It’s that time of year again. Students are back in school, and many will be looking for a local Smash community to pass the time or make new friends.
Colleges are a great environment for Smash communities. The audience is there: the majority of active Smashers are in the 18-24 age range, which just so happens to be the most common age range for undergraduate and graduate students at colleges. The setting is there: most colleges have a structure in place for students to join or manage clubs to fulfill their hobbies. So maybe the last thing missing from your path to college Smash utopia is an official student organization on campus.
The Super Smash Brothers Club profile page at the University of Michigan
Vision
The idea of an official club or student organization varies from college to college, but I’ll walk you through examples based on the policies and guidelines at the University of Michigan, where I was a student from 2009-2013. I've been fortunate to be in a situation where my school has a huge student organization base, an easy platform to advertise and manage events, and a refined room reservation process on campus. But I understand that not everyone is in the same situation, and I'll do my best to relate to all possible scenarios in which a school allows you to form a Smash club.
Something to think about before you dive into this is what to do if you find an existing student organization that is very similar to your prospective Smash club. In this case, you need to make a decision to either go ahead and create a new club or to join the existing one. I highly recommend creating a new one, because you’ll have the authority as the founder to have full creative control over the direction of the organization. Let's get started.
Example from the University of Michigan: the Super Smash Brothers Club among other "sports and recreation" clubs
Registration
The first thing you have to do is go through the registration process to gain official recognition within the university’s student organization branch. This is usually required each year because the school doesn’t want a bunch of inactive clubs remaining in the directory. At UM, the student organization recognition process for an academic year begins on April 15, before the end of the winter semester, and expires on September 30, just after the beginning of the fall semester. This should give you a sense of urgency to take care of the student organization registration process as soon as possible; clubs that fail to re-register get their accounts temporarily frozen until recognition status has been renewed for the academic year. The recognition process varies from school to school, and could be online or in-person. Find out what your school’s process is and go through it.
Example from the University of Michigan: how to register a student organization
Requirements
While registering your student organization, you'll come across various starting requirements. These may or may not include:
* Complete name of your organization. This is the official name that gets displayed on your school’s student org website or directory. Go with something simple like “Super Smash Brothers Club” for now. Don’t limit yourself to a single game. You’ll have more power and flexibility by encompassing all Smash games from the beginning.
* Organization profile image or photo. If you have Photoshop skills, now is the time to use them. If not, just grab an image of a GameCube controller or Smash logo from the internet and slap it on -- these are the two images that will most likely attract casual Smashers if they see them.
* An updated roster for your organization that includes at least X currently enrolled students. X varies from school to school. At UM, I needed just 10 currently enrolled students. Ask your friends, colleagues, peers, whoever. It’s a non-committal action by them at this point; remember that you will have the opportunity to add or remove members later, so just get this done asap so you can move along.
* Constitution for the organization. As useless as this sounds intuitively, a lot of schools require governing paperwork that shows some semblance of structure for your student org. See the below example constitution from UM Smash. Copy and paste it to your organization, then modify the wording for your own needs in case your school requires something like this.
Example constitution from the Super Smash Brothers Club at the University of Michigan
Gambling or gaming policies
Some schools are strict on the type of events you can host as a student organization. A particularly common example is the restriction on hosting “gambling or gaming events that distribute revenue” or some policy along those lines. There are a few different ways you can deal with this:
1) Inform your school that your event revolves around a skill-based game, and is not a gambling or gaming event in the traditional definition. Your school probably has a specific vision of what type of event they don’t want to be associated with by the general public, and as long as you demonstrate that a Smash tournament doesn’t fall in that category, you’ll be okay. Coming to an agreement might require some politics, but it can and has been done before.
2) Ignore the policy and host events that deal with money anyway. This is probably not the best option, but if your school is mostly hands-off with their monitoring of your events, you could potentially be able to pull this off. It's a risky play, and you need to seriously weigh the scenarios that could result from disobeying student organization policy. Not recommended to any TO whose school plays even a moderately visible role helping your event on the day of.
3) Host events and deal with money under the table. This requires some sort of online paid pre-registration system, or at least a process in which you don’t need to collect registration payments at-the-door. If you aren’t making visible transactions on the day of the event, nobody will notice, including the school. It’s possible the school wouldn’t care even if they did know about your dealings under the table; a "don’t ask don’t tell" kind of thing. Not recommended to any TO who has yet to gain the trust of attendees to the point of being able to do online paid pre-registration.
Example from the University of Michigan: gaming events policy (in case you're wondering, UM rightfully considers Smash a game of skill!)
Room reservations on campus
This is where the fun begins! As an official student organization, you'll likely receive access to a wide variety of room reservation options on campus. Although it varies from school to school, you'll most likely be able to reserve small rooms (500-1500 square feet) for free, and the larger rooms (1500+ square feet) for perhaps a discounted rate compared to the general public.
There are so many different schools and campus compositions that it's a bit unproductive to outline how to reserve rooms in a general sense. Just go to your student organization services branch and find out how things are done at your school. There will almost definitely be a few forms to read through, some code of conduct guidelines to abide by, and a defined process for inquiring about and reserving rooms. If you're looking into venues that cost money, you'll most likely have to deposit funds into your student organization account before you can proceed.
The best way to get started in this area is to just dive into the process and figure out how your school handles its room reservation process. Once you get the hang of it, you'll have the TOing freedom to access venues and the student organization platform to properly promote your events. It's worth it!
Example from the University of Michigan: how to reserve rooms as a student organization
This should help you get started with your Smash club on campus. Good luck!
--
Juggleguy is a national tournament organizer, Melee It On Me team member, and Smashboards contributor. You can follow him on Twitter: @JuggleRob
Colleges are a great environment for Smash communities. The audience is there: the majority of active Smashers are in the 18-24 age range, which just so happens to be the most common age range for undergraduate and graduate students at colleges. The setting is there: most colleges have a structure in place for students to join or manage clubs to fulfill their hobbies. So maybe the last thing missing from your path to college Smash utopia is an official student organization on campus.
Vision
The idea of an official club or student organization varies from college to college, but I’ll walk you through examples based on the policies and guidelines at the University of Michigan, where I was a student from 2009-2013. I've been fortunate to be in a situation where my school has a huge student organization base, an easy platform to advertise and manage events, and a refined room reservation process on campus. But I understand that not everyone is in the same situation, and I'll do my best to relate to all possible scenarios in which a school allows you to form a Smash club.
Something to think about before you dive into this is what to do if you find an existing student organization that is very similar to your prospective Smash club. In this case, you need to make a decision to either go ahead and create a new club or to join the existing one. I highly recommend creating a new one, because you’ll have the authority as the founder to have full creative control over the direction of the organization. Let's get started.
Registration
The first thing you have to do is go through the registration process to gain official recognition within the university’s student organization branch. This is usually required each year because the school doesn’t want a bunch of inactive clubs remaining in the directory. At UM, the student organization recognition process for an academic year begins on April 15, before the end of the winter semester, and expires on September 30, just after the beginning of the fall semester. This should give you a sense of urgency to take care of the student organization registration process as soon as possible; clubs that fail to re-register get their accounts temporarily frozen until recognition status has been renewed for the academic year. The recognition process varies from school to school, and could be online or in-person. Find out what your school’s process is and go through it.
Requirements
While registering your student organization, you'll come across various starting requirements. These may or may not include:
* Complete name of your organization. This is the official name that gets displayed on your school’s student org website or directory. Go with something simple like “Super Smash Brothers Club” for now. Don’t limit yourself to a single game. You’ll have more power and flexibility by encompassing all Smash games from the beginning.
* Organization profile image or photo. If you have Photoshop skills, now is the time to use them. If not, just grab an image of a GameCube controller or Smash logo from the internet and slap it on -- these are the two images that will most likely attract casual Smashers if they see them.
* An updated roster for your organization that includes at least X currently enrolled students. X varies from school to school. At UM, I needed just 10 currently enrolled students. Ask your friends, colleagues, peers, whoever. It’s a non-committal action by them at this point; remember that you will have the opportunity to add or remove members later, so just get this done asap so you can move along.
* Constitution for the organization. As useless as this sounds intuitively, a lot of schools require governing paperwork that shows some semblance of structure for your student org. See the below example constitution from UM Smash. Copy and paste it to your organization, then modify the wording for your own needs in case your school requires something like this.
Gambling or gaming policies
Some schools are strict on the type of events you can host as a student organization. A particularly common example is the restriction on hosting “gambling or gaming events that distribute revenue” or some policy along those lines. There are a few different ways you can deal with this:
1) Inform your school that your event revolves around a skill-based game, and is not a gambling or gaming event in the traditional definition. Your school probably has a specific vision of what type of event they don’t want to be associated with by the general public, and as long as you demonstrate that a Smash tournament doesn’t fall in that category, you’ll be okay. Coming to an agreement might require some politics, but it can and has been done before.
2) Ignore the policy and host events that deal with money anyway. This is probably not the best option, but if your school is mostly hands-off with their monitoring of your events, you could potentially be able to pull this off. It's a risky play, and you need to seriously weigh the scenarios that could result from disobeying student organization policy. Not recommended to any TO whose school plays even a moderately visible role helping your event on the day of.
3) Host events and deal with money under the table. This requires some sort of online paid pre-registration system, or at least a process in which you don’t need to collect registration payments at-the-door. If you aren’t making visible transactions on the day of the event, nobody will notice, including the school. It’s possible the school wouldn’t care even if they did know about your dealings under the table; a "don’t ask don’t tell" kind of thing. Not recommended to any TO who has yet to gain the trust of attendees to the point of being able to do online paid pre-registration.
Room reservations on campus
This is where the fun begins! As an official student organization, you'll likely receive access to a wide variety of room reservation options on campus. Although it varies from school to school, you'll most likely be able to reserve small rooms (500-1500 square feet) for free, and the larger rooms (1500+ square feet) for perhaps a discounted rate compared to the general public.
There are so many different schools and campus compositions that it's a bit unproductive to outline how to reserve rooms in a general sense. Just go to your student organization services branch and find out how things are done at your school. There will almost definitely be a few forms to read through, some code of conduct guidelines to abide by, and a defined process for inquiring about and reserving rooms. If you're looking into venues that cost money, you'll most likely have to deposit funds into your student organization account before you can proceed.
The best way to get started in this area is to just dive into the process and figure out how your school handles its room reservation process. Once you get the hang of it, you'll have the TOing freedom to access venues and the student organization platform to properly promote your events. It's worth it!
This should help you get started with your Smash club on campus. Good luck!
--
Juggleguy is a national tournament organizer, Melee It On Me team member, and Smashboards contributor. You can follow him on Twitter: @JuggleRob
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