outstanding service. This was a big year for our philanthropy and we have finally started to establish ourselves on campus. We take pride in our strong sisterhood and the genuine women we have in this chapter. We have worked on improving our retention rate and are working on using our committees to improve chapter involvement. Council meetings have had almost every seat filled because of members coming to actively participate. We are so excited for our next executive board to take on leadership. We can’t wait to see what they have in store and how they will help us continue to grow!
Approved by the Eta Rho Chapter on 12/4/2016
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