Okay, so I was able to talk to my fraternity friend at the end of the day. He said that the pledge period is basically when you learn about the people in the frat, learn about the history of the household and all that stuff. Typically you would be paired up with one of the members of the frat to learn all this stuff, but they might have an information session type thing too.
So then after the pledge all of the actives (the people currently in the frat) get together and decide which of the pledges they're going to let in based on how they mesh with the rest of the group, if they're a good fit and stuff like that. They way they did it was with a marble system. They'd talk about each pledge, then each active would drop in a marble, black for yes, white for no. That way no one would know who voted for or against. If the split was pretty even they'd have a further discussion about it.
So once that was over they'd do initiation. This is the part where all the classic pranking and stuff takes place. I think you'll probably want to make up your own silly pranks for this part, but my friend told me that they would send their guys out on a scavenger hunt. They'd provide them with money, and the people being initiated would have to come back with the items. Usually they'd send them for items that were needed around the frat house, but one time they sent them off for a plunger, and one of the other items they needed was a store receipt that had on it a plunger, a box of condoms and a jar of Vaseline LMAO.
When the initiation was over, they'd do the formal welcoming into the fraternity and then have a formal dinner.
In their frat house they'd have chapter meetings once a week and a formal dinner taking place before those chapter meetings. He told me that they actually have a "frat mother" who didn't live in the house, but was the mom of one of the actives. She would attend their weekly dinners and if any of the guys was out of line during, she'd rip them a new one. Apparently she was awesome and everyone loved her.
Yeah! He told me if I needed to know anything specific to let him know and he'd tell me. So if you've got any questions I'll ask!
