Starting and running a club at Bear River has been a pretty straightforward process with little more than a single sheet having to be filed with the front office in order to be official. However, ASB recently introduced some new rules that club officers have to be aware of.
In an email to all club secretaries, ASB made it clear that they were expected to draft minutes of every club meeting and report them back. Also, an attached club handbook contained some requirements about taking attendance and expected club membership counts of 12 active members.
The Secretary of DnD Club, Senior Jake Vogt, held only minor qualms about the changes.
“I do think that giving secretaries a set job rather than just a label is useful,” Vogt said. “Though I often forget to make notes of attendance, so it’s a little frustrating.”
President and acting Secretary of KEY Club, Senior Alexa Tran, described the new rules as only minor nuisances with mostly positive effects.
“Although I think it is a bit unnecessary, I think it is good that leadership is overseeing club actions so that they are on task and having meetings, meaning that clubs can’t not have meetings and still call themselves a club,” Tran said. “ I think it only takes a couple of minutes out of our meeting to fill out the form and it’s very easy with not much to it. I think it’s a positive thing for leadership, but I am neutral either way, as it’s just another thing we have to do during our meetings.”
Senior class treasurer Jake Van Bourgondien explained why ASB has decided to make the new policies.
“I think a lot of these ‘new rules’ are what we were supposed to be following in previous years, or at least that’s what information has been funneled down to me. It was the new advisor, Jessica Lee, coming in and pointing out that we weren’t following all the rules to their full extent.”
Tran agreed with this explanation, also speculating about the administration’s possible role.
“I’m probably assuming it’s because of Ms. Lee because MacD was the chill, kind of let the students take over, type of advisor,” Tran thought. “There are good parts and bad parts about that, and I think Ms. Lee is a different advisor to ASB. She is more like doing things with the students in directing them, which also has positive and negative effects. It’s either Ms. Lee trying to oversee extracurriculars more or it’s the administration having high expectations and directing her as a new teacher on what to do.”
Luckily for clubs, Van Bourgondien made some reassurances about clubs not getting shut down for not meeting the requirements entirely.
“As far as I know, no club will be shut down. For about forever, clubs didn’t really follow these rules, and no god force came and smashed them down to uncreate it.”
Tran was hopeful that this was the case, citing how dance class could operate at Club Rush despite not technically being a club.
“I don’t think that they’d take away any clubs,” Tran said. “Like with dance, it’s a hard thing since we want to be considered a club in order to participate in Club Rush, but we are also a class. It’s super difficult having an account with the district compared to having one with ASB. We try to have meetings once a month that are open to anyone where we talk about dance. I don’t think that they would take that away, just because it is another aspect to help profit from Club Rush.”
