Gay-Straight Alliance Troubles

[Lindus]

At my school, the GSA is still in its early phase - this current school year is its first official year after its pilot run last year. A really big problem however is with constant support. Not a lot of members come a lot of the time, apparently, and appointed officers (with the exception of the group's president) have dropped like flies, often very, very quickly.

Now, while I totally supported the GSA since its birth, I hadn't attended any meetings until the second half of this school year. And despite my relative newness, in all likelihood, I'm going to be an officer next year. (Seriously. I came to the meeting this afternoon and it turns out it was an officer meeting, so just the president was there with another kid who didn't know it was officers only)

So, with that in mind, I was really wondering (hoping) if anyone here would be able to offer some helpful ideas to increase our membership and to keep said members coming back for meetings. So far, not much has been done, other than watching movies and participating in Day of Silence. We're actually really fortunate since we live in the Chicago area, and the Gay Games will occur in the summertime. Other than that, I'm a bit stretched for ideas. Suggestions are really welcome, even if they're very small - I'm sure they would help a lot. I'd really like to hear what would be able to create some more unity. My school is relatively open and it's very tolerant, but it could definitely be improved with some more effort on the GSA's part.

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]I've never been a part of any club or anything (the closest I've ever really gotten to that would be an online guild or whatever, but that's not really similar), so I doubt I can offer any really concrete advice.

But my first thought would be that if you want people to come back, you have to make it worth their time. So perhaps some variety would be good - not just watching videos, but also critiquing relevant films, having a book club and maybe even an art club where people can create and discuss art relevant to your association.

I think that's probably one of the key ingredients. If people join up but then they feel bored or they feel like nothing is happening, they will probably want to just drop out.

Also, community involvement might be a good way to keep people interested. Perhaps you could discuss ways to educate people about tolerance and you could physically put some of those ideas into action.[/font]

[KatanaViolet]

I've never heard of this "Gay-Straight Alliance."
What is this club?
Is it like a gay-pride sort of thing, just with a couple of straight people?

I dunno, I guess I can't really help you, I don't need to be a member of a club to consider myself gay-friendly.
I guess just what you could do is just have events that anyone from any sexual orientation could participate in... maybe make it a little educational in the sense of encouraging tolerance...
Have potlucks, poker nights, movie nights, book clubs (as James mentioned), picnics... anything really. Just make it appealling to everyone...
I don't really have any other ideas.
I hope that helps!

[Touchstone]

[FONT=Georgia]That's really awesome your school has a GSA, I'm jealous! :catgirl:

Anyways, I think the others offered some good suggestions; variety in a club is always a good thing. Maybe you can start discussion groups; there are a lot of interesting things you could talk about (like research into reasons behind sexual orientation, gay pride around the world, gay themes in art, homosexuality throughout history, homosexuality and religion, etc.). And the book club is a good idea; you can assign a book and at the end of each month you can discuss it-there's some really good gay literature out there. And getting involved with the school is important too; like during LGBT history month (October...I only found this out in November!), you can do presentations and discuss famous gay figures throughout history. And you could help promote awareness around the school, like during a school's diversity week, or something.

Here's some articles from GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network):

[url=http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/library/record/333.html]10 Awesome GSA Activities and Icebreakers[/url]

[url=http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/library/record/369.html]Maintaining and Strengthening GSAs[/url]

[url=http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/library/record/371.html]20 Ways Your GSA Can Rock The World![/url]-That is a sad title, but there are some good ideas :animeswea

[url=http://www.gsanetwork.org/index.html]The Gay Straight Alliance Network[/url]-this has a list of all the GSA's registered in the country, resources, etc.

Hope I helped some:)[/FONT]