Two clubs are too new to attract members and they are struggling to survive.
The Residents’ Hall Association (RHA) and the Photo Club are having difficulty finding new members. Currently the Photo Club has 12 members and the RHA club has six.
The Photo Club has been established within the past two years and it is run by Mary Bove, junior communications major. However, according to Bove, the Photo Club may no longer exist at the beginning of the 2014 fall semester due to the lack of members.
“I am graduating in December,” said Bove. “I am disbanding the club, because I do not have enough members or people willing to take it over for me.”
Bove feels that the reason people have not been joining her club is because they either do not know about it or they do not have enough time to commit.
“If you do not like photography then the Photo Club is just not for you,” said Bove. “You have to be a specific kind of person to want to join it. You can’t just like the arts.”
According to Bove, the Photo Club has done a lot since she started it.
“So far, we have taken photos two years in a row at the Christmas dinner and we have also had a photo booth this year,” said Bove. “We also do small contests within the club, and I also had a photographer come in and talk at one of our meetings.”
Ideally, Bove would have liked to have had more members through- out the two years that the club has been in existence.
“It would be nice to have a 25 member club, have more activities and have more meetings, but that isn’t the reality of it for us,” said Bove. “I think if the club was already started years ago, it would be much easier to manage.”
The RHA is also struggling to find new members.
“I feel like even though we do a good service for people, people do not know about us, because it is not like we are Resident Assistants,” said Courtney Garloff, sophomore communications major and member of the RHA club.
According to Garloff, the RHA club is really behind the scenes and the residents and the commuters are unaware that it exists.
“They could say that ‘I am having a problem with my roommate’ and we could try to help them or they do not really want to go complain to their RD or they have been trying to get maintenance requests or something,” said Garloff. “So, if you feel like you are not getting anywhere or you do not feel comfortable saying something to someone in a position of authority you can just come to us and we will put it in the right avenue to try to get it taken care of for you.”
Garloff said that the club was established about five years ago, which is not a lot of time for a club to make itself well known on a college campus. The members are trying to establish themselves among the students who live on campus. The RHA club is also trying to inform students about their duties and objectives as a club along with trying to find more members.
The RHA does this by having a program that involves giving out informative freshly baked goods to students.
“We’re doing a program where we are going to be making S’mores in Banks using microwaves,” said Garloff. “We did it last year and it seemed to work a lot. When we give them their S’more there will be an informational piece of paper underneath the plate to just get them to read about us and put our name out there.”
At one point the RHA club had over 20 members, but now there are only six members remaining.
“I miss having more members when we have to do tables and we do not have enough people to work them,” said Garloff.
The Photo Club has more members than the RHA club, but Bove has a difficult time getting all of them to meet at the same time.
“Our club size varies,” said Bove. “Sometimes 10 people come to the meeting. Sometimes five people come to the meeting. The main reason is because people just do not have time.”
Despite the issues these clubs are experiencing with finding new members, other clubs are not experiencing recruitment issues.
“It doesn’t seem to be an issue I am aware of,” said Catherine Becker, Student Government President. “It is not something clubs have brought forward to us or asked for our help. Some clubs are small, yes, but some choose to be that way.”