Anime club gets reanimated with new leadership

New Anime-bu Nibunnoichi club president Croix Snapp, a junior chemistry and physics major, is glad the club is returning to its former glory after declining in members.

“The club used to be quite large before I came and then it kind of started to peter out and become smaller, but after our advertising at the Bobcat Marketplace, we got 33 names and we’ve had two consecutive meetings with more than 30 people,” Snapp said. “It is just the beginning of the year, but it’s been consistent. It’s the largest showing that we’ve had since I’ve been at the school.”

The public relations officer of the club, Sara Veamoi, a junior biology and psychology major, was surprised at how quickly the numbers increased from an average of eight people at meetings in the past year.

Dr. Jason Stover, faculty adviser of the club and associate professor of mathematics, said he thinks the high number of seniors in previous years contributed to last year’s declining membership.

“Before last year, there had been a healthy Anime Club with a lot of members. Most of those members, I think, graduated and drifted away and were not replaced until more recently,” Stover said.

The club has been a Registered Student Organization since the fall of 2006 when it was founded by then sophomore Scott Howard, now a senior mass communication and theater major.

“We would basically watch new anime. That would be the point. And we would have days where we would go back and vote on things to watch, and things that we would like,” Howard said. “There’d be a few games that I would try to make and do. I’m a theater major once again, as well, so I would like to do kind of improv games using anime and different things, whatever people like. I tried to please the people there.”

Howard also wrote the constitution that is still in effect for the club.

Snapp has new goals that he would like to add to the constitution. The club will be taking a democratic approach to any changes made with the entire club able to decide any final alterations.

“I wanted to bring up ideas about volunteer work, social justice,” Snapp said. “I know that our club is not oriented in that way, but still as a participating member of an RSO I would love to do that.”

Another possible addition to the club is a more in-depth look into Japanese culture. Past presidents had expressed an interest in having more Japanese themed parties and dinners, which Snapp would like to see become a reality this year.

“It can make our club about more than watching cartoons, which I’ll admit is something I love to do,” Snapp said.

One activity that will not change this year is watching anime during the meetings. The selection process for choosing which anime to watch, however, will now depend more on the vote of the club members than in previous years.

“We choose from a list within the library. We try to pick three different genres and at the end of the meeting we show the trailers from those shows and the club gets to vote on what they wish to see the next week,” Snapp said.

The library of anime used is owned by the club.

“A lot of people bought anime and decided they don’t want to watch it again and they’ll donate it to us,” Veamoi said.

The club’s meetings are Wednesdays at 7 p.m. in room 102 of Chappell Hall. Students must pay a $10 fee to join, but a new policy is being considered to have members be able to earn the fee back if they can raise the same amount for the club through fundraising.

With advertising for the club in full swing and more exciting activities planned for the future, the club hopes its numbers will not be dwindling again anytime soon.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 11 2009. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry