By Austin Norville ’15
THE ROUNDUP
With more than 90 clubs available to students on campus there is something for everyone, and many club presidents and moderators are the backbone of them all.
“As a moderator I try to encourage the students to lead each other and that is in terms of keeping communication,” said BLAM moderator Mr. John Damaso ’97. “One of the roles I have as a backseat adviser is to feed our editors with resources and potential ideas.”
According to Mr. Damaso, BLAM is an institutional club that he was asked to be a part of. Mr. Damaso also moderates The Wrangler.
“Two students approached me four years ago saying we’ve heard about this old satire newspaper that Brophy used to have, we’d like to start it again … that was a shared interest I had with them,” Mr. Damaso said. “Those students wanted to have an outlet for their creative pursuits in the area of satire.”
Mr. Damaso said the best part of being a moderator is watching students make connections through shared interests.
“One was (Mr. Mica Mulloy ’99) and I took a group of student publication editors to the National Scholastic Press Association convention … I think it was just awesome to see them interact with other students who were obsessed with publications,” Mr. Damaso said. “That’s almost like the next step is you develop a passion at Brophy, you join a club, you become an officer or an editor or a president, then if your able to connect with other students who share that passion outside of this place then I think your part of a larger community.”
Besides moderators, presidents are responsible for most club activities and meetings.
“I help pick a theme and suggest videos for the next week as well as keeping everyone in line,” said Nerd Herd president P.J. Binsfeld ’15. “My favorite part is getting to rule over the minions.”
Binsfeld said there is nothing he does not like about being president.
Henry Carpenter ’15 is the president of the robotics team.
“At the beginning of the meeting we’ll go into another room and plan out the day, see what needs to be done and how we are going to do it,” Carpenter said. “Almost every day I meet with the club moderator, Mr. Mazzolini, and we figure out what we need to do beforehand so we are always prepared for what we’re doing.”
Carpenter said the reason he wanted to be president of robotics is he had done robotics for a long time and enjoyed what it had to offer and he wanted to give back by leading the group.
“It also really helps build leadership skills and it promotes good communication because we learn how best to communicate our ideas and it just allows me to develop my skills as a leader,” Carpenter said. “My favorite part about being club president is just when people look to me for advice and I get to provide an answer that they think is good, it really gave me the feeling that I am useful, I’m not a figure head, I actually have a role at the school.”
According to Carpenter, his least favorite part of being club president is having to take the blame if things go poorly.
