I Ran Club Rush by Myself...

I ran club rush on my own, and it failed. I was trying to run my school's Science Olympiad. Still, unfortunately, my other friends were too busy for other clubs to deal with. So, despite having the materials and promotional materials needed for the club rush, I got fewer members. So, how did I get there?

The chapter where it all started.

Throughout high school, the majority of my extracurricular activities were devoted to making YouTube videos and attempting to make music. Making YouTube videos was great; I enjoyed its creative process and learned much from it. But it was the only activity I did for my first two high school years.

*Image from Traworld Official

Unfortunately, I was socially inept and didn't have a lot of friends. And in high school, what better way of making friends was to join clubs. Back then, I wasn't affiliated with any club. I was in this choir club but barely attended the meetings in my first year. In my second year, I wanted to make some clubs, which never happened due to a lack of interest and a clear plan for making them.

So, one day, I went on my usual school schedule. I asked my friends which clubs were available in January of 2022, leading me to an old Afghan friend from middle school. This Afghan friend was as tall as me, minus the neck and the head. She was skinny and lightweight (Once, she said she was under 100 US pounds - 46 kg), with a Cleopatra-like face, and she was an ambitious woman. She wanted to help Afghans in her unofficial campaign and get others into curing cancer. So, I asked this Afghan friend about the available clubs, and she gave me the following: Science Olympiad, HOSA, Engineering for women (or something like that), and the Feminist Club. I chose Science Olympiad, and this Afghan friend gave me the phone number of Ankita Biyani. And choosing Science Olympiad was how it started.

After choosing Science Olympiad, Ankita asked me to pick a couple of events, which I ended up with the Bridge, Chemistry Lab, and Dynamic Planet. After studying them for tedious hours, I achieved 3rd on Bridge, 5th on Chemistry Lab, and 7th on Dynamic Planet. I thought that the event was a wild ride. Finally, the event was over, and Ankita and a couple of people went to a meeting at an empty lab room to discuss plans for next year. I proposed pseudo-financial methods to the club, which was enough for Ankita to consider me for the treasury. So, when the "election" happened in late April, I was the undisputed treasurer for the 2022-2023 Science Olympiad, marking the end of my third year at high school.

*I don't have any images of myself as treasurer. So, this Ben Fanklin image is what I have for you guys.

Because I was treasurer with zero experience, I needed the other members to get more realistic options and methods to prepare for next year, with the club rush's priority. So my trusty other members were Ankita Biyani, the curly-haired, brown-skinned (possibly Indian), glasses-wearing president and Tomas Gomes, the blond-haired, traditionally-dressed (consisting of a blue striped dress shirt, yellow slacks/jeans, and dress shoes), and conservative vice president. The others were Leah Shoaito, the dyed-haired and glasses-wearing social media manager, Sanya Nath, the normal-haired and short-statured communications manager, and Moyo O (forgot the last name), an African-haired and big-figured secretary. In the end, I have a few things needed for the club rush: a custom-printed poster, a custom-printed banner, and promotional papers with QR codes. There were more, but the other members had those.

At this time, Ryan Trahan published his 30-day penny series...

I decided to start making a poster using Adobe Photoshop. Initially, for the sign, I wanted one that seemed futuristic and scientific. So, I pulled some images from Unsplash to make the design. Then, I pulled the mechanical arm, my high school logo, and that was it. So, I brought them into Photoshop, and it looked like this.

At this time, Ryan Trahan published his 30-day penny series (ones with the title, "I Survived $0.01 In 30 Days"), and I brought the Arial typeface into the design. Back then, I thought that the design looked brilliant. I still do to this day. But when I shared this design with the other members, Tomas thought it was Orwellian, and other members found it not friendly. Something about the creation of the poster was quite dystopian and threatening to people. So, I threw this design away and began another one.

My next design didn't look better than the original. The only difference was that I replaced the mechanical arm with the human fist.

Unfortunately, the human fist didn't fit the blue frame of the poster. So, I must colour-correct the sign using saturation and hue, which looks terrible. I'm not trying to be racist, but the tanned fist didn't resonate with me. The other members thought this design could have worked better. By then, summer was over, and school was about to start.

When school began, I went to the first club meeting. It didn't mean much, but I went home after the club meeting. I opened my computer to research a custom-printed poster, a custom-printed banner, and promotional papers with QR codes. At my location, these things took a lot of work to come by. Finally, I found the custom-printed poster offer from Staples, which easily costs around $30, depending on the size. That price was steep for my club budget of $106. Plus, the banner was far over the budget, and it didn't guarantee that it could be hung with tape. The promotional papers were cheap, though, and they were the easiest to work with. So, I quickly redesigned the poster based on my T4 fundraiser.

It looked pretty nice, and the club members liked it too. I designed two designs for the promotional papers, which looked great. And it ended my club rush for now.

A couple of days later, it was around 7 days until the club rush started. We've just received an application form to allow the club to participate in the club rush. The application required a written constitution (already finished months ago), a Flipgrid, and some others finished at various times. When I first received the form via a QR code in room G2, it overwhelmed me. However, after sharing the document with my other club members, Ankita was confident that she could fill about 90% of the form, except for the Flipgrid. But there was a catch: how do we make one?

Initially, I decided to write a loose script for a promotional ad for the club, and Ankita liked the plan. First, however, I need help finding the materials needed to further promote the club. Fortunately, my hairy-nerdy-sciency club advisor, Mr Mate, decided to conduct a water experiment, and the club officer members will discuss it. A couple of days later, we finished the Flipgrid and were now allowed to prepare for the club rush. I grabbed a white form that listed the things, and I could get some money back.

Apparently, we went back to the drawing board for the club rush supplies. Unfortunately, I needed more motivation to get to the stores in advance, which brought only a few things from my other members. So, I changed my plans. First, I replaced the banner with a 14*22 trifold because it can withstand the wind. Lastly, I put two coloured papers on each side of the trifold. But there was one big problem: I needed a 14*22 trifold.

Unfortunately, I tried looking for it locally, and when there was, like in Manteca, it was unavailable. I discussed this problem with my club leader, Ankita, who decided to take the spending into her own hands. She bought a more common 36*48 green trifold, which she didn't factor into her white form, claiming as her donation. Ankita planned to colour and draw the poster's design with all the printed coloured paper provided for free. So, I have everything I need to prepare for the club rush.

Day 1

I drove to school, and Ankita brought her poster. We went to Mr Mate's room, the farthest room at the parking lot closest to the street, with all the officer members showing up. We grabbed all the markers from Mr Mate's room to design the poster and got to work. Leah brought signs and suggested we use them as additional promotional material for the club rush. Although I could help her with the holders, Ankita went to help her, and I went to help Sanya with her own club. Unfortunately, Canva doesn't support printing Sanya's poster unless she can pay a subscription, so I used a snipping tool to manually print the paper. I brought the files to the library and printed hers. Unfortunately, it did little for her as she didn't particularly like the poor quality of the poster. Mine didn't go so well, either. My design could have gone better than planned. Because my design was school-related, I could print images for free. Still, the librarian wanted me to call my club advisor to email the librarian for approval to publish this design. So, that process was a bummer. Fortunately, when I returned to Mr Mate's room, we finished the poster design just in time.

Before now, I'd already divided the officer members to do club rush in different time zones because the school has two lunches: first and second lunches. Unfortunately, my officer members share another lunch. My school has 6 blocks of instructional time, and between 3rd and 4th clocks, there was first lunch, which was my lunchtime and Sanya's. The other members have lunch after the 4th block, resulting in two 4th periods determined by who does what. Since Sanya and I had our first lunch, we were the only responsible members for promoting the club. However, Sanya must promote her other club, making me the sole member to promote Science Olympiad.

When my lunch began, I rushed to Mr Mate's room and snagged every club rush piece needed, which included the poster and the signs. Unfortunately, I couldn't carry everything. So, Mr Mate requested one of his arriving students to help bring some of the club rush supplies to the club rush booth. Unfortunately, the club rush booth was at the front of the cafeteria, which could have been better.

The school campus environment was scorching, and no air conditioner could cool us down. I could've removed my mask for convenience, but the smell was unsuitable, along with the pandemic. Although Sanya and I snagged a spot for the club rush, I could only have one view with sunglasses (it was extremely sunny). We hung the signs in front of the table so they won't fall off. Although I brought my lunch to school, I couldn't eat it for fear of facing too many people waiting to get their phones out. Lastly, I must hold this giant poster to stand up, so everyone can see it. Sometimes, the signs fell off, and I would have to make them stand.

Many clubs have members bringing food and candy to lure people into joining them, and I thought them outrageous. These ploys would need to get a real audience to the table. I mean, there were arguments about this. One of them was that the club could have more people. More people told more support, and more support meant more things. And more things can create better things. So, despite the overwhelming advantages of bringing food and candy for luring, I refused to use them. I thought they were inorganic and would lose more people than it already does.

It didn't help that I had two competing clubs: The academic decathlon and the Latino club. The academic decathlon was the preferred club for academically-minded students because it has more topics than Science Olympiad, usually history and debate. And the Latino club was one of the more fun clubs. It has more resources than the Science Olympiad, with speakers and candies. Besides the Latino club, I have a math club to my right, with one QR poster, a promotional paper, and a sign-up sheet.

I tried several ways to lure people in. First, I asked random people questions like, "Are you interested in science?" Despite being a tried and true strategy, this strategy only worked for a few high school students. They were more interested in fun things or food. Second, I rephrase the question, "Are you interested in Science Olympiad?" Again, these high school students would say no. No matter how I tried to ask random high school students questions about science and engineering, they were not interested. It's a public high school with many children of different levels of education and maturity.

I did acquire a couple of members, and they were more than happy to get their phones and scan the QR code. Unfortunately, some members have problems due to using an Android phone. Some members from the Academic decathlon were more than happy to help promote Science Olympiad to get people into joining more clubs. But before I could keep promoting the club, the bell rang, and this club rush day ended.

Day 2

I went to school like any other day and went to the meeting. Yesterday, Ankita proposed delivering candy to provide the same effect as other people. But, besides Sanya, none of us brought candy. I will not write why Tomas and the other people didn't get candy for the second day of the club rush. But I held onto the same reason: it wouldn't be helpful for the club's message.

Who cared about the club if you cannot give them any immediate benefit?

I went to my Calculus class to discuss with Tomas and Tania regarding the club. One big friend of mine, Arjun, argued with an example. MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) used excessive loads of cash to lure people into doing weird things in his videos, similar to the candy lure. However, MrBeast had done this as part of his business and content creation. And this strategy was irrelevant to the club rush strategy. It would lead to more people leaving the club rather than holding more people. Then the bell rang, and I decided to study.

A couple of periods later, it was lunchtime and club rush time. I brought only one sign this time because the other signs did nothing, and I snagged the same spot. But, again, the same conditions got the same results. I could only convince a few people to join the club. I used the same strategies as yesterday, and I did get around the same people as yesterday. However, some prospective applicants needed to be more active or had Android phones, so we were forced to draw a sign-up sheet. The sign-up sheet, for some reason, produced around two more club members. And the best thing about this was that I could eat lunch.

Conclusion

The club rush was over. I only managed to get a few club members and thought it was okay. However, I only had a little experience in doing clubs. So I went to my mate, Tomas, and asked whether he got a couple of team members during lunchtime. He, Ankita, Leah, and Tania, acquired some members, which totalled up to 13 members. Unfortunately, some were up on the club roster and still trying to fill out the forms, which didn't make the cut. But I was thankful that we gained more members than last year. And that part was what I'm proud of.

Although this story was my only time doing something like a club rush, I can only speak of my experiences then. Many of my club friends were busy dealing with other clubs, so for me being the only one holding the club together could have been better. The problem was that I had to fight two other clubs having the interests of more people than mine. But really, the problem was that I must fight between my expectations (around 20 people and trying to get the design ready for club rush) and reality. Looking back at them, I had minimal regrets. I have a lot of resilience to failure because of my personal life. This event didn't seem to be anything too terrible. The club rush was over, and I went on with my day like normal.

This article was an emotional ride for you reading this article. I don't have any words, but it was a challenging ride in my shoes. If you want to clear your mind, consider reading this.