SAIT has seen a dramatic increase in the number of clubs this year, up from last year’s 22 active clubs to 40 registered clubs so far.

Jose Landaverde, SAITSA Vice-President Student Life, said that increasing the number of active clubs on campus was one of his goals for the year.

Two changes have helped facilitate the formation of new clubs on campus. The first is that SAITSA doubled the budget for clubs. Last year the club budget was $8,000, which was used up by April. This resulted in some clubs not being able to receive funding for their end of year events.

This year, SAITSA has budgeted $16,000 for club funding. Landaverde is in the process of contacting existing clubs on campus to encourage them to hold an event, for which they can then apply to SAITSA for funding from the club budget. He would like to see each club hold a minimum of one event per semester and plans to drop by those events to ensure they are taking place.

The second change, which Landaverde instituted, was to abolish the club board meetings. In previous years, these meetings took place every two weeks and a member of each club on campus needed to attend to represent that club. For a meeting to happen there had to be a minimum of two-thirds representation of all clubs on campus.

“SAITSA is using this year as a trial run of abolishing the board meetings as I felt it hindered clubs from being formed and remaining active,” said Landaverde.

A brand new club on campus this year is the SAIT Korean Club (SKC). Kyle Lee, a second-year student in Civil Engineering Technology, is the president.

“There are lots of Koreans on campus, they are shy and don’t interact much. I wanted to start a club where we could get together to socialize, share stories and have fun,” said Lee.

The SKC has a five-member executive and is currently an active club with almost 30 members. They have held their first general meeting and are planning a Halloween event, a snowboard trip and an industry night.

“It was easier than I thought to start a club and Jose Landaverde and SAITSA were very helpful. I wrote the constitution myself and was helped through the rest of the registration process,” said Lee.

The SAITSA website has a whole section dedicated to clubs, including how to start one, where to get help with the registration process, and the benefits and rules of having a club at SAIT.

A club re-established this year that has been inactive since 2010 is the Radio, Television and Broadcast News (RTBN) Club. Doug Winnipeg, a second-year RTBN student, felt it was unfortunate that a club that had been around for decades had disbanded, so he restarted it.

“I wanted to get people together from the different majors in the RTBN program as a united body in one club. I wanted to hand off something to the incoming first-years because I felt my first-year would have been better if this club had still been around,” Winnipeg said.

The RTBN Club has been officially in existence for two weeks. They plan to have a meeting shortly to appoint an executive committee and to plan events.

Another club that has been reformed this year is the Aviation Student Alliance. Second-year aircraft maintenance engineering student Zac Bartel serves as president after reforming the club following its disbanding due to lack of interest last year.

“Our campus, the Art Smith Aero Centre located at the Calgary International Airport, is isolated from the rest of SAIT. There are almost 200 students on the campus and I wanted to create the type of student life that is available on the main SAIT campus,” Bartel said.

The Aviation Student Alliance held their first event on Oct. 12 with a free breakfast. “

We had a good turnout,” said Bartel as he estimates that between 60 to 70 people turned up.

The club is planning a Halloween event and a Christmas dinner. Anyone who is part of one of the three programs (Structures, Avionics and Maintenance) situated at the Art Smith Aero Centre is automatically a member of the club as there is no membership fee.

A complete list of clubs can be found on the SAITSA website under the Campus Life tab. New clubs are still being formed and ratified by Landaverde.

Starting a club at SAIT has never been easier so if you have an idea and a group of people who are interested, now is the right time to make it happen.

Visit V204 campus centre to pick up a club registration package.