Walls Club Fair Overhauled for a More Organized Experience

Asian Culture Club Leaders pose for a photo at the club fair // via @swwhsofficial

The annual tradition of the Walls club fair fills the commons with club representatives raising poster boards advertising the greatness of their clubs. Everyone tries to jump on top of each other to get better sightlines and they project their voices across the terrace or commons. The club fair is traditionally a yell-fest with club leaders shouting at new freshmen and returning students in an effort to convince them to join their club.

This year, administration, teachers, and many students agreed that necessity arose for a change. Volunteers Ms. Schulz and Mr. Matthews helped to compile input from teachers and club sponsors. The administration made changes to make the club fair more orderly, along with other rule-changes for the overall structure of the clubs.

The structural changes involve a plan to merge clubs with common or similar purposes. All clubs made a mission statement which established the goals and purpose of the club. The volunteers and administration made suggestions to sponsors of any clubs with similar mission statements to see if a merge could work.

Mr. Matthews, SWW PE and Health teacher, stated that he found many similar clubs with a surprisingly similar purpose or function. He also said that club membership was often more aligned with friend groups than interest groups. Mr. Matthews cited “Growing Together”, the school year’s theme, as reasoning to merge the clubs. Divided clubs make it difficult to grow together, reasoned Mr. Matthews. They decided on sponsor-approved club mergers as their solution to make the club leader meetings and fair more manageable.

The meeting, packed with over 60 students and sponsors, overflowing into the third floor hallway, lasted only 20 minutes. Clearly, a meeting with fewer club leaders would significantly increase effectiveness at getting the new information out to club members.

The changes meant that this year’s club fair had some differences from previous years, though it retained some similarities. The terrace shared many similarities to last year’s loud and hectic club fair; filled mostly with fitness/sports, environmental, community service, and advocacy based clubs. Club reps had to scream into nearby students' ears just to convey meeting dates and times. Meanwhile, the other areas, the commons, library, and basement, held a noticeable calm compared to the outdoor terrace.

As part of the new changes, this year’s club fair implemented a system of keeping similar clubs in the same areas. All the clubs were grouped into one of 12 groups. They were: community service and advocacy, fitness and wellness, environment/climate change, gaming, audio/visual, affinity groups, arts crafts and music, cooking, academics, STEM, literature and writing, and world culture. These potentially temporary groupings for the club fair might proceed the official club merges, but on the other hand could just be serving the purpose of organization for the club fair.

Eleanor Brosowsky (‘26) said, “I kind of liked it better when it was an absolute free-for-all, but I guess this has its applications,” in reference to the calmer commons, basement, and library levels of this year’s club fair.

Oliver Strauss (‘27) thought the new club fair organization system for club locations made the club fair slightly worse than last year. He wanted to check out clubs in both the library and the basement, but didn’t have time to see both sections of the fair.

Reagan Harris (‘28) said the club fair was a bit overwhelming. Harris said, “It's good and interesting to see the whole school in one place. I think that it could probably be done a little bit differently. Maybe spread it out through a couple of days and have different clubs on different days.” Henry Date (‘27) thought that a club fair on two separate days would also effectively make the club fair less hectic, while keeping all current clubs.

Administration also felt supervision of clubs was an issue. The second change discussed at the club leader meeting determined the qualifications to be a Walls club. Clubs must have eight members, meet at least once a month, and have a DCPS background-checked adult at all meetings, likely the club sponsor. Attendance checks at all meetings, or at least once a month, will be required. However, the club leaders meeting talked nothing about how club attendance would actually work in practice.

Having every Walls recognized club on the school website with meeting dates, times, and locations makes finding new clubs easier. Plus, the knowledge of all club meeting’s location and time with a background-check adult increases security around club meetings, keeping students safer. SWW’s officially recognized club status has restrictions for both of these reasons.

Clubs which do not meet these standards will be considered “interest groups.” Interest groups would share similarities to normal clubs, however, would lack official recognition. They can still meet in the school building if they have a supervisor. In an email to students, Jennifer Tully, SWW’s assistant principal, described it as an alternative for clubs which cannot meet the eight person requirement, but still want to meet.

Gwen Morris (‘25), club leader for Ornithology Club, Latin Club, and Ultimate Frisbee, thought that “the restrictions are making it more difficult for students to engage in activities they enjoy. They are also ambiguous; administration has not made it clear what they are asking of students. I’m reviving ornithology (birding) club this fall, and not only are we starting with zero members, it is a niche topic and finding enough people just to satisfy the new requirements is a challenge.” Ornithology club had a place at this year’s club fair, but if they don’t get enough new members, they may not qualify to be at next year’s club fair, significantly reducing their potential growth.

Morris described Walls clubs as “creative and fun.” She added that, “Walls clubs provide innumerable opportunities and I’m worried that the new requirements will cut down on offerings. The beauty of our club system is that a student can form a new club to celebrate any interest of theirs.” She is worried that with the additions of restrictions and rules students “might not be able to use clubs as a forum to celebrate our interests with our usual freedom.”

How will this affect club life for the average club member? The answer: hopefully not. The changes simply affect club leadership, with every club intending to keep going on as normal, with a new “tiered organization” with an overarching leadership meant to represent multiple clubs as Ms. Schulz said. Clubs have always been a huge part of Walls students’ identities because they make an excellent outlet for all students to express their individualism through activities which they enjoy, only time will tell if these elements will continue.