By Dale Miller
Instead of milling around the campus in solitude next week, check out Clubs Week from Sept. 16–20. This year’s Clubs Week includes new activities to end extracurricular apathy and to bolster the faltering roster of student clubs.
"In previous years, we would only have tables set up in MacEwan Student Centre and the Science Theatres," said Students’ Union Clubs Committee Chair Edward Tse. "This year, in addition to that, we wanted to have a stage where clubs can do performances."
The clubs stage will be set up near the food court from Sept. 17–19 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
For those already involved in student clubs, there are some new time-saving revisions.
"There used to be a whole bunch of seminars for events, finance and all that," Tse said. "Since club executives don’t have that kind of time, we have combined them all into the Survival Seminar."
The Clubs Survival Seminar and Alcohol Awareness Seminar will take place on Sept. 17 and 18, respectively, and are only intended for club executives.
The last event on the agenda is the clubs barbeque on Fri., Sept. 20 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on the South lawn.
"Instead of having club members just come up and get their free burger, pop, or beer, sit together and leave, we have some new activities planned," said Tse.
These new additions include an inter-faculty root beer chugging contest and a scavenger hunt. Prizes include a banner in MSC for the winning faculty in the root beer chugging contest.
According to Tse, there has been a decline in the number of clubs this year.
"Each club needs to fill out an annual report at the end of the year, but a lot of clubs separate upon graduation and nobody fills out the reports," noted Tse. "If you don’t fill out a report, we can’t sanction you as a club."
Currently, the su clubs list shows 135 sanctioned clubs, down from around 200.
"I want to see as many clubs as we can get sanctioned this year to make up for the loss."
One of the newly sanctioned clubs this year is the Young Investors Association, headed by President Greg Dixon.
"Anybody can start a club," said Dixon. "All you need is a desire to help the community, an innovative idea and people who feel the same way."