By Kathleen Huynh
Over 70 MHS clubs and organizations (CLOG) participated in the virtual CLOG Rush during the second week of September and the following Monday, Co-CLOG Commissioner Victoria Ly said over a Google Meet interview. The CLOG Committee spent over a month planning a positive and inclusive virtual CLOG Rush experience, Ly added.
For the event, CLOGs were instructed to prepare a brief presentation about their club and given a schedule of rotations to abide by, Ly said. The length of each rotation was debated over and decided on but ultimately adjusted after feedback from the first day of CLOG Rush, Ly added.
“The first two days were kind of rough because we only gave CLOGs four minutes to do their presentations,” Ly said. “We had people from the CLOG committee go check in on the CLOGs, and the feedback was ‘Ah! We were really rushed and stressed’ because they were trying to follow our schedule. Four minutes [was] definitely not enough, so we figured that out and extended it to seven minutes.”
While planning for CLOG Rush, many obstacles were encountered, Co-CLOG Commissioner Vyvy Nguyen said. The biggest difficulties were inclusivity and making sure that all students were informed about the event, Nguyen added.
“Inclusivity [is] always something to think about,” Nguyen said. “How are we going to reach out to different people? [It] can’t be all on Instagram because not everyone has Instagram, but you don’t want to always do emails because not everyone always checks their emails.”
Despite the virtual format, the Interact Club was able to garner a good amount of signups, Co-President Brenda Huynh said. The club’s main concern was whether or not students would show up, Huynh said.
“A lot of people were tired of going to Zoom calls at this point,” Huynh said. “We just kinda went straight forward into it, and we just put all of our effort into it and made everything a lot more accessible online. Last year, [signups were] definitely more in the three-digit zone, but I think the numbers we got were impressive.”
For Interact, planning for virtual CLOG Rush was not as time or energy consuming as it would be normally, Huynh said. Additionally, the club is prepared for any other virtual CLOG rushes in the future, Huynh added.
“Personally, it felt like there was less energy because at real-life CLOG Rush, you’re supposed to show the spirit and yell and scream, but you can’t really do that on the Zoom,” Huynh said. “I would say I think the virtual CLOG Rush definitely didn’t take as much time [to prepare]. The presidents made the presentation, and on the day of we just allocated who would be speaking, but then for real life CLOG Rush, we would need someone to make a flyer. They would also need to print out the flyer, and then we need to also bring all the materials to show our spirit. If we do continue onto the second semester in a pandemic, I think the virtual CLOG Rush did go well. I think there’s a lot of hope for all the other clubs, as well as Interact, and I think having clubs out here is [a] good thing for students to look forward to.”
Navigating the event was very easy, Freshman Tanisha Varma said. She learned about CLOG Rush through posts on Instagram and had no issues with joining clubs, Varma added.
“I joined Speech and Debate, the Youth Arts Movement, the Asian American Association, and the MHS Bollywood Dance Team,” Varma said. “I would rate [the experience] an 8/10 because I liked going to all the clubs and learning about them. I liked how it wasn’t just once you go, it was just a commitment. I liked learning about it and seeing what I would be interested in. It was a pretty fun experience.”
Appointed student commissioners Ly and Nguyen led a CLOG committee in organizing and developing this year’s virtual format, Activities Director Jerell Maneja said in an email interview. He played a minimal role, only providing ideas, feedback, and support, Maneja added.
“My role is to oversee the operations, ensure that state and school policies are met, and that the student leaders are able to practice their leadership capacity,” Maneja said. “Ultimately, I placed my trust into the commissioners to find the system that they felt would meet our goals and the clubs’ needs. Based on what we saw, they were extremely successful, and I am quite proud of their work, resiliency, and adaptability.”
Moving forward, the CLOG committee will be working on strengthening their virtual format and planning more big events, Ly said. The committee will be updating their website as another form of outreach and communication, Ly said.
“We really want to update the CLOG website, get CLOG posts out, introduce me and Vyvy, and introduce the clog committee,” Ly said. “For bigger events, we’re still planning on some type of virtual big CLOG event just for the CLOGs as a CLOG bonding or another big CLOG event for the school. Usually, big CLOG events during school are like Trunk-or-Treat or Deck the Halls, but we won’t be able to do that this year. We have some ideas in the works.”
