Sweeten everyone's day with a "Home Sweet Home" bid day theme. Plan a variety of activities that are centered around sweet treats. For instance, make a variety of baked goods for an entertaining bonding activity. Either do this as a large group, or split off into smaller units by placing each bid recipient with a few older members; smaller groups can be less overwhelming and can help to ensure no one is feeling left out. Decorate the treats you make with the colors, letters and symbols specific to your sorority. These treats can certainly be enjoyed by the house members immediately, but they can be used as bake sale items for the sorority's next charitable fundraiser.
Use this play on "Home Is Where the Heart Is" to devise a day filled with different artistic activities. Set up several different arts and crafts stations to suit a variety of tastes. Use the bid day budget to purchase supplies like koozies, canvas tote bags or picture frames that each member can work on customizing with decorative materials. Provide things like paint pens, glitter and ribbon for the women to decorate with. If your budget is low, see what materials you already have around the house to work with. Also, look for sale items to decorate, or check out your local dollar store for inexpensive materials. If you have a large house, provide only enough materials to ensure each new member will have a project to take home; ask the older women to split off and find a new member to assist and get to know while decorating.
Most people are familiar with the famous "Wizard of Oz" line, "There's no place like home." Use this as inspiration for your bid day theme with a "Wizard of Oz" decorating scheme and activities agenda. Decorate the pavement outside your sorority house with yellow sidewalk chalk to look like a yellow brick road, and place a sign on the door that says "Bell out of order, please knock." Inside the house, set up a table with a variety of treats, including large, colorful lollipops. For a craft activity, you could decorate pairs of red flip-flops with red glitter to look like the ruby red slippers. Or if you want to take it easy, pop in the "Wizard of Oz," serve some popcorn and watch the film as a house.
Bid days can fall during autumn, winter, spring and summer, but a "Home for the Holidays" theme can be entertaining all year round. Decorate the house to represent Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa colors and symbols. Serve holiday snacks alongside hot cocoa or warm apple cider, and set up holiday cookie or cupcake decorating stations as a creative activity. Screen classic holiday movies or simply play a holiday soundtrack in the background. If religious denomination is worrisome for you, focus on the nondenominational New Year's holiday. Have members state some new year's resolutions to fulfill during the year or semester, and celebrate a fake countdown to midnight with noisemakers, confetti and glasses of sparkling cider.