The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 2)

I did some research. Plymouth-Canton Education Park, a three-high school complex in Michigan, has had a puppetry club going since 2005 which sparked near-immediate interest and performs a variety show each year. Then again, PCEP is a HUGE school compared to mine, something I did not think about. I began to mentally plan out a calendar in my head. In January we would start and gain interest quickly, February would be devoted to planning stages such as writing sketches, starting to build puppets and such, March would be a rehearsal month and April would be our big variety show. It seemed reasonable, pretty much 2 full months of prep work, just as long as the spring musical takes. My ambitious plan could be done. Proposal in hand, I went to our school's principal to pitch. He was supportive and said to get 15 signatures of people who would be interested.

A few weeks later, I got all the signatures I needed and we were given the green light. My Journalism teacher stepped in to be the club's adviser and we were on the fast track to being part of the school's extracurricular list. By now, I should have realized the one huge flaw: I was pinpointing on a January start date right at the end of the first semester. By now, most students have their clubs all selected and seldom have space for others. That was a definite strike. I hung up flyers all around the school advertising the club with the catchy slogan "All hands in," but the only people asking and were interested in what we were doing were teachers. On that day of our first meeting, nobody showed up without me bringing them. Only one person [as well as two others who joined through personal swaying] showed any interest and stood by me in this entire catastrophe. In a last-minute decision, I ran around the school with one of my puppets trying to encourage people to come to the classroom we were holding the meeting in. Two senior girls came up to me wanting to see the puppet and seemed legitimately interested in what we were doing. They were popular enough that word-of-mouth could easily spread from them and we could have a strong membership increase.

A few nights later, I made a group on Facebook to keep in touch with all the Puppetry Club members. I invited all the five people who I had succeeded in getting to join and sent out a message explaining our future and moreover encouraged our existing members to encourage their friends to join. One of these senior girls immediately invited a lot of people from her social circle to the group. I put it aside and went to go watch The Simpsons. When I came back a half-hour later, the group had increased from six to over twenty members. I was so happy I felt like crying. And dancing. My confidence boomed to new heights, the club had taken off the way I wanted it to... or so I thought. Filled with euphoria, I messaged all the members on Facebook telling them we'd have a second meeting the week after mid-terms ended. Little did I realize that things were about to unravel in ways I didn't expect.