With the challenge of COVID-19, high school clubs are having to find new ways to hold meetings.

Each club has different ways that they are trying to comply with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC ) guidelines. Some are having virtual meetings while others have had to cancel for the year. 

“Unfortunately, the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) club is not currently meeting at all due to club restrictions around COVID-19,” said D & D club sponsor Melanie Stephens said. “We decided to stop meeting together because we weren’t able to get enough people together to play at one time.”

There are always new clubs popping up as people’s tastes change and one of them was the D & D Club. 

“I am very concerned about how this will affect our club this year and the next,” Stephens said. “We had only just started up last year, so an interruption like this is hard because we were still in the recruitment process.”

A couple of clubs, like Key Club, have plans to meet this year but have not been able to find a time because of all the obstacles they have to clear. 

“It’s October and we’ve usually had two meetings for the club now and we haven’t even had one yet,” Key Club sponsor Amy Willhoite said. “We just don’t know how to do it.”

If clubs do choose to meet in person they are required to make limits to the number of people allowed at each meeting. The E-Sports Club has its own room at The University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) where they can join together to play games. 

“If too many people come we have to send people away so we keep it spaced out at the co-op,” E-Sports sponsor Kate Swearingen said. “We also have people that are just kind of part of the discord which is an online community where they can message each other and they just look for groups that way sometimes.”

While some clubs have close to no one signing up others have trouble with people coming and being evolved with the activities.

“Our main problem with Key Club is people being involved because we are a community service organization,” Willhoite said.

While some clubs are completely canceled, others are changing the format of what they would do in a regular meeting. 

“I think it’s just going to be able to have everyone together. Being able to actually connect with our club and then getting out into the community,” Willhoite said. “We’ll probably try to do more beautification of the outside, the neighborhood around us and park clean up.”

There are many uncertainties about what is going to happen this year, but fortunately, many clubs, such as book club and FCCLA, have still decided to meet. 

Contact Adeline Gruen at [email protected]