To regulate the influx of new clubs and activities, East’s policies regarding student-run clubs have changed.
Starting this year, students planning to create new clubs must fill out a Club Creation form outlining why the club is important, what sort of meetings will be held, and how many people are interested in joining. No new club requests will be accepted between January and August, and individual students can only submit one request per year. Once the club is approved, students have two weeks to fill out a contract form for the club to be official.
Similarly, existing clubs must now fill out a “Club Renewal Form” stating that they intend to continue holding meetings. All currently running clubs have filled out this form, which was due in May of last year. To be considered an active club, clubs must hold official meetings or activities at least once a month, with dates and times emailed to their club advisor and Ms. Barr, the Activities Director.
These changes have come in light of increasing efforts to hold clubs accountable for being active and involved.
“Mrs. Sassinsky, myself, and Mr. Davis (the former Coordinator of Student Activities) have been working on all of this for a while now. We are doing it to give students better opportunities to truly get involved. It teaches students how to create, form, build, run, and pass down a club to the next generation,” said Barr.
There have also been issues with clubs being created for college applications without the intent to hold meetings or run activities. In the past, these inactive clubs were allowed to exist without repercussions.
“Students will create clubs and have no time to run them. What colleges want is to see that students are active and involved in activities at their school and within their community. They like it better when you’ve been an active member of Habitat for Humanity Club for 3-4 years, rather than being the Club Founder and President of the Mustache Club for 1-2 years,” said Barr.
Many proposed clubs also overlap with existing ones, making events and activities hard to coordinate.
“For example, someone wants to create the “Candyland Club,” but we already have a “Tabletop Gaming” Club that should be covering things like that. A lot of these clubs can do better if they combine forces,” said Barr.
In addition to the club requirements, a potential January Club Fair is being discussed to introduce newer clubs. For the time being, all active clubs will be able to participate in the DiscoverEAST Open House on January 30, which is open for all 8th graders and incoming freshmen.
