By Micah Clark | Observer Contributor
Once a year, Mount Wachusett Community College’s anime club ‘Otaku United’ organize the club’s trip to the ‘Anime Boston’ convention (March 31-April 2 this year). It takes a lot of planning and organization to run this club about Japanese animation and its yearly adventure to Boston.
“It’s a lot of work for most of the semester but the payoff is worth it,” said Rebekah Cohen, the treasurer. It takes a team to run the club with different officers with different duties. The club president oversees making sure everybody does their job and schedules events like bake sales to raise money for club activities.
To organize an event like the anime Boston trip, the club president asks the Student Life Assistant of the college, Kathy Matson, for permission. Finances of the club and club paperwork are dealt with by the club treasurer. The Treasurer makes sure the club members who are planning on going to ‘Anime Boston’ registers for the convention, signs the liability forms, and keeps track of the club’s budget.
The secretary makes sure the club members are informed with emails. People who go to the convention with the club need to pay $25 this year for the three-day pass to Anime Boston, but the fund-raising activities and the college itself also pays for part of the ticket. Because of this, the club used to have issues with some members not contributing to the fundraising or even showing up to club meetings, just using the club to get cheap tickets.
Therefore, the club recently instituted ‘participation credits’ and each member needs enough of these credits to be allowed to get club funding for their tickets. This policy has cut down on the number of non-participating members and, so far, has been a success.
After the announcements by the club officers at the beginning of every club meeting, the club then watches anime. Choosing what anime to watch is also a process. The vice-president reviews suggestions of shows by watching all episodes of the suggested shows, making sure each suggestion is school appropriate.
He then selects several shows that passed his review and the club members vote on which one they like to watch next. Most of the club meeting time is spent watching usually thee episodes. But a few times a year, the club has a ‘manga library,’ where club members who own Japanese comic books bring them in and share them with the rest of the club.
Another event planned by the club is an anime movie that is handled in a similar fashion to selecting the anime shows, as in reviewed by the vice-president and then voted on. But also, some of the club’s leftover funds after the convention trip is used to buy food for the club when they are watching the movie, such as Chinese food.
The club votes on what to get for food and the movie itself is watched on a larger TV screen. This event takes place usually right before or after school finals, and is a nice way to end the semester with fellows enjoying food and a shared hobby.
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