This year’s annual club fair, held on Friday, September 18th, was another success despite the unprecedented challenges of hybrid learning. During Community Time, advisories gathered together to watch videos prepared by leaders promoting their clubs. From the Hackley Lake Keepers to the Ping Pong Club, this year’s leaders offer a diverse range of activities.

This year’s club fair was a stark contrast from previous years where students were free to mingle in the courtyard and club leaders put on displays and shared baked goods. However, given the current circumstances, club leaders did an amazing job of keeping the fair alive and students enjoyed the videos nonetheless.

Regarding the challenges of starting a club during COVID times, Benjamin Lefkovits co-leader of the Hackley Investment Club said, “We haven’t really gotten to connect with the people in our club, which has been really difficult. Usually, this is how they become passionate about what we teach, and it’s much harder to do this when we are across the screen when we are in person they can really get a feel for the topic and live it.”

Noah Nager, the other co-leader of the Hackley Investment Club believes that online clubs have also brought some positive changes. Zoom allows clubs to have a larger attendance, and he can easily bring in outside speakers as they can log in remotely.

Junior Megan Chin said that the virtual fair was helpful because she got to see a lot of new clubs she normally wouldn’t have visited. However, she thought the videos were a little short which led to her only retaining some of the information about the specific clubs.

Though this year’s club fair was not held in the traditional manner that students love and anticipate, the club leaders were able to preserve the sense of community and encourage people to participate in school activities.