On the first day of school, the annual club fair presented various treats, posters, brochures, and frantic club executives promoting their clubs to incoming freshmen and other students. Amid the many familiar club names that have been a staple within the SIS community, several new clubs, or re-branded clubs, made their recent debut.
The new clubs are Socratic Society, Girl Up, Public Safety, AI for Social Impact, and the Flag Football Club, while the re-branded clubs include Business Club (formerly FBLA) and Bridging Perspectives (formerly DEIB Club). Despite the diverse names and purposes of these clubs, the founders and leaders of these clubs had one goal in common: delivering their own unique aspect to bettering the SIS community.
For instance, Girl Up is the only women’s empowerment club in SIS and acts as a branch of the national Girl Up foundation in the US.
“I actually stumbled across this club on Instagram and thought [what they were doing] was interesting, and I felt like their mission would be helpful if applied in our school settings,” Ashley Croft (12), founder and president of Girl Up, said. “The club is not just about promoting women’s activism but also inclusion. Our goals this year are to try changing the stigma around women’s empowerment amongst male audiences, such as by shedding more focus on events like International Women’s Day. It would be great to get some guys to join too, even if it was for their girlfriends for now, like making kits for their partner.”
Themes of creating school-wide activities for a more inclusive school community have been arising in many of the new clubs. Incorporating a community-based mindset into many of these clubs may be helpful for the freshmen, the target majority at every club fair, who may feel lost about which activities are appropriate investments for their interests. Similarly, goals of bringing light to topics and activities that have not been a big part of the SIS community have shown up in many clubs, such as the Flag Football Club.
“Football has been a growing enthusiasm in SIS the past few years, with last year’s teachers versus students game especially being a success with the most students and clubs participating,” William Park (12), president of Flag Football Club, said. “So, we wanted to take this to the next level so that it evolves into something bigger than an annual event. Because football is a huge cultural factor in creating social bonding skills in the US, we wanted to spread culture within SIS to a greater extent.”
Some clubs have renamed themselves to redefine the focus of their club and their prerogatives for the new school year.
“I didn’t change the name [of FBLA] out of my own will,” said Jaewon Kim (12), president of Business Club, formerly FBLA, said. “There are no specific new changes, but it will be more KBC focused. The goal is the same as FBLA, which is to get students to pursue their academic interests through the lens of an entrepreneur.”
In this manner, many pre-existing clubs have changed their defining yearly activities and are working on promoting the club with the respective changes. While community-focused, many of these clubs are influenced by their founders’ personal interests, as well.
“[The executives and I] are football enthusiasts ourselves, so this was a nice opportunity for us to get involved with the activity in school and spread it to others as a good way for them to socialize,” William said.
As the year progresses, their success will depend on whether they can form their aspirations into meaningful action. With the club registration deadline approaching on Sept. 3, members of the student body will hopefully feel motivated to participate in the new variety of clubs.
