A student walked by the booth of Cryptology Club at last Friday’s Club Rally, when one of the leaders of the club, Ric Best ’10, stopped him. “Excuse me, Sir. You lost something.” “Yeah? What?” “The opportunity of a lifetime!” he exclaimed, pointing toward his club’s booth. Such was the scene from the front of Paresky Commons. Club leaders used all sorts of tactics to entice people to join their clubs. This sort of salesmanship has become the norm and has proven pretty successful. The varied interests of the student body were on full display. And people were jumping at the chance to sample all of them. Greek Club was right next to Footnotes, the tap dancing society. Model UN was down the row from Af-Lat-Am. Promoting these clubs also provided a rush for the club members. Sarah Stevens ’11 who represented WPAA, the student radio station, said, “I had a lot of fun. It was an opportunity to yell and scream and be really enthusiastic about something, and getting people to join something I’m involved in is pretty cool too.” This year the Club Rally changed settings from Uncommons to the patio in front of Commons. The atmosphere was markedly different. Emelyn Chew ’10 said, “I just thought that as a Senior and doing it for the third time it wasn’t as impressive as previous years. But it was still fun nonetheless.” The new open-air environment might have forced the change of intensity, but the club leaders did all they could to make up for it. Andover Cricket Club leader Aditya Mithal ’10 ran around with cricket paddles. The Techmasters even subjected passing students to being “Rick Rolled,” a term used to describe a situation in which a person is unexpectedly subjected to the song “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. Club leaders also waved candy in front of passersby, trying to draw them in. Others tried dancing in order to attract new members. Overall though, the Club Rally was a good time, evidenced by the smiling faces as new members walked away from Andover Robotics Club, Andover Rock Climbing Society and A.S.S., Andover Shakespeare Society, to name but a few of the clubs recruiting that night.
