ASB inspecting and cutting clubs

ASB Oct. 21 Club Audit

At the Key Club meeting on Oct. 13, activities director senior Jonathon Koo noticed a new face in the otherwise familiar crowd: ASB president, senior Anshu Siripurapu. However, Siripurapu was not there to contribute to the club; rather, he was verifying whether Key Club was observing ASB’s recently mandated guidelines.

Indeed, the ASB has begun the long and arduous process of auditing the school’s 60 plus official clubs, clubs commissioner junior Sasan Saadat said.

Saadat said that the reason for the audits is to determine which clubs are still active. Because the school includes a list of clubs in the profile it sends to colleges every year, ASB annually vets the clubs to ensure the accuracy of the list.

In the auditing process, ASB officers sit in on random meetings to determine whether the clubs are meeting the criteria set by ASB. Some of the areas that will be judged include: whether clubs actually meet at the frequency they report, have a substantial number of active members, and hold discussions pertinent to the original mission statement.

“The distinction between this and previous years is that [in the past] we had only ramped up the requirements to start new clubs on campus,” Sirapurapu said. “Now ASB is scrutinizing existing clubs as well those that are currently in the creation process.”
If a club does not meet the ASB’s standards, club officers will be issued a warning and told to address problems with their club.

Clubs are given a few weeks rectify the shortcomings before another random sit in takes place to verify that the club made the changes. If a club still fails to meet ASB guidelines, it will be forced to disband, Saadat said.

“[The audit] is completely necessary,” Saadat said. “I really don’t like having to do it, but the number of current clubs is way large relative to the size of our school.”

Siripurapu emphasized that the audits are not intended to censor clubs, but rather to ensure that ASB is not wasting resources on clubs that do not actually exist.

“The main reason [ASB] wants to ascertain which clubs on campus are active is to make sure [ASB] is only promoting active clubs on the ASB website, school profile, and other official documents,” Siripurapu said.

After the examination of Key Club, Siripurapu concluded that it had met the standards set by ASB.

“Key Club demonstrated that it had consistent meeting attendance, and abided by the guiding principles from its mission statement,” he said.