Quota motivates smaller clubs to recruit

With the threat of being cut, smaller clubs will be recruiting new members with a renewed enthusiasm during the annual Club Day held today at lunch.

This year, a new rule enforced by the administration requires each club to have at least 12 active members at each meeting.

“The member quota is meant to help us know which clubs are active and worthwhile to the student body,” said Club Commissioner Allison Lin. “Although ASB does not have the capacity and time to drop in on each club's every meeting, we will be doing random unannounced drop-ins. Clubs on campus should garner interest in order to stay.”

Junior Albert Tseng is the current president of Computer Science Club, a small club that may struggle to meet the member requirements. Tseng hopes to recruit more members than the 10 or so upperclassmen boys who made up the club in the past.

“Besides the usual food and shouting methods, we plan to get more members by showing the different activities we do on a posterboard and introducing them to some problems that they can think over,” Tseng said. “If anything, they will at least walk away thinking that computer science is a field with many interesting problems.”  

Some changes from last year’s Club Day include giving club tables more room and pushing booths of a similar genre next to each other to help students navigate their way through the chaos.

Even in the midst of these changes, Interact, one of the most popular clubs on campus, is sticking to its tried and tested tactics.

“For Club Day, we [will] have a lot of posters, and we’re going to have music,” said Felicia Hung, the president of Interact. “We might have cookies, but mainly the process of Club Day is getting as many people as we can.”. Despite its popularity, many students know little of Interact, and Hung hopes Club Day will be a way for them to get more information.

Clubs like Interact and the Computer Science Club are pulling out all the stops for the upcoming Club Day for another reason: They are facing a tough crowd that may be disenchanted after years of largely inactive clubs. Club commissioner Meera Rachamallu hopes that the new ASB club requirements will legitimize clubs and restore the enthusiasm that once surrounded Club Day.

“We are trying to maintain that club experience that freshman experience in the first week after club day,” Rachamallu said.