1. Be passionate!<\/p>\n
The first step to having a successful club at Berkeley High School is being passionate about your club\u2019s activities. If the topic isn\u2019t interesting to you, it\u2019s not going to come across as interesting to your audience. \u201cYour club might not have the biggest member count, but it\u2019s more important to care about what you\u2019re talking about,\u201d BHS junior Ruza Martinac-Isaacson, who does social media for Berkeley Aid Initiative, said. Martinac-Isaacson emphasized passion and engagement from both club members and leaders as a key aspect of Berkeley Aid Initiative that has led to it becoming successful. \u201cThe people who run (Berkeley Aid Initiative) and the people who are involved are very \u2026 involved, they care a lot about the cause, they care a lot about the club,\u201d Martinac-Isaacson said. Before attempting to grow membership in your club, cultivate passion and engagement in your members and leaders as the first step to success.<\/p>\n
2. Advertise well<\/p>\n
While it is vital to have passionate club members, it is equally important that non-members know that it exists. Advertising your club is a foundational task to having a thriving club, especially with the large number of students and clubs at BHS. Having a regularly updated social media account is important and can help recruit members while bringing awareness of your club. Other ways to advertise your club include \u201cGetting yourself out there on the bulletin, or at the club fair, really making a name for yourself,\u201d Martinac-Isaacson said. Themed bulletin segments are an easy and fun way to shine a spotlight on your club. For example, the Black Student Union (BSU) highlighted prominent black current and historical figures in the bulletin during Black History Month in February. It\u2019s important to remember that while you want to gain a substantial following of your club, you don\u2019t have to be the most well known club at BHS in order to be successful. \u201cThinking about what kind of visibility you want because some clubs \u2026 aren\u2019t trying to be the best known club at (BHS), they have other goals in mind,\u201d Eve Eyal, co-president of the Women\u2019s Student Union (WSU) said. Your club doesn\u2019t need to be famous to be successful, but advertising your club can be helpful in garnering positive attention to your club.<\/p>\n
3. Engage\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once you have enough members and have found a passionate community, focusing on keeping your club members coming back again and again is essential. Engage your audience through creative club meetings and fun activities. Eyal and her co-president of WSU, Sophia Koshland, emphasized finding a good balance between teaching and doing things as a club. In WSU meetings, they try to teach about current, relevant topics that relate to the club. For instance, \u201cat the beginning of the year, we had a series of meetings about reproductive rights and … the defunding of Planned Parenthood. We had a meeting where we had information about that,\u201d Eyal said. Following their educational meetings, the club had \u201ca meeting where (they) made posters and bulletins to promote a big sale \u2026 to raise money for Planned Parenthood,\u201d Eyal said. The leaders of WSU ensured that they had a good balance in this section of their meetings. \u201cPut a lot more work into our meetings and making each meeting interesting instead of just having some meetings where we didn\u2019t really do anything,\u201d Eyal said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
4. Put in effort<\/p>\n
Running a club well isn\u2019t an achievable task immediately. It requires time, effort, and organization as club leaders. The best clubs are started because it\u2019s something that the leaders are passionate and care about, not as something performative that looks good on your resume or college applications. Additionally, you need to be willing to sacrifice some of your free time and energy into making your club a fun, engaging, and valuable space. A key factor into making sure your time and effort into your club doesn\u2019t go to waste is setting clear and realistic goals. \u201cHaving a clear goal as club leaders, having a clear \u2018What this club is\u2019 … is really important because a lot of people don\u2019t really know what they\u2019re getting themselves into a lot of the time,\u201d Martinac-Isaacson said. Part of having clear goals and ideas is putting in the effort to communicate effectively with your club members about what they want to see for the club. If you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, neither will they, and having a disorganized club isn\u2019t very attractive. \u201cBe honest with the other members of the club about plans and letting them know plans in advance so even if they are unable to attend they still can participate in future activities,\u201d Nikhil Gomez, president of the BHS Backpacking club, said. Putting in time and effort is what makes you able to have engaging meetings and successful advertising; clear goals and focus will keep your club organized and running as smoothly as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Be passionate! The first step to having a successful club at Berkeley High School is being passionate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-218838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}