Last Thursday, Franklin held a fair to introduce the incoming freshmen to the diverse range of clubs at our school. The event was held in the PAC, allowing the group to travel onto the stage and explore our in-school community’s various opportunities.
With clubs ranging from primarily academic-based, like the academic teams, to hobby-focused groups, like the E-sports club. The event gave freshmen a closer look at what being a Grizzly Cub is all about.
The student council put great effort into holding the event. The StuCo president, Keegan Turner McQuinn, told us more about the process of the fair. The idea of starting it up stemmed from her rewatching of the 2012 film, “Pitch Perfect.” In one of the more notable scenes, the main character is exploring the Club Fair at her college when undergoing the admissions process,
“And I thought, ‘Why don’t we have something like that at our school?’ [Especially] because we do have so many clubs.” McQuinn recalls.
Before the Club Fair, call-out meetings were held during COACH periods as a popular way to try to get people interested in the clubs at our school. One of the main challenges that came up with the call-out meetings was that they often occurred simultaneously. Say you were interested in joining Bear Attack, the magazine club at our school, but you were also interested in the Pickleball club, and the meetings both happened at the same time? You would have to sacrifice one or the other. If you felt like it, you’d go out of your way to email the advisor for whichever club you wanted to go to the call-out meeting for.
Amongst grievances over call-out meetings, the upperclassmen
With this, the call-outs didn’t have something digital to go alongside the call-out. This is something Keegan is trying to change with the start-up of the Club Fair this year.
“When talking to my upper-classmen friends, a lot of them expressed interest in how they wanted to be more involved [with the school community], especially for the start of their college admission process.”
“I think that one thing that we’re going to be doing is, we’re having each club send in a digital flyer, and I’m going to compile them into a collective, virtual-esque Club Fair. Then, send that out to the entire student body. Just so the outreach is beyond the Freshman class, and involves Sophomores and both upperclassmen classes.” Keegan finished.
Make sure to keep a close eye on your email for any updates regarding the clubs here at Franklin!
Overall, the Club Fair was a massive success, with many Freshmen expressing how welcoming many of the club leaders and members were. Many also had to praise how interesting they found the clubs to be due to the interactiveness stemming from the Fair. We hope to hear about it next year!
