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Club Fair 2021

After a virtual school year, some CHS students returned with a renewed vigor for clubs. Newly launched clubs include the Speed-Walking and Studying Club and the Seasons Club. The year's Club Fair was entirely outside on the front lawn due to the COVID-19 pandemic and clubs lined the walkway with tables stocked with posters, handouts and sign-up sheets. Scroll down to read more about the clubs represented at the 2021-22 CHS Club Fair and the students who brought them to life.

Art Club - Aidan Hsai

All levels of artists: beginner, intermediate and advanced; any style of art: digital, graphic design, or 3d models. Everyone is welcome in Art Club.

“Our club is a place [for] any artist,” said Kate Angus, a senior and member of the art club.

Although there are no major events planned for the year yet, there are “little events within the club,” said junior Bruno Hohn, another member of the club.

“It’s called a map,” Hohn said. “A collaborative animation… [each person] makes [their part] short. So each person has a part, I’d say nine seconds, where they animate that part and then you combine them all together. It’s one big project with multiple styles.”

Along with the map, Hohn and Angus expressed interest in an art show.

“If there’s a show that we find and [the club] wants to participate in, then we might do that,” said Angus.

The art club meets in room 109 during Friday lunch, more information can be found in Forum bulletin.

Book Club - Serena O'Brien

“I really love fiction, escaping into new worlds and collecting characters,” said Lucy Tobier, co-leader of Book Club, her eyes sparkling.

Community High School’s Book Club has waxed and waned over the years, but it has been a fixture at the school ever since before Tobier can remember.

She and her co-leaders, Mira Schwartz and Nicolas Langdon, stepped up when the seniors who had organized the club graduated. “I really wanted to make sure that the book club was going to continue at Community,” Tobier said. She wanted to create a space where she and other students could come together to read — and talk about — books.

“I read all in middle school, practically all my classes were just me reading,” Tobier said. Over the years she’s had quite a few books taken away from her for reading at inopportune times.

The club is still experimenting with its structure; they often select a theme or genre, and members select their own individual books under those umbrellas, or they simply read whatever interests them and come together to discuss. Through this setup, they alleviate any pressure of having to finish a book by a certain deadline.

Last year, club attendance was fairly low because meetings were held on Wednesdays.

“No one wanted to spend their asynchronous days on Zoom,” Tobier said.

This year, the club’s looking forward to seeing new faces in the library or on the front lawn on Wednesdays at lunch.

Chess Club - Aidan Hsai

During the online school year, Ryan Bentley discovered a passion for chess, beginning on chess.com due to the pandemic limiting in-person play.

“I was in a big chess phase, and I joined playing chess on chess.com,” Bentley said. “And then I decided it would be cool to start a chess club with my friend. I got [the club] started over [winter] break of last year.”

Sid Herrmann, a club co-leader, began playing chess by playing with his mom.

“Chess has always been a great activity for me,” Herrmann said. “It’s very calming. I used to play with my mom a lot and I just decided making a club with Ryan would be nice.”

Now that school is back in-person, the chess club is excited to play games and have fun.

“It’s a great place to come and learn, have fun,” Herrmann said. “It’s very chill. We’ll play, meet new people.”

The chess club meets on Wednesdays during lunch in room 304.

Community Ensemble Theater - Lila Fetter and Hannah Rubenstein

Tate Zeleznik stood alone on the CHS front lawn holding a handwritten sign that read “Community Ensemble Theatre” (CET) at Club Fair. He was tasked with convincing people to join CET. However, auditions for the fall show, She Kills Monsters, had already occurred a few days prior so that rehearsals could start as soon as possible.

“CET is a great place where you can experience and participate in theatre for the first time if you want,” Zeleznik said.“We normally make no cuts with our cast, which is something really unique about CET, and you can't get elsewhere.”

He advises everyone to at least try out CET at some point, because he has made many friends thanks to the program.

Nadya Matish, another devoted CET member, is excited for this fall’s performance.

“It’s cool to see everyone come together and create this performance,” Matish said. “It’s interesting because right now we’re just a bunch of random people who also go to school together and then at the end of November, we’ll have a whole show.”

She encourages everyone to come to see the production when the time comes.

Latinos Unidos - Abbi Bachman, Emmy Chung, Addi Hinesman, Izzie Jacob and Morgan McClease

“We’re the minority,” said Evan Ochoa when asked why he helped start CHS club Latinos Unidos with co-founders Najeh Martinez and Bella Stevens.

“We wanted to give more representation for the Latino community and be able to celebrate our cultures and our differences,” said Martinez.

Latinos Unidos plans to celebrate Lationo Heritage Month with a dance class, collaborative video and a quote wall.

But it’s not always so busy, Teacher Sponsor Laurel Landrum said some days the club will just hang out, listen to music and enjoy each other's company. Their club represents the Latinx community at CHS and is a supportive environment where anyone can join, no matter their background. They meet every Monday during lunch in room 205.

Scientific Theory Club - Aidan Hsai

This year in the Scientific Theory club, member Stevie Dumitrascu hopes to make it to the Science bowl.

“I plan on doing the Science Bowl, which is this national science competition,” Dumitrascu said. “Think of Mathletes, it’s just like that but for science.”

Aside from the Science Bowl, the Scientific Theory Club will be discussing a variety of different theories.

“We’re going to talk about wacky scientific theories,” Dumitrascu said. “I’ll write two or three [theories] in our Schoology and then [the club will] research it a little and we’ll discuss it. And if you don’t want to research, I’ll give a description during the club.”

The scientific theory club meets on Wednesdays during lunch in room 318.

Geology Club - Poppy Magee

Geology club is one of the newest to join the ranks at CHS. It was started by a sophomore with a passion for rocks

“I remember collecting rocks since I was a kid and as I’ve gotten older, I started learning more about them and I think it's really fun and interesting and I think other people should learn about that,” said Emily Yesowitz, founder of Geology Club.

The table at the club fair got a lot of traction last Friday. They gave away free rocks and crystals while sharing information about the first meeting, which is on Sept. 30. The goal of the club this year is to learn more about geology, and share the geological information with others.

“I hope to get a couple people from museums, and local rock shops and people that are experienced to come and talk and give some lectures because I'm learning myself too.” Yesowitz said.

Students can attend the club's introduction meeting on September 30th from 2- 2:45 p.m. in room 318.

Zebrotics Club - Michael Gronewold

In the 2020-2021 school year, the Community High Zebrotics team was disrupted from a normal year of preparation, team building and competition. This year, they are getting ready to come back and take the stage.

The team is teacher-led by CHS science teacher Christia West, but the student base is very active in leadership: within the team are several groups, each with a student lead. Each of these groups competes together, but performs individual tasks.

“The big thing about our team is that it's not just building the robot,” West said. “A lot of students think, ‘oh, it’s robots, it’s just for the engineer kids,’ but there’s a lot of things involved in the team.”

Some of the separate tasks include the building and programming of the robot, as well as game analytics. The team even has a business team, which handles the social media, website and graphic design. It’s almost like “a small tech company that produces a robot to play games,” West said.

After last year’s underwhelming events during the pandemic, where the team had to find alternative events in order to compete, their greatest hope is just to build a robot to compete this year. However, that doesn’t mean they’re not competitive: last year they won their competition by designing a game called Forest Force, the basic premise, to complete a series of tasks to put out fires. The game was largely made using Computer-Aided-Designand was inspired by the idea of using robots to fight fires in place of humans in the face of forest fires in the eastern United States.

Queer Straight Alliance - Laurel Peterson

Nadya Matish, a junior at Community High, would not consider herself to be a leader of Queer Straight Alliance (QSA), and yet she was at the QSA table during club fair, talking to people about QSA and getting them to join the club.

“I’m bisexual and I wanted to be with other people to express myself and be in a community,” Matish said. “So I’m in QSA.”

QSA invites students to express themselves and be in a group of LGBTQ+ people. They talk about personal problems such as coming out or gender identity, and are a safe space for everyone.

“People should join QSA because it’s super fun and interesting to be in a group of LQBTQ+ people,” Matish said. “You can learn so much about LGBTQ history and current events.”

Psychology and Neuroscience Club - Sebastian Oliva

The Neuroscience and Psychology Club, a new club, hopes to teach students about major perspectives of the mind and brain this year through discussions about the science behind the behavior, mental process and brain function.

"We hope to engage our members with dissections (cow eyes–connection with vision & brain, lamb brains), "clinical analysis," and discussions," said Sebastian Oliva, a CHS senior and the club's founder.

They will meet Tuesdays at Lunch in Room 317 and hope to see interested students there.

Poetry Club - Ivy Prochaska

John Reed wasn’t too sure about Poetry Club at first. Putting himself on the page and then having the courage to share that with others was no easy feat. Poetry club, however, works to make this a little more approachable.

It took some convincing from friends but eventually Reed agreed to join Poetry cClub. Whether for the baked goods, or the open space for creativity, he decided to stay and encourages others to do so as well.

“I think it’s a good thing for my confidence honestly,” Reed said. “Being able to share out in a group that is small but very, very supportive is a helpful thing to have.”

During meetings, members take turns creating prompts for the group and are encouraged to share out their own writing if they’re comfortable.

“I’m not a very confident person but I’m made more confident by having this community,” Reed said.

The members of the poetry club are still figuring out a day to meet but are looking forward to welcoming new members and continuing to share and inspire new ideas together in person once again.

Ecology Club - Reagan Masek and Ailish Kilbride

This year, with the help of CHS science teacher Courtney Kiley, the Ecology Club hopes to: raise salmon and release them, go canoeing down the Huron River and take hikes around Ann Arbor.

Lily Rose Germano, an Ecology Club member, is excited to help both new and old faces find their place in nature and the beautiful places that surround us.

“It’s really fun exploring nature and taking care of our school environment,” Germano said.

The Ecology Club is responsible for taking care of the compost program and the rain garden at Community. The purpose of the rain garden is to naturally filter rainwater that washes from the parking lot before it reaches the Huron River. They serve to give back to the environment and community.

Lucy Cassell-Kelley, another Ecology Club member and CHS junior, is looking forward to learning more about sustainability and being environmentally conscious. Considering that last year was all virtual, she hopes to meet a few new faces and give back to her community.

“I am really looking forward to learning new things about the environment and the ways I can impact it,” Cassell-Kelley said. “I am hoping to be able to learn about how to better take care of the Earth. I’m excited to be able to have important conversations and think more about ecology.”

Service Club - Emmy Chung, Izzie Jacob and Abbi Bachman

Ailish Kilbride and Reagan Masek, co-leaders of Service Club, are looking to expand their impact to the community, starting with their club. The meetings will start off with discussion, then the group will get to work.

For Kilbride and Masek, helping those in need after the height of the pandemic is important. But they also want to unite students at CHS through good deeds with a common goal of helping others. Service club is a way to give back to the community, but also become a stronger one.

“Giving back is really important at this time,” Masek said. “I hope that we can help people and maybe even more.”

Their plan is to start at schools, then branch out to the rest of the city and community.

“When you go to a lot of the high schools to use fields, there's always trash all over the fields,” Kilbride said. “So I think putting in trash cans, going and picking up trash, and putting signs up to encourage you to throw away your trash are all things that will benefit the majority of high school students.”

Ann Arbor High School Democrats - Charlie Rosenfeld

Noah Bernstein recognized an issue in our community.

He could see his friends becoming more politically active, but not being as influential as they hoped in their efforts.

“These outlets I think people turn to like social media, and kind of just voicing, or raising awareness which is of course incredibly important, but you kind of get to that point and then you don't really have anywhere else you can go, you hit a roadblock because you can't vote,” Bernstein said.

With this in mind, he set out with some friends to co-found Ann Arbor High School Democrats (A2HSD).

“I want this to be a multi-faceted organization in the sense that we want to have the opportunities for the most politically active political junkies you can ever be, but also for the people who just know that something needs to change and they don't really know how to do it,” Bernstein said.

Community’s branch of the club will be meeting twice a month in either Matt’s room or on the front lawn. The day of the week is not decided.

In order to join, scan the QR code in the forum bulletin or visit the website (a2hsdemocrats.org) or instagram (@a2hsd).

Equality STEM - Abbi Bachman, Emmy Chung, Addi Hinesman, Izzie Jacob, Izzy Stevens and Morgan McClease

CHS seniors Sylva Das and Jordan Clemetson, leaders of Equality STEM, plan to create an organization based in diversity and outreach and be able to connect with middle and elementary school students, inside and outside the district.

“We've found that it is very important to create a community of people who believe they can have a future in STEM and provide those people with the role models and resources to do so,” Clemetson said.

Equality STEM has partnered with the University of Michigan and is planning to do some work with The Center for Engineering Diversity and Outlook.

“I'm super interested in STEM and I hope to be an astrophysicist,” Clemetson said, “We are trying to make it easier for anybody to imagine having a future in STEM.”

A normal meeting in Equality STEM contains planning for future events and talking to people. Equality STEM is still working on where and when they will meet so be sure to look out for the Forum Bulletin.

Philosophy Club - Madison Bell and Elijah Klein

For students who ponder life’s larger questions, the Philosophy Club is here. Philosophy Club tackles the hard-hitting questions in life. Charlie Rosenfeld, one of the leaders of the club and a CHS sophomore, enjoys the club because it gives him a place to think about and break down the confusing and complicated things in life.

“I think it’s really interesting to get to see how other people think and get to hear what other people have to say and compare our thoughts and how our brains work.” Rosenfeld said.

Those who join the Philosophy Club can expect to engage in some great conversations and learn a little bit about themselves and philosophy in a fun, low-pressure environment. If you are interested in joining, Philosophy Club meets on Wednesdays in Ryan’s room, but they will also be setting up a discord server to host some additional meetings.

Seasons Club - Elijah Klein and Madison Bell

It’s common to fall into the trap of taking Buzzfeed quizzes to find out which season represents us. Now you can join a club that celebrates whatever the answer is.

This year, CHS is welcoming yet another brand new club, Seasons Club. Hosted by juniors Kayla and Ella Rosewarne, Seasons club serves to appreciate nature.

“I love fall and winter and spring and summer,” Rosewarne said.“So I wanted to appreciate them all with the club.”

Seasons Club has been created as a space where you can go and celebrate the season. Members will participate in seasonal activities, such as sledding in the winter or jumping in fresh puddles in the spring. Any activity that you want to do to celebrate your favorite season, they will support you in. Seasons Club meets Wednesdays at lunch in Michelle's room.

Rap Club - Elijah Klein and Madison Bell

Students interested in learning how to freestyle, seeing CHS art teacher Steve Coron rap or listening to more rap now have a place to go. CHS’ Rap Club, which meets every other Wednesday in Steve’s room, is led by seniors Esther Cohen and Jada Hikary to create a space to listen to music, appreciate music and have fun.

They want the club to be a low impact, low stress space for underclassmen to come find a community in which they are welcomed and can make friends.

“We really just wanted to do something fun for our senior year and kind of leave behind a little something.” Hikary said.

Speed Walking and Studying Club - Elijah Klein and Madison Bell

For students who hate running but still crave speed, there is a new club at CHS to find a community and get some work done. Speed Walking and Studying Club, created and led by seniors Leah van der Velde and Jasmine Lowenstein, was born out of their journeys together.

“My friend and I were hanging out and we decided we wanted to learn how to speed walk. We watched a video on it, we learned, and then we speed walked to a nearby park. We were going really fast, and we were like, what if this was a club.” Van der Velde said.

Speed Walking and Study Club has been an idea in the making for three years, and now it has finally come to fruition. Since van der Velde and Lowenstein planned to have the club meet at lunch, they wanted to add something more to fill this time. That is where the study part comes from. After the club finishes an exhilarating speedwalk, they move into a classroom and enjoy lunch while catching up on work.

They meet in room 207 on Tuesdays at lunch.

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