cAtcH me At tHe cluB . . . meetiNg

Officers of UPA clubs share their approaches to cultivating club culture and organizing events

ARTICLE BY KAREN HENG • DESIGN BY NADIA HAMILTON

originally UPA clubs were academic-related, but over the years, these clubs branched out to include students’ interests and hobbies. Since there are a variety of clubs, different officers have different methods of organizing their club, which leads to many students wondering: “How do clubs keep consistent?”

Senior Naomi Abtew, president of the Black Student Union (BSU), feels that being surrounded by a community with a shared passion creates unity and a sense of belonging, and clubs at UPA make it a goal to achieve this. Even though Interact attracts many new and recurring members, president, Belinda Ho, believes that it is hard to keep members consistently coming to meetings.

Keeping a club running year-to-year at UPA can be difficult, although clubs such as BSU, LatinX and Interact have been able to achieve this consistency. However, Ho feels that gathering interests from underclassmen— whether or not they are a member or officer—is the main importance for keeping a club together.

Carefully choosing club officers is crucial, and the current president and one of the founding members of LatinX, Salma Rivera Almanza believes that this is an important aspect to help keep a club running. She and her sister started this club to share more about Latin culture. Rivera started off as a secretary in LatinX’s first year in 2020, and became president this year after her sister graduated.

“We choose roles based on who’s more involved in a club or who seems more involved in the club,” Rivera said. “Like they are interested in the club, they come to all our meetings or events, they ask questions, are involved and they help us with our festivals, volunteering and everything.”

As for Ho, she joined the club as a member in her freshman year with the interest of learning more about the club. Interact not only allows students to develop leadership skills, but provides the opportunity to make a change in one’s community, and this sparked motivation for her to apply as publicist officer her sophomore year. In her junior year, she rose to the role of vice president and became president this year. Interact officers are chosen by their president asking if a member or officer wants to move up how they can help strengthen the black community.

To keep members returning and spark more students’ interest, clubs have to captivate their attention through meetings, fundraisers and events. Hosting fundraisers or events at school helps promote clubs by spreading word and allowing them to or stay in the same position. Ho finds that having officers that know about the club’s mission and how to run it is integral to running a club.

Alternatively, BSU uses Google forms to select officers. On the form, applicants are put in certain scenarios, giving them space to communicate how they would react to that scenario and what ideas they have for the club. They look for people who are passionate about BSU and fundraise simultaneously. In the 2021-2022 school year, BSU and LatinX held a collaborative event—the Multicultural Festival—which helped the UPA community learn more about Latino and African culture.

“Our club did a BSU x LatinX festival,” Abtew said. “And that was super, super successful, we had a huge turnout, and I think a lot of people really enjoyed it.”

Admission was free, and the clubs provided homemade tacos, Mexican sweet breads and activities such as hitting piñatas, a basket raffle and a cheer performance. The event brought a large gathering and helped both clubs gain more visibility.

“We just want to be open to more cultures and show everyone that not everyone has to be Latino to come into a club that’s open for anyone,” Rivera said.

Rivera felt that the Multicultural Festival was a hit and is hoping to hold more events where people can come to have fun and learn more about Latino culture.

On the other hand, Interact is a service club that allows students to develop leadership skills while being able to serve their community. It is arranged into areas and districts, and UPA is a part of Area 7, and it is in District 5170. There are levels of Interact: club, area, district and international.

One of Interact’s district-level events such as the Fall Leadership Conference (FLC) are held outside of school. FLC is a district-wide event where participants learn to strengthen their leadership skills and interact with other people from other areas. Interact’s club-level meetings held by the Interact club are held at coming back from quarantine, Interact was able to hold a fundraiser this school year at the 2022 Harvest Festival selling pizza. The money goes towards funding for club supplies and their international project this year called the Ripple Effect (that provides clean and affordable water to those in Honduras.)

“Service events and leadership opportunities keep members interested in continuously attending club meetings while keeping them engaged with the club and its mission, and fundraisers help prepare for future events as we can use our budget when we need to,” Ho said.

Ho’s motivation to run In- teract comes from being able to transform her community and making someone’s day while making new friends. Similarly, Rivera saw the amount of people showing up to LatinX’s events and enjoying it.

“At our past event I saw people dancing on the floor who weren’t exactly Latino and I was like, ‘I’m so happy,’” Rivera said. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, they actually enjoy it!’”

In the future, she hopes to host more events and continue the mission of the club.

“We started this club so people could come in and feel safe in this space and I want the future presidents, school. UPA’s Interact Club has hosted activities such as card making for children in hospitals which count toward community service hours.

In addition, Ho believes that fundraising has helped Interact grow and gain attention.

“Fundraising draws attention to our club goals and attracts potential members interested in making an impact in our local and global communities,” Ho said.

Interact’s fundraisers are held by selling food mostly during school festivals. Since the fundraisers for Interact require volunteers, they needed to be put on pause due to quarantine. Although