The old-school girls' club

Tuesday, May 19th

When Gran was here she left a few issues of this nostalgia magazine called 'Reminisce' here for my dad, because he gets a good laugh out of it sometimes. In one there was an article about the 40th reunion of a girls' club from southern California. It seems that in 1965 these 9th-grade girls started a club, just to hang around together and stay friends. And they had rules, like-- you must like to dance, or you must be popular but with a good reputation. It was adorably cute. And they found that everyone thought it was really corny and immature, till they started hosting dances in and around school and actual artistes showed up, the famous and soon-to-be famous, and by 11th and 12th grade they were rightfully the most influential and popular girls in the school. They raised money for charities and sponsored community activities (like babysitting-- it was 1965) and the club came to be so important to their lives that when they held a 40th reunion in 2005, all the former members showed up for it.

I mentioned it to Jessy, and she read the article too and declared, 'We should start one.'

I made a face. 'Who would join it?'

She looked at me like I had no clue at all. 'Everyone,' she said. 'I know at least four people who will join it right now.'

I think I knew the same four people. 'But six girls isn't exactly a club. It's just a clique.'

'Then we'll do something, like those girls did. Hold a dance. Do a car wash. Read to little kids.'

This was about three weeks ago. As of tonight, May 19th, 2009, there is an actual club.

We have nine members-- like the girls in 1965 had. It's Becky, Rita, Josie, Anna, Paulette, two other girls and Jessy and me. Three of us are in 11th, four of us are in 10th and one is in 9th. We figured we wouldn't even mention it to seniors, you know. We had our first meeting tonight and this is what we have resolved. When Jessy and I get situated at the beach house we're having a nine-girl sleepover for a weekend there as an initial social event. We can do a lot of planning then. Our first scheduled activity is a fund-raising car wash after Memorial Day. Anna's father has a hardware shop and we're holding it in the car park. We'll use the money to host a slightly bigger event, probably a party, near the end of the summer-- we can advertise it using a club FaceBook site and email. We are getting shirts made for summer and jackets for the autumn, and Jessy wants me to help her write a club song. I am the president-- there was no vote, they just all agreed. Jessy is the social secretary and Becky is the treasurer.

I know half the school--- no, about three-quarters of the school-- is going to think it's corny and immature. We will get accused of playing clubhouse or being a clique or being gay (people here love to throw that one round). But there is also a great opportunity to do some good things for other people, which is the only real point of a social club anyway. And once we have some idea of where we're going with it all we will invite new members. We will be very discerning--there will be initiation rites and a pledge taken. But we're not going to have dues. It's all about commitment, and money isn't the best way to define that.

Of course we're not advertising it to the whole school at this point. We have all summer to come up with a plan for that. But we intend that by September we will be able to stand tall and say we're a part of something that means something. Some of the girls suggested we host a Sadie Hawkins dance in the beginning of October. That will probably be the event that makes or breaks us... but we'll see.

Wish us luck!

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