DECA

Junior Ashlyn Cool eagerly searched for a new club to join at the beginning of the school year. She finally stumbled upon DECA and decided to join this year to broaden her experience in business and finances. 

DECA is available in high schools and colleges around the world where they attend competitions to present their projects or play roles in mock business situations. 

“It is basically preparing high school students to become emerging leaders in the business marketing and financial world,” Cool said. 

Cool wasn’t sure what to expect going into DECA since the pandemic forced the club to adapt to all online meetings and competitions. She found that the short online meetings made it more difficult to accomplish tasks such as preparing for competitions. 

“It’s just kind of hard to balance because meetings are only about 10 or 15 minutes, so it’s really hard to get everything crammed into one meeting,” Cool said. “With everyone in separate locations, it is hard to get everyone to hunker down and get things done. It’s hard to get everyone together.”

During the shorter meetings, Cool tried to prepare for her competitions as much as possible by practicing role plays or studying quizlets. Other people in the club would work on individual or group projects to prepare for their presentations.

Competitions were moved completely online along with the meetings being vastly different. Cool participated in Districts as well as States and commented on how odd the new process is. 

“For District, we basically took a video and uploaded it onto Vimeo, and we uploaded our videos onto Youtube for states,” Cool said. 

Cool has made the best of the situation and just competed in the States competition. She was surprised and overjoyed to make it so far her first year on DECA. 

“Right now we are waiting to get the results back from States,” Cool said. “My first year, I made States. I’m pretty proud of that.”

Even though this year was challenging, Cool is hoping to participate again next year and possibly take a leadership role. 

“I’m currently working towards trying to be vice president of community service because I love that sort of stuff with community service,” Cool said.

Latin Club 

Latin Club typically begins with an election for five new officers. The election consists of a rigorous nomination process and election. Senior Hannah Stine won her online election and became Latin Club President for her last year. 

“You nominate yourself, and then you give a quick speech,” Stine said. “After that, you send out a voting poll to other Latin classes and they all vote for a president.”

After the election process, a normal year would consist of collaborative activities and Latin-based games. 

“Typically it’s just all the kids from different Latin classes coming in and doing Latin based activities,” Stine said. “We would usually meet in the Latin room and gamble, play jeopardy, do toga contests, making your own like god and goddess and then like the officers buy doughnuts for everybody.”

Even though the club has tried its best to keep it similar to last year, almost all of its activities have moved online, and some club traditions have been postponed. 

“We played Kahoot today. And instead of doughnuts we’re doing a point system so the winners of all our games get points,” Stine said. “We tried to do a toga making contest, and everyone turned off their camera and ran through their house to make a toga.”

Stine still loves the club even though it has been moved online, but has struggled with creating group activities for everyone to participate in.

“I mean like there’s like four different officers and like the day before, and we figure out activities,” Stine said. “The hard part is like coming up with ideas because it’s so limited.”

With the end of the school year approaching rapidly, Stine is hopeful that the Latin club will be back to normal next year. 

“My time in the club has been wonderful, even though it’s so much harder this year,” she said.

Model United Nations 

Senior Norah Rivett joined Model United Nations (MUN) her sophomore year after a club recruiter gave a presentation in her history class. She joined aiming to learn about international relations and improve her public speaking skills. Now Rivett is spending her last year in the club as an officer. 

Model United Nations is a club in high schools around the U.S. that allows students to debate current issues in a mock U.N. general assembly. 

“It’s a club that provides members the opportunity to attend local conferences and represent different countries in mock U.N. general assemblies,” Rivett said, “Each student portrays a different delegation and offers solutions to world problems being solved during the conference,” 

A typical year in Model U.N. would allow students to collaborate closely during club rotations and at conferences.

“During a non-COVID-19 year, our club has weekly meetings in Mr. (Kent) Bailey’s classroom, attends multiple conferences each semester, and hosts our own conference at Valley in the spring,” Rivett said. 

MUN  has encountered countless challenges adjusting to the switch to online learning including skipping the first quarter to readjust and plan. MUN leaders have experienced internet challenges making online meetings difficult. Without frequent time together, the officers have scrambled to get everyone prepared for their first conference. 

“The biggest challenge the leaders have faced this year is preparing new members for conferences,” Rivett said. “During a normal year we work with members while they’re writing position papers, a short essay they prepare before each conference, and we practice exercises to improve their public speaking skills.”  

Although the switch to online has required adjustments it has allowed the officers to create more learning materials for the club participants. Rivett hopes the new materials will continue to be used next year and that they will be beneficial helping students learn how MUN operates. 

“Running the club online has provided the opportunity to collect digital resources that the club can use in the future to prepare new members for conferences,” Rivett said. “For example, we have a growing folder with videos and examples of how to write speeches throughout the conference and other skills that are necessary to be successful in MUN.”

MUN is currently preparing for its only conference of the year at John Champe High School as well as preparing materials for the next year. 

“This year we are having virtual meetings, and we have eight members attending John Champe’s virtual, two-day conference in April.” Rivett said. “Unfortunately, our club is not holding a conference this year.” 

Club officers have worked tirelessly to make this year as normal as possible and hope that the three new officers that are being elected will be prepared for online or in person meetings. 

“I hope the club is able to meet in person next year and put on a conference at Valley.” Rivett said. “Additionally, I think future members will benefit from the materials we have collected this year, which will strengthen the club’s performances at future conferences.”