At the school year’s beginning and continuing year-round, Activities Director Mollie McNally documents and coordinates clubs to ensure smooth sailing.
“I check in August with the staff, provide them the current list of clubs and ask them to let me know of any changes or if any clubs are not active, so I can update the list,” she said.
Moreover, McNally has a master list of clubs with their descriptions and sponsors.   Additionally, under the BV Tiger Family tile on Canvas is the club and activities master calendar, the document detailing dates and times for club meetings, which McNally and the staff have assembled swimmingly in years past.
“I don’t believe this year has been as successful,” she said. “Clubs are formed, and then within a year, they are obsolete because the students who started them leave, graduate, or disengage.”
McNally is concerned that a few people may want to start a club that only a few join, causing that group to be too small.
“In that case, it doesn’t seem a club formation is necessary,” she said. “The students could get together and engage without needing the title.”
If a club is no longer active, defined as lacking club officers or members working with the sponsor to meet regularly and discuss club topics, McNally reaches out to resolve it from her master list.
“If there is no activity, we remove it from our list with agreement from the sponsor,” she said. “Sometimes, a sponsor will step down, and unless a club can get a new sponsor, we would have to discontinue the club.”
Furthermore, she believes clubs should work to bring people together and strengthen their membership, permitting club longevity.
“I don’t believe a club needs to be 50 or 100 people,” McNally said. “But there should be a pretty good base of about 10 to 15 kids, and they cannot all be seniors or the club will go away when they graduate.”
Currently, to start a club, students get a staff sponsor with a room their association can meet in and fill out a form to be approved on McNally’s end.
“It’s been very simple,” she said.
As a result of the old club proposal form disappearing from the active Google Drive, McNally looked into potentially adjusting the requirement for club approval while brainstorming ideas to strengthen the longevity of a club.
“I do not have that ready to go, but once I do, students would fill out all the information and follow any additional steps indicated,” she said. “This form may change slightly from years past — possibly including a requirement to get at least 10 signatures of students interested in participating in the club.”
This presents the question of what students can do now to initiate a club, especially in the 4th quarter of the school year.
“New clubs can be proposed [and] groundwork can be laid,” McNally said. “But official [club] status will be approved for the next school year — August.”