Ritual, a vital part of Greek life, should be incorporated into members' daily lives.

   But how do you incorporate these beliefs with your chapter members? Your basis should come from the text of your ritual. If  members do not know what the ritual says or means, they cannot integrate those beliefs into their lives.

   Education training can help understand the ritual. Take the text and have a study group on what it says and means. Educate the new members in your chapter so that they might be able to pass the tradition on to new classes.

   You need to make the learning process fun for the members. Find activities to spark the learning process. Mari Ann Callais, national president of Theta Phi, made a Web site, http://www.marianncallais.com/, that gives Greeks many activities to participate in with their chapter.

   One activity I used in my chapter meeting recently was a symbol activity. You need a beer bottle, to represent social, a letter shirt, to represent sisterhood and brotherhood, and your ritual text. Ask members to come forward and place the items in order of how the chapter puts each representation.

   Talk about it and discuss how it needs to change or improve. At the end, show how the ritual needs to be the foundation and the sisterhood and brotherhood around the social will make for responsible events and overall balance. More detailed instructions can be found on Callais’ Web site.

   Another way to incorporate ritual is to have team-building activities. If you are closer as a chapter, then you will be more able to lean on one another and be the support that sororities and fraternities were designed to be.

    You can either go to a camp area designed to conduct these activities year round, or you can look some up and conduct them yourself. One website to get information on conducting your own activities is http://www.wilderdom.com/games/InitiativeGames.html where you can look up activities according to what you want to do.

   One camp area that specializes in team building activities is the C.A. Vines Arkansas 4-H Center in Ferndale. So, incorporate your ritual into your lives, and your chapter will grow and prosper.
     
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