At the club fair in September, the courtyard was full of club leaders recruiting new members with brightly colored posters and piles of candy. As first semester concludes, several leaders reflected on the skills and insights they have gained from leading clubs, including highlighting their identities and bonding among grade levels.

 From Mental Health Club to the Ukulele Club, students with various interests had opportunities to get involved. 

“Clubs are a great opportunity to explore different interests, do community service, or give back to the community in some way,” Dean of Students Brianna Coughlan said. “It’s a great way to interact with students in different grade levels. From a teacher or adviser perspective, it’s a great way for teachers to interact with students outside of class and talk about things other than academic content.” 

Coughlan oversees all club activities and determines meeting times and locations. In November, the dean designates clubs as “official” if they have a minimum of 10 members at each meeting.

For sophomore Gabrielle Wolf, leading an Archer club and being on the board of Girls Empowering Girls means setting up meetings and activities such as Day of the Girl.

“The purpose of Girls Empowering Girls [GEG] is to start [an] intersectional conversation around female empowerment, as well as being a girl in general, and empowering girls across all identities,” Wolf said. “[We want to bring] in all aspects of conversations intertwined with female and just being a girl.”

Fellow sophomore Andrea Ramirez is part of Hermanas Unidas, one of the Affinity, Alliance, and Activism (AAA) clubs at Archer. These organizations explore identity and service.

“The purpose of Hermanas Unidas is to make Latinx voices heard in the Archer community and also just to get people in the Archer Community to know more about our culture,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez said she enjoyed the outcome of the first meeting of Hermanas Unidas as she said the attendance of students was high.

“I felt like people were actually engaged in what we were saying and they actually enjoyed it,” Ramirez said. “There were 30 people at our first meeting, which is pretty successful for us because usually, our club is pretty small.”

Senior Isabella Silvers, who is co-president of the Harry Potter Club, said there is a “bond[ing]” factor in leading a club at Archer.

“Our club is mostly middle schoolers,” Silvers said. “Leading a club is a really great experience to get to bond with people from all different grade levels and learn how to organize activities.”