There are a lot of clubs at New Providence High School, and most students are a part of one of them. However, many of those students in a club underestimate what it takes to run one, and how hard it really is. Two students that run clubs, Sohan Saggar and Audrey Decker, shed light on what it is really like to run a club in New Providence High School.
Debate Club is a very new addition to the clubs at New Providence that Saggar started with his friends. The idea first came to Saggar because he and his friends greatly enjoyed another club at New Providence, Model UN. Saggar wanted to “transfer some of that environment here at the school,” making a club that has some of the same debate and argumentative elements as Model UN.
However, the process to actually start the club was not easy.
To start this process, Saggar said they first “asked a teacher, Mr Hilf, and then we brought the idea to the administration specifically.”
After that Saggar went to get approval from the administration, which was its own time consuming process. Finally, Saggar had to coordinate with the vice principal before eventually getting approval.
According to Saggar, debate club is a great club for someone that wants to join Model UN, but doesn’t feel prepared for it. Saggar explained that Debate Club is free which makes it more accessible, and it can help build debate skills for someone that eventually wants to join Model UN.
While Saggar has said he enjoys it, running a club also takes a lot of work. Saggar dedicates “three to four hours” every week working on the club. He spends a lot of his time posting forms and making documents for the Google Classroom, as well as making reservations for the club’s meetings.
Saggar warned about what could happen with poor communication in a club, which may make people “lose interest and stop coming.”
To run a club and avoid that issue, Saggar said that someone would have to be “good at organizing and planning.”
While Audrey Decker also runs a club at New Providence High School, the responsibilities she has are vastly different from Saggar’s.
Decker is responsible for the Film Club, and according to her it is fully student run. This might lead people to believe since it is fully student run with a lot of members it would be very time consuming, but that is not true.
Decker said she started the club because she “loves film, and that’s what I want to major in.”
However, unlike the Debate Club, Decker describes the Film Club as more “leisure” than academic.
Decker said she dedicates “maybe an hour a week” towards keeping the club running, which she again says is because “it’s a very leisurely club.”
That does not mean she has no work related to the club though, as she had to go through the same long process as Saggar for starting the club and she is in charge of managing and starting projects.
There are still a lot of similarities between the two club leaders though, with Decker also saying that organizational skills like are important to keep a club running. This is why she says that having a friend to help you manage the club is very beneficial.
Overall, there are many responsibilities and jobs that come with running a club. However, not all clubs are run the same, requiring various amounts of work and also reflecting unique personalities and interests. But to run a club at New Providence High School, the biggest similarity is to really be dedicated on the topic your club is about.