PokéTech Post-Meeting
As President of Virginia Tech’s Pokémon Club, I have been working hard this year to create fun events that bring the members together. I had been investing a lot of time into building the organization, advertising, and organizing our events. At times, it felt a lot more stressful than fun, but I kept going because I wanted to see the community thrive. One night, as we were locking up our club room at the end of another meeting, some members hung out in the hall and were talking to each other, or still playing games, and almost continuing the meeting. I stayed for a while longer for chit chat, then we disbanded a little later than our meetings usually ended. The next weekend the same thing happened, and then again, and again, until it became a normal thing at the end of our meetings this past semester.
My goal had always been to foster a community like that, but I only realized I had achieved that goal when those informal meetings started happening. Everyone was excited to see each other at each meeting and were never quite ready to say goodbye for another week by the end of our normal meetings! It felt great to see that manifest like that, and the camaraderie only continued with online discussions and other outside events. Seeing all of this gave me a great sense of pride in what I was able to create. I normally try not to bask in that too much, so I won’t let it go to my head, but I learned to indulge in my achievements just a little with this event, and that has given me even more motivation to grow and serve this community.
Due to the recent events, though, it seemed like everything would have to be lost. We could no longer see each other weekly, along with the rest of our normal school life being upheaved. To adapt, we moved onto an online voice chat platform. We still have our meetings at our normal times, and we are still able to hold events using online games. While we still can’t see each other, there is comfort in being able to talk to each other while everything is in disarray. In this instance especially, I see the need to create a community. Somewhere anyone can be themselves, find others to be comfortable around, and forget about their stressors.
Helping build this community is probably the best thing I have done in my college time. Learning to take pride in that achievement will help me move forward and continue improving myself and this community, even if everything is online now. Seeing how essential a community is in times like this, I want to make sure I continue to foster groups like this. Coming together during a crisis is the type of comfort a lot of people need right now, and I want to make sure everyone has access to others they can trust.
