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Students describe process to form clubs

By Julia Moss
From Quidditch to ski and snowboard, this school offers an incredible range of clubs—nearly 80 in total, including 12 new ones this year.
Clubs at this school not only give students the opportunity to become involved and to explore new ideas, but they also provide students with important leadership roles. Students create and manage clubs at this school.
How do you start a club? Anyone can start a club, and it is a surprisingly easy process. You can start a club at any point in the year, but the best time to do so is in September, so that you can advertise it at Club Day.
After getting the okay from club director Michael Hazeltine, you need to find a faculty adviser. It makes sense to ask a teacher with experience in your club’s field. Then, Hazeltine gives you a website on which
What inspires students to start new clubs? They are driven by personal passions and interests that they want to share.
“It’s great that students are able to take all the initiative to put together these clubs. They have some very exciting ideas.”
Having enjoyed the book club at Day, freshmen Kavish Gandhi, Rebecca Hurwitz, Annie Shriver and Becca Webster decided to create one at this school.
“Coming into North, we were surprised to see that they did not have a similar club, and we decided to start one,” Gandhi said.
Gandhi and the other officers are particularly looking forward to the club meetings, he said.
“I am excited for the intense discussions concerning the finer and more subtle aspects of the novels we read, a large group of kids being involved, philosophical meanderings and great food!”
Senior Emmett Greenberg discovered his passion for the djembe, a type of African drum, when, as a freshman, he took a hand drumming class through Newton Community Ed.
“I didn’t know what to expect at first, but I immediately took a liking to the djembe,” Greenberg said.
“It is very easy to learn and very energizing. I also like it because it’s different—it’s primitive, and not played from a standard musical staff. And, it is full of culture and tradition, which I also enjoy learning.”
Greenberg has been taking weekly drumming classes since then and has also attended workshops and drum circles led by master drummers, he said.
As he got more and more involved in djembe, he wanted to share his love for the instrument with others, and decided that starting a club would be good way to do this, he said.
“As I became part of the drumming community of Greater Boston, I realized that the group was quite isolated and that I knew no one my age with a serious passion for the djembe. I wanted to start a club to help this unique instrument gain recognition and to teach my passion to other students.”
Similarly, freshmen Douglas Friedberg and Aris Vanderpool share a passion for fencing that they wanted to bring to this school. Friedberg has been fencing since a very young age. “I was always involved with lessons,” Friedberg said.
Friedberg said his father, an Olympian fencer, motivated him to start the club. “He also won the best NCAA fencer award two years in a row,” Friedberg added.
Friedberg wanted to start the fencing club to get other students interested in the sport. “We thought we could run a successful club and make a lot of fencers out of it,” he said. Friedberg added that if students are interested, he will eventually try to set up a fencing team.
Senior Alyssa Kaplan started Melocotones, an a cappella club, with senior Rebecca Jereza and junior Samantha Chan. Kaplan said, “I got interested in a cappella because I’ve always loved to sing, and I joined Forté, the all girls a cappella group at this school, last year. Whenever we performed in concerts, we got to hear other a cappella groups, and I’ve always loved how amazing songs can sound without instruments.”
Kaplan said that she and the other officers started the club to give more students a chance to participate in an a cappella group. “There are so many students at North who are interested in singing, and we thought that starting a new group would create more opportunities.”
Other new clubs this year include: 50 Cents to Save a Life, Cartooning, Film and Movie, Girls Learn International, Help the Homeless, Veteran’s History and Water Polo.
Many students at this school have passions. Creating new clubs allows them to express these passions and find other students who share them.

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