What Does It Take to Run a Club?

At Riverdale, clubs are not only a period of time to pursue your interests and explore your strengths and weaknesses in your area of interest; they also provide an opportunity to apply these interests, bettering our school and the community around us. Clubs attract a wide array of unique interests such as sports, music, sustainability, finance, culture, health, and so much more. As student-life at Riverdale continues to adapt in styles of learning, schedule structure, and student freedom, students are inclined to start and lead their own clubs now more than ever. 

We asked a couple of students about their leadership roles in their own clubs. Senior Ishan Roy is the new leader of the Engineering Club, which he has been a part of since ninth grade. When asked about what inspired him to take on this role in the club, he replied that he has “always been interested in building” and the freedom to “build random stuff [and] choose what to build [in a] cool maker space” was very appealing to him as a ninth-grader. In the past few years, the Engineering Club made prototype mask dispensers that were designed for students to take individual masks without touching any other mask in the dispenser in an effort to eliminate the spread of germs and possible illnesses. This year, the club is currently trying to design “modern-looking picnic tables for the tent or the lawn,” and adding more outdoor eating spaces. Ishan also mentioned that if you know you’re starting a club, it is important to make sure that, at some point over the summer, you talk with co-leaders and faculty advisors of the club to make a plan for the beginning of the next year. After the year gets rolling and members of the clubs start to understand what exactly they signed up for, it becomes a fun break from schoolwork where the student leaders allow the students more freedom within the parameters of their club’s focus. 

All in all, clubs are a great way to pursue something that you care about and share that interest with others. The great thing about clubs is that it doesn’t matter what inspires you to start one, whether it’s “Snapchat or another club”, said tenth grader Victoria Shen, leader of the Chinese Culture Club. If you put in effort, you can teach people who are interested in the same things that you are.