On Tuesday, September 16, Lightridge held its first virtual club fair. Previously, the club fair was in the gym, with club leaders able to find people by advertising with a poster and pitching the club in person. Now, club leaders must advertise their club using a short video, infographic or a slideshow. During advisory on the 16th, students gained access to a spreadsheet listing every club offering, along with an advertisement the club provided.
“With over two thousand students in the building, it’s hard to have an in person club fair,” said Jake Johnson, the student activities coordinator. “Clubs have submitted videos, infographics or slideshows to let students know what the club is about, what their goals are for the year, what fun events they have planned, when they are meeting and where they are meeting.”
Another factor that comes into play is the ease of access.
“Students are going to have the ability to take their time with looking at all the club offerings,” said Johnson. In the gym, students were only able to take the 30 minutes of time in the club fair to look through each offering, now students can access the spreadsheet with every club advertisement at any time they want.
Every student had access to see all the clubs, regardless if they are missing school or not. Students in the academies will especially benefit from the virtual club fair, as they will not have to be in school to see each club advertisement.
Although more students may be able to see club advertisements, some club sponsors are unsure of the results of the virtual club fair.
“There’s 125 clubs, if there’s 125 videos, no one has the time to watch all videos,” said Peter Kim, the sponsor of the Investment Club.“I’m not sure if a video or a little poster is better, we’ll see.”
Another addition to the virtual club fair were the two following days, where students were able to sign up and attend an interest meeting for clubs.
Students had mixed opinions on the club fair.
“I believe the virtual club fair was very confusing,” says senior Ajay Deo. “For me, when I looked at it in advisory, I had zero clue how to sign up for clubs, I didn’t figure this stuff out until the day of clubs.”
