What About Clubs?: How East clubs are continuing to meet

With COVID-19 prohibiting in-person meetings, clubs are one of the many aspects of school that look different this year. Here’s how you can still get involved with a variety of clubs while stuck at home: 

Logan Potter (12): Ultimate Frisbee Club Member (@sme_ultimate)

Q. What does this year look like for the Ultimate Frisbee Club?

A. “We’ve had a few practices and they’re done on a smaller scale — distanced as much as we possibly can. We’ve also done meets that aren’t practices that are even smaller. We usually have six to ten players, we have a lot of people in the club total, but not everyone always plays.”

Q. When do you usually meet?

A. “Tuesday evenings, usually we have a calendar. We used to have practices every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, [but] Since COVID happened, we had to throw that off because scheduling got misaligned so it’s pretty random now, but we’re trying to get back on a regular schedule.”

Q. How many total people are in the club?

A. “64. We have freshmen, I’m a senior, we have a few juniors and I’m pretty sure we have some sophomores too.”

Q. How do people get involved?

A. “We used to do announcements, which we can’t do anymore. We have an Instagram @smeultimate. We also just tell people about it.”

Q. How does an average meeting work?

A. “We do two types of meetups. We have the actual real practices where we run through tests and courses and everything and then most of the time it’s just scrimmages which is just four people on the end, four people on the other and we try to just play the game regularly.”

Q. What have some of the struggles been due to COVID?

A.“We were going to have a big game at the end of last year and most of the seniors were on board with that, but once COVID hit us and they had to get to college and everything, we had to cancel that. We usually do this thing called Harvest Moon which we can’t do this year but regardless of that, I think we do a pretty good job of just keeping up. We’re trying to just get games set up too. We haven’t been able to do many games because we don’t know many of the other schools, like Gardner’s schedule, or North’s or anybody’s. We’re not even sure if they’re doing it this year, so that’s been a struggle. 

Q. Why should people join the Ultimate Club?

A  “It’s just fun. Once you join you’re kind of looked at as, I don’t wanna say a family member, it’s kinda silly to say, but it’s true. You just have random people and we’re like, “Cool.” It’s one big family. We’re kind of a mini team, we have uniforms and everything.”

Leah Meeker (11): Happy Club Co-President (@smehappyclub)

Q. What does this year look like for the Happy Club?

A. It looks really different and honestly we’re just kind of rolling with the punches. So we had our first meeting on Friday and played pictionary on Webex and the annotating tool and I think that’s what it’s going to look like more for us like doing things online that a large amount of people can do. And I think that honestly having our meetings online is super beneficial to our turn-out and amount of people that come to our club. This past meeting, we had like 20 people, which is a lot more than we usually have because it’s a lot easier for people to attend because you just click a button and you talk to people so it’s not as much of a hassle. 

Q. How does an average Happy Club meeting work?

A. “We start our meetings by going over what we call our “Happy Highlights”. It’s where everyone in the club gets a chance to say what the high of their week was and something that made them happy. We’re an oddball group of people and a lot of different personalities come together and so it’s just a lot of people talking about random things and then eventually we get to our activity that we need to do.”

Q. What new things are happening this year with Happy Club?

A. “I’m not entirely sure because Happy Club in and of itself doesn’t have an end goal. The end goal is just for people to be happy and have a moment in their week to take a breather from all their stressors so I think as long as we do that every week, at whatever capacity, I think that our club is serving its purpose.”

Q. How can people get involved with the happy club?

A. “Well we have an Instagram. We’re trying to remarket ourselves and expand and there’s 30 people in our GroupMe and every week we tell them, “If you want to add someone, just add them,” and then I send out a Webex link for our meeting that week. Last year we got advertised on the @sme_office Instagram, so maybe we’ll do that again.” 

Q. When do you meet?

A. “We used to meet on Thursdays, but now we meet on Fridays because that’s what everyone voted on.”

Mackenzie Clevenger, (12): Freelancer Co-Editor (@smefreelancer.official)

Q. How is the Freelancer meeting this year?

A. “We’re meeting virtually this year on Webex. Our first meeting was last Thursday and we just used our sponsor’s Webex class but probably in the future I’ll be posting my own Webex meetings or our other co-editor, Ava Walton, will be.”

Q. What types of things will the Freelancer be doing this year?

A. “The Freelancer isn’t necessarily a club that has to be in-person. I mean, at the end of last year we kind of had some experience because we finished off the year online and so we are going to be pretty much doing the same thing — still accepting submissions, still talking about them and reading them and then at the end of the year we’re still planning on making the magazine. So luckily the club isn’t very affected by COVID.”

Q. How many people are involved with the Freelancer?

A. “It’s hard to say because you know, usually some people join, some people leave — that kind of thing. But we had quite a turn out for our first meeting and we have 26 students in our Google Classroom, so pretty good turn out. I was pretty worried about it but people showed up, so that’s good news.”

Q. How does an average meeting work?

A. “Typical meetings we start off with highs and lows, which are just a high of the week, a low of the week, what’s been good, what’s been bad. Then most of the time we move on to rating submissions. Any East student can send in something they’ve written or something they’ve drawn or any type of art they’ve created and the staff will look at it and talk about it — what they like, what maybe needs some improvement and we just discuss art.”

Q. What have some of the biggest struggles been of not being able to have your club in person?

A. “I think the biggest struggle is just communication because, I mean, we have a group chat and our email is always open for people that have questions, but it’s hard to show someone or connect with people when you’re not really seeing them face-to-face, especially since our first meeting had a bunch of new people — which is fantastic. But it’s going to be a lot harder to build those connections and really be able to connect to them.”

Q. Why should people get involved with Freelancer?

A. “I think our club is really great because it provides a lot of unique perspectives on writing and art in general that you don’t really see. Especially if you, yourself, are an artist because I am a writer and stuff, I’ve had stuff published in the past. It’s really great to hear people give you constructive criticism and say what you’re doing well and what you’re not doing well and also see different interpretations from different types of work and everyone has a different perspective and I think that’s really valuable. People should join, it’s a lot of fun!”