Running a club in a hybrid school environment is a challenge for all club presidents. Attendance, action items, and fundraiser plans have persevered during COVID. It is important that club presidents know how to tackle all of these factors at once. Watch the video above to learn how a club meeting should be run.

“There still needs to be… there has not been a deep dive reflection into the clubs here at Bolles since I’ve had this job,” said Mrs. Moyer-Shad, the director of student activities, “Nobody’s ever asked, ‘What makes a good club, and the ones that are successful, why are they successful, and what makes a student want to join a club, and what can we do to help these clubs once they get formed?’

A new student organization will be joining the campus this year – the Club Council. This council, overseen by Mrs. Moyer-Shad, will reform and improve the Bolles student club system.

Its primary goal this year will be research and information gathering. At the end of the year, the council will come up with a list of proposals for how to change the Bolles club system. Regarding these proposals, Moyer-Shad said they are “not necessarily going to be accepted. They don’t have control over whether or not this stuff gets approved.” After this year, the club council will act as a managing body for existing clubs. Its duties will include approving or disapproving clubs, keeping records using spreadsheets, and making Schoology pages, as well as monitoring active clubs.

“Each member will get a set number of clubs, and they’ll be responsible for checking in on those clubs to make sure those clubs are running efficiently,” Mrs. Moyer-Shad said. She also noted that the job of the Club Council would be a challenging one, saying, “It’s a tough job because you have to be able to police your peers, which is not easy to do for adults, and definitely not easy to do for high schoolers.”

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We’re hoping they can come up with some best practices and other ideas for what works.

— Mrs. Moyer-Shad

Additionally, members of the Club Council will serve for the remainder of their careers as Bolles students once they are appointed, similar to how appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court work.

Mrs. Moyer-Shad also reflected on how the Club Council will work with the administration, saying, “[The proposals have] got to go to administration to get approved, but we’re hoping they can come up with some best practices and other ideas for what works.”

The Club Council will meet regularly every other month, and every four years, it will re-evaluate its progress. Currently, the freshman and senior members of the council have been chosen, and members of the other classes are in the process of being selected.

Near the end of the year, the Club Council will use the information they have gathered to develop proposals and suggestions for how the club system could be improved.

“We’re trying to be a little bit more intentional, really. It’s not about the number [of clubs] so much. It’s more about what works and what doesn’t,” Mrs. Moyer-Shad said.