Online school has caused a change in many extracurricular clubs and how they are run.
Since students are not going to school, many clubs have ran meetings from home and connected with members online. Clubs have been contacting members through various platforms such as Remind, Discord, Schoology and Instagram, and meetings have been taking place over Google Meets.
“Running the club online is difficult but it serves as a challenge from our officer team to solve,” said Rashmi Admala, a sophomore who is the vice president of the Red Cross Club. “We have planned even more innovative activities that can be done virtually. Staying in regular contact with our members is also a difficulty [we face] but now we have been posting regularly on remind and Instagram.”
Suzanne Burch, the sponsor of the Hope Club, thinks the hardest part about having the club online is that students cannot see each other and many activities cannot be in-person.
“The in-person connections are so beneficial to everyone and coming up with ways to build friendships virtually will take a little extra time,” Burch said. “The club officers are taking the lead on creating the agendas for the meetings and communicating with our club members. Our club members [are] encouraged to share their ideas and will work with our club officers to make their ideas a reality.”
Running a club online makes the club different from last year, and not just because it is over Google Meet. The lack of in-person interaction and events having to be held online are just some of the differences that clubs face.
“Meetings this year have been more focused around the direction of the projects that students are working on and making decisions, whereas last year there was more of a focus on teaching new skills,” said William Hollingsworth, one of the programming club sponsors. “I [also] think our members feel more confident in talking and helping each other outside of meetings.”
Overall, club members are adjusting to their new normal by stepping up and finding new ways to do activities and hold events.
“This year we will have to be creative with ways to continue that in the virtual environment,” Burch said. “The club officers have done a great job of creating new ways to connect our buddies and our club members though.”
