Many clubs on campus have been created since the beginning of last semester and seen success in acquiring members, yet some of the older clubs on campus are currently struggling to stay afloat.
The Gospel Choir is a returning club that originally formed 9 years ago before being reformed last year. Contrary to what one might expect, the majority of club members are non-music majors. According to the president of the club, Jordan Simmons (‘22), the biggest challenge in starting the club came from “learning how to teach a group of people in a field I’m not familiar with.” Gospel Choir was featured in the MLK Chapel service and according to an anonymous source, “They did a superb job”.
One of the other new clubs on campus is the Disc Golf club, currently being headed by President Zachary Paris (‘20). “The club right now is just a group of people who love the game and when the weather is permitting,” Paris says, “The difficulty [we] faced was the weather and being able to get out and play.” The club has managed to acquire a passionate following of disc golfers.
Many of the clubs formed last semester have been doing quite well. The PB&J Club, for instance, has seen reasonable success since its conception. For those unaware of the premise of the club, as club President Billy McCrae (‘23) describes it as “a service club meant to help solve the hunger problem that exists in the world specifically targeting the impoverished in Buffalo.” As the name suggests, the club makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches during its meetings which are then distributed throughout the Buffalo area. As of January 18th, the club has already made a total of 2,874 sandwiches, making a record amount of 504 in a single meeting. Despite this success, the club is still in search of drivers to help transport sandwiches to Buffalo.
The American Sign Language club, which formed last semester has also seen progress in its endeavor to teach sign language to members. In an interview with the president of the club, Maria Simonin (‘23), she explained, “It’s awesome! Teaching such an important language to other people is amazing, [however,] it was hard preparing lectures and making sure people followed all the rules ASL has.” Regardless, the club has already learned the basics of the language and are now “preparing Christian signed songs [for] multiple campus events,” as Simonin says.
Another club formed last semester is Campus Advocates for Peace and Justice (CAPJ) which is being led by president Olivia Flint (‘20). Flint says CAPJ was formed “to both teach and empower students to communicate with their representatives on issues that they care about.” So far the club has sent letters and phone calls to Tom Reed about the so-called Muslim ban and plan on eventually lobbying to Reed in person.
On the other hand, The Gadfly Society (also known as the philosophy club) has been struggling with attendance. The Gadfly Society is the longest running club on campus, however meetings have only been ranging at about three to four attendees. In the words of club president Anna Judd (‘21), “From what I understand, a lot of clubs have been struggling with attendance recently. We got a few new sign-ups at the activities fair [but] the spring fair is a lot smaller than the fall one.” Judd went on to say, “The Gadfly Society is intended not just for philosophy students. Meetings are very relaxed; we sit down over tea and have a conversation, jumping off from a particular topic, but letting the discussion flow where it flows.”
As Maria Simonin put it, “I saw a lot of interesting clubs [at the fair] that I will definitely try to find time to attend!”