Club fair marks the day when club executives run to their allocated rooms to get the best spots to attract the most members. It also marks the day when excited students run up and down the exhausting staircases to sign up for as many clubs as possible, hoping to get tons of candy for signing up.

But as much as students hype club fair to be one of the most exciting lunch breaks in the entire school year, their excitement doesn’t seem to last. The fevor with which they write their names on sign-up sheets does not equal their commitment for fundraiser events or even weekly club meetings.

For many new clubs, about 30-35 students sign up, but barely 8-10 show up to each meeting. Such instances don’t just occur for a few clubs; it extends beyond new clubs to larger ones, where attendance has also dwindled recently.

As co-president of Debate Society, I notice a significant difference between the number of students who signed up at the club fair in the beginning of the year versus those who actually attend meetings. However, that’s not to say that there is no interest whatsoever; committed students sign up not only for the candy but for the love of debate. As a leader of a club, it is not a simple task to lure students into meetings. We use all types of communication including email, Facebook and Schoology, but there is something inexplicable about why our club, amongst others, does not even reach 50% attendance. I met with two other club leaders who are also struggling to maintain interest in their clubs to discuss this recent downward trend in club attendance.

Tejaswi Thapa, T4, president of New Music Club:

“I feel that club attendance is very important. When you sign up for a club, you’ve committed yourself. You’ve got to realize that clubs have a bigger goal that they want to achieve, and to help complete that goal, all members must participate. When one member slacks off, shows diminishing interest, or doesn’t even show up, that sets back the whole group. In my club, we come together to make music and all of us share that bond, so when one member doesn’t commit, we’re not a full club. We don’t have everyone’s ideas to start building the social relations that clubs are supposed to help us with.”

Gabriela Penido, T4, co-president of GoFresh:

“I think the lack of interest that students show toward clubs at UNIS is really unfortunate and frustrating.  Students don’t seem to be as motivated or interested in joining clubs or participating in club activities. It has affected my own club, GoFresh. GoFresh is a club which relies on its members to volunteer 15 minutes of their time to distribute vegetables once every other week. But we only have a few club members who are actually willing to help with our only task – distribution. We spend most of our time recruiting, in other words, begging people to help us.”

As these student anecdotes reveal, declining club attendance is not happening to a few small clubs at the expense of others. There are three possible reasons for club unpopularity: students’ involvement in clubs is overshadowed by their out-of-school commitments. Or maybe students are just signing up for clubs for the purpose of appearing interested on their college resume. Or maybe kids are just so hungry that they don’t want to give up 30 minutes of their lunch breaks weekly to attend meetings.  So this begs the question: will UNIS clubs be a thing of the past in the near future?