The Beach Volleyball Club is back, with a new leader!

May 16, 2014: The Day I fell in love with SBCC

On my tour of Santa Barbara City College— a Friday afternoon at the beginning of May 2014, I learned that SBCC offers the  opportunity to not only join several interesting clubs, but also to start your very own club. 

On my first semester, in the midst of a heavy 18-unit load, the ambition to do well, and the excitement for being enrolled in a college that is located literally on the beach, I decided to start the SBCC Beach Volleyball Club, of which I have been President for 3 semesters. I founded the club as a way to meet new people, to challenge my leadership skills, and most importantly to force myself to make time to go to the beach, have fun, and be physically active.

LOL! A picture of me tabling on my first semester,
together with my friend, housemate, and club
vice-president: Nate! 

During the first semester, I struggled a lot to find an advisor for the club. In fact, if you're interested to start your own club, you should know that you will need a member of the SBCC faculty to represent the club as an advisor. This is often very hard to achieve, because professors are already busy with their own jobs and life; this is especially tough to achieve when your club is a sports club, because in that case the advisor is supposed to actually attend every meeting. If he/she doesn’t, he/she could get in trouble should one of the club members get hurt while playing.

A flyer for our club's first meeting, in Fall 2015

The second semester was more successful, as we had 3 advisors, and at least one of them was always available to come out and play, oversee, and teach us volleyball skills. 

Last Fall the club grew in size and we were able to host a few events, such as a welcome volleyball party with music and refreshments, an Hawaiian-themed beach volleyball party, and a larger, PTK-sponsored charity tournament toward the end of the semester. 

Finally, at the beginning of this semester I decided I was not going to start the club. Simply put, I believed it was not worth the effort of finding an advisor, which would have been really hard after I had already “used” 5 of them (3 on the second semester and 1 on each of the other two semesters). In addition, considered I moved to Isla Vista, commuting to Santa Barbara would have been too much of a commitment. 

As I said, the club had grown in size to a very nice group of people! :)

However, I was sad about not renewing the club, as I would have liked passing it on to someone else instead of letting it die. After all, it was a big part of my college experience here at SBCC. Fortunately enough, my friend Grace was trying to start a volleyball club this semester, and the Office of Student Life told her that she could take over my original club if I agreed to it. I was happy to pass the SBCC Beach Volleyball Club along, and this afternoon was the club’s first meeting. Grace decided to change the location from West Beach to East Beach, which is a little further to get to, but has better volleyball courts.

We all had a great time, and I got to make some new friends, too! 

I would encourage anyone to check out the club, and also to try and start your own club that reflects your own interests while you are at SBCC. All it takes is one signature from a faculty member, and 15 signatures from SBCC students...

Good luck!

A preset,

-Fede