Ok, well I was made the GSA president by a friend, and up until now the GSA has done basically nothing. Never had a meeting, the only thing they have done is promote Day of Silence. My school isn't in a conservative area or anything, but there are no openly gay kids (in a school of about 500), so I'm not sure how well a weekly meeting would work out. Any advice on what we can do?
Giving advice on GSAs is hard because you really have to be there to know how to act, but I'll give it a shot Since your club is just getting started, you are going to want to focus on 1) being more active and 2) in getting more members. Things to start with: - Do you have a logo? - Do you have an idea of what you want to focus on? Advocacy, support or socials? - Any friends who can help you run it and be your VP? - Have you met your club advisor? Have you asked him/her for advice? - What are the guidelines for student clubs? Can you make posters? Make announcements at the end of the day? Can teachers help announce the club at the end of their class? Things that you can do in the meeting: - since you don't have too many members, you can start with bi-weekly meetings. I personally don't like them because people tend to forget, but if you don't have too many members in can be helpful. You can always change the meetings after you get more members. - For a usual meeting you start with an icebreaker to get people talking. Google is your friend - Ideas for the rest of the meeting are to either make the icebreaker a long one, talk about something important int he news, have little debates, invite speakers to come in. etc Usual events that you can plan other activities around: - Day of Silence - National Coming Out Day - Transgender day of remembrance - Pride - LGBT history month - Spirit Day - AIDS awareness day GLSEN also has a really good start-up kit for GSA at the high school level. Also, register your GSA with them so you can get some free stuff sent to you on special events Do keep in mind that running a visible GSA comes with some consequences. Its good that your high school seems liberal enough, but there are examples of controversy going around GSAs at school. There is a small chance that one of the parents finds out and makes a big deal out of nothing...which means your parents might find out. Are you ready to be out not only at school, but also at home? I don't want to make this a novel, but if you need anything else or if you have any more questions feel free to let me know. I ran a GSA for 2 years and have worked with high schoolers to help them out before so I know a thing or two about the problems that can arise. Best of luck and go you for taking this on
