
Hey! I'm Cosmin, a 16 year old club leader from Romania, who leads the VectorBytez hack club, and I'm gonna share with you the most AMAZING club meet I ever hosted!

![group photo](https://cloud-4y7g35vgz-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0img-20240309-wa0061.jpg)

For context, we typically hold our club meetings at a pizza place. However, with some new members joining in recent times, we wanted to do something more fun and affordable. So, we decided to cook our own food– and what better way to do that than a BBQ!

So we made our plans: we were gonna do a BBQ and a sprig workshop at a member's (Simone's) chalet, which is right next to a waterpark! 

![chalet](https://cloud-5u99yi2yw-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0274602213.jpg)

First, we gathered resources: Simone and Maria bought the meat with our HCBcard, I brought some sodas, Marc brought spices, and everyone came in with their laptops.

![sticker!](https://cloud-crzden5u1-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0img-20240309-wa0071.jpg)
> We had to take a train to a town near the venue, and we put a Hack Club sticker in it

At nearly every stop, I thought it was our turn to get off and stood up to check, which made the others laugh because they could see out the window and knew it wasn't.

After arriving, we went shopping for the rest of the necessary items (chips, marshmallows, chocolate, biscuits). Unfortunately, we couldn't pay with the virtual HCB card because the cashier insisted, "I need to see the actual card in your hand, or you'll have to pay with cash." It was odd, but we split the bill and only ended up paying around 4 bucks each, so it worked out fine.

There were nine of us, but we crammed into two taxis. One driver mentioned he could get in trouble because we had six people in a five-person vehicle. We even passed a police car, but fortunately, they didn't notice. When we arrived, the taxi driver charged us a bit more than usual, probably due to the illegality.

Finally, we arrived and started the fire while the other members unpacked all the food.

![big fire](https://cloud-cke7fzldp-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0img-20240309-wa0096.jpg)

Half of us started cooking the meat while the other half were preparing the veggies.
![preparing veggies](https://cloud-n9ylah4zh-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0img-20240309-wa0069.jpg)

![grilling meat](https://cloud-c20ex096u-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0img-20240309-wa0097.jpg)

The food was finally ready and we got to eating

![food on grill](https://cloud-lp7vrrj65-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0img-20240309-wa0100.jpg)

![people staring at food](https://cloud-86es9guuu-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0img-20240309-wa0104.jpg)

After eating, we took a stroll through the closed waterpark and the regular park inside it. We found a spinning wheel and half of us got dizzy and sick, but after 10 minutes, we felt better and decided to spin again. [Click here to watch us spinning!](https://drive.google.com/file/d/13mJsRcLYoi6l9GEcA4Y_LnczJKJPK1rn/view?usp=sharing)

At the end of our tour, we also took a group photo with the more senior members:
![group photo](https://cloud-4y7g35vgz-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0img-20240309-wa0061.jpg)

As the sun was setting, we gathered once more in the chalet, pulled our laptops out of our bags, and started the Sprig workshop. It was an absolute blast. I gave a small presentation and let everyone express their creativity by making their own games. All the participants created decent games, and one even completed theirs, made a pull request, and got it merged!

Our meeting was rudely interrupted by a call from our friend's dad, announcing that he had made a bus wait for us for 30 minutes (and Simone forgot to tell us). We panicked, grabbed all our stuff, and ran to the bus. Thankfully, nobody was waiting except the driver. He drove us to the station where we got our tickets and waited for the train, which had a 40-minute delay. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, we went for a walk in a park and then to a café, where we enjoyed some delicious cake slices.

On our train back home, I asked every participant to complete a 3-question form for the workshop. The feedback given was super helpful because it helped me understand what each member’s pace and preferences are, which in turn made me adopt changes to future workshops that would make it easier for everyone to learn.
![results](https://cloud-atcmiy4qc-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0screenshot_20240530-022439-941.png)

It was the most fun meet we’ve had and the best workshop I’ve ever hosted. And I don’t think it was a coincident either because I think if people do something with pleasure, they're more likely to continue doing it.


For context, we typically hold our club meetings at a pizza place. However, with some new members joining in recent times, we wanted to do something more fun and affordable. So, we decided to cook our own food– and what better way to do that than a BBQ!


Dinosaur BBQ


# How I Ran Out of Chairs At My Last Hack Club Meeting

if you’ve read the title already - yes, the room was that full.

![a group of engaged students gathers in a computer lab, focusing on a central figure in a white hoodie.](https://cloud-5fe5iy2hn-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0group_1.png)

i’m sahiti, a hack clubber from atlanta, georgia. and this crazy story started approximately two weeks ago when my friend dieter said this to me:

![a slack message from deet at 8:33 pm reads: "hey sahiti, lol this is a wild idea but i think it would be amazing if we could make it work!!"](https://cloud-jsqnd5vlf-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)

[hack club](https://hackclub.com/) is the largest community of teen hackers online, support by the club leaders who run their own technology (coding) clubs at their own school or community. it’s completely free to join, but is a huge network of likeminded teens and space with made cool technology grant projects such as [onboard](https://hackclub.com/onboard/) and [boba drops](https://boba.hackclub.com/).

dieter’s plan was simple (though i still had my many doubts): 1. it included me having the most epic club meeting ever 2. it meant him flying all the way from vermont (where he was the videographer at hack club hq) and 3. creating the most viral, all-around fire documentary on what it meant to be a club leader (something that hack club didn’t have yet).

but like all crazy, wild hack club ideas, we said “let’s go for it”.
## step one: plan the most epic club meeting ever

first things first, i realized it would be quite embarrassing if dieter flew on a $500 flight to my state and no one showed up to my hack club meeting. so i knew i had to take action: i asked myself, how do i make sure that room fills up?


two simple solutions came out of my pondering: i could offer the world’s coolest coding club meeting activity ever that no other class or club could offer at my school or i could give teenagers what they wanted: pan crust pizza.

![pizza hut pan crust pizza.](https://cloud-1xxoafgd2-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)

spoiler alert: like most bold hack club ideas, i chose to go above and beyond by doing both.

and just lucky for me, hack club had recently released their latest (and in my opinion, coolest) you-ship-we-ship yet: [blot](https://blot.hackclub.dev/). any teenager who went to the site and learned how to code their own art would get a machine that drew it for them.

![screenshot of the blot website home page.](https://cloud-m5e20gxgh-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)

so i put aside my calculus homework, and hopped onto the javascript editor on the blot website. in about 10 hours on a saturday, i had my first iteration of what seemed to be a flower:


![screenshot of initial code and rendition of javascript flower in the blot editor.](https://cloud-3omwybad2-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image_8.png)

> i was actually planning on hosting [blossom](https://blossom.hackclub.com/), a gender-focused hackathon event for girl scouts in a month in part of hack club’s [days of service program](https://daysofservice.hackclub.com/) and felt like getting a blot machine would also serve as a fun workshop to do at the event. two birds, one stone.

my initial pr was reviewed by engineers who later gave me suggestions on how to make it more technically impressive. the entire process can be found [here](https://github.com/hackclub/blot/pull/252).

my final flower code and art can be found on the gallery at [blot.hackclub.com/gallery](https://blot.hackclub.com/gallery)!

once my pull request was approved, i got shipped the parts of my blot machine and (with a lot of help from my younger brother) put together the drawing machine at my house.

![Two kids putting together a blot machine with an electric screwdriver.](https://cloud-c2g5gfy6r-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)
![The completed blot drawing machine above a piece of paper.](https://cloud-bt34tjwhq-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)

next things next, i come up with the most elaborate marketing strategy that has ever been implemented at my school, and thomas, my friend and clubs engineer at hack club - helped me make a poster for my event.

this poster was posted up in every hallway, every engineering and computer science class, every bathroom stall, and every technical group forum that our school had.

and with that, i had delivered on the three Fs of a successful club meeting: food, fun activity, and fancy stickers that i used to hang up posters.

![poster made to advertise hack club meeting on a blue locker at a highschool.](https://cloud-3sgqokvzc-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image_9.png)

soon thereafter, dieter arrived to the peach state of georgia and experienced waffle house.

we met up with david, another fellow club leader in the state of georgia to grab boba and discussed issues that we commonly faced as club leaders.

![group photo at a boba shop.](https://cloud-aj8zzk6ms-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)

for example, school administration being against the idea of a “hack club” was quite common and was a big reason why david had trouble starting his own club. i too faced the same situation with my school’s administration, leading me to write [this letter](https://school-toolbox.hackclub.com/view/letters/sahiti_email.mdx) to the vice principal of my school.
## step two: have the meeting
![blot workshop meeting on slides in a classroom](https://cloud-la7qp63tj-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)

finally, the day of the meeting came. christian, my co-leader, and i were ready to run the most epic hack club meeting ever, featuring blot. we set up the blot machine at the front of the room and connected it to a camera, projecting the live feed onto the board so everyone could see the machine in action.

about an hour prior i picked up over $100 of pizza and donuts through the hack club [pizza grant:](https://hackclub.com/pizza/) (any coding club with in person meetings can get $100 worth of free food by applying)

![pizza being distributed at hack club meeting](https://cloud-g1oe4dqys-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)

but soon, as people started to trickle into the room… i realized that unfortunately, we had vastly underestimated how motivating free food after school would be and should have bought more.

we kicked off the meeting by explaining the basics of blot and how it works. with the blot machine projected on the board, we demonstrated how to write simple javascript to create art. we made sure to cater to all skill levels, ensuring beginners felt welcome and experienced coders found it engaging.

![presenting hack club meeting on slides to the classroom](https://cloud-9apfzpggg-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)

christian and i took turns walking through the code, showing how small changes could create different designs. we even had a few participants come up and try their hand at coding live, guiding them through the process and celebrating their creations as the blot machine drew them out.

the room buzzed with excitement as more students got involved. to keep the momentum going, we promised that anyone who successfully coded their own art during the meeting would get a free blot machine shipped to their home. this incentive drove even more participation and enthusiasm.

![photos of participants coding and blot machine in action](https://cloud-bfp9wybxt-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)

by the end of the meeting, the room was packed, the pizza and donuts were gone, and everyone had a great time. the combination of a fun activity, the promise of free blot machines, and, of course, the delicious food made this the most memorable hack club meeting yet.

![photos of participants coding and blot machine in action](https://cloud-pskr7w5m3-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0image.png)
## step three: debrief afterwards
overall the meeting went great. since this article has been a lot of words, here are a few numbers:
- 65:  participants (largest meeting yet)
- 61: percentage of  project creation rate (this number was lower than usual 89%, but more projects in quantity were created)
- 128: dollars spent on pizza and donuts combined
- 0: and most importantly, the number of empty chairs left in that room

### step four: don't wait: start a hack club.

i learned about hack club through a medium article written by zach latta about two years ago, and so it’s so touching for me to now be writing my very own to share my story as a club leader.

watch the full documentary that dieter made here:

[![inside a high school coding club Thumbnail](https://img.youtube.com/vi/xXIxwV7bQTw/sddefault.jpg)](https://youtu.be/xxixwv7bqtw "Video Title")

> tl;dr: elements that make great hack clubs include enthusiasm from you as a leader! proper marketing, food, and having a great pre-made hands-on experience can also assist with this.

and don’t wait! apply to run your own hack club today, trust me it changed my life: [https://hackclub.com/clubs/](https://hackclub.com/clubs/)


if you’ve read the title already - yes, the room was that full. i’m sahiti, a hack clubber from atlanta, georgia. and this crazy story started approximately two weeks ago when my friend dieter said this to me:


How I Ran Out of Chairs At My Last Hack Club Meeting


# it’s the most wonderful time of the year 🎶
*Not quite Christmas, but the club fair!*

I’m Phaedra, a hack clubber from Boston, Massachusetts! I run a Hack Club at my school, and here’s the story of how I had the most extravagant table at my school’s club fair.

![the final table my co-prez and i made at the fair](https://cloud-f3aepcmxo-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/3img_4431.jpg)
![top down selfie of me and our club fair setup](https://cloud-f3aepcmxo-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/4img_4435.jpg)

## school lore!
My school prides itself on having *so many extracurricular opportunities*, and this event is the debut of clubs—specifically my school’s Hack Club—to both new and returning students. A good chunk of students like STEM subjects. The bigger problem is: circles generally develop based on career interests at my school, and the computer science community is not that big.

While my school’s AP Computer Science classes have the highest AP enrollment, most of the students want the grade over the content. A lot of the coding flies over people's heads and as a result, people don't find the joy in coding.

## \*the\* poster!
I hoped to change that mindset through the club fair. And sooner rather than later, my co-president and I were off on a race to create the most extravagant poster possible after a pretty expensive run to the stationery aisle in Target. These were our results on the first day:

![first day of making the poster board](https://cloud-f3aepcmxo-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/1img_4115.jpg)
![end of day one of making the poster board](https://cloud-f3aepcmxo-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/0img_4155.jpg)

We didn’t just have the poster, though. We also had a candy bowl to incentivize members to join.

![“grab a byte to eat” bowl](https://cloud-f3aepcmxo-hack-club-bot.vercel.app/5img_4433.jpg)

Now in retrospect, this definitely backfired. Students would throw wrappers anywhere but a trash can. In the future, we might not go with candy. Still, we made sure to have the candy bowl as it would bring people to our table who otherwise would probably not have visited.

The most popular aspect of our stand was the STICKERS! Hack Club has [awesome, high-quality stickers](https://hackclub.com/stickers) that club leaders can request for their club, and these stickers were free advertisements for students to visit our table and join the club.

With all of our preparations and 40+ US dollars spent on the candy alone (those bags are NOT cheap), now comes both the easy and hard part: chatting with prospective members.

## chatting with students
We had a specific audience we intended to target (high school students, given our school is for students in grades 7-12), but I learned very quickly to *expect the unexpected*. During the middle school club fair, we had 20 signups from seventh graders alone!

When it came to chatting with students, many weren’t really inclined to talk because they were reading the loads of content on the poster. For the ones that did though, it was usually because their friends encouraged them to sign up and would come up to us to ask the most frequent question of the day:

> Hackers wanted? Will I learn to hack into the government?

Now, our goal of the poster was to reel students in. The giant “Hackers Wanted!” sign on the poster did its job, but now was an opportunity to explain to students that Hack Club explores “hacking” more creatively. Did it work? For most people, yes. For others, it (shockingly) was a disappointment.

## takeaways

We ended up getting a total of around 30-40 signups from the fair. It was an understandable amount of people that ended up visiting and joining the club, and our notoriously decked-out poster board retired until our next appearance in the spring: [**Boston Latin Academy Comic Con**](https://hackclub.slack.com/archives/C02PA5G01ND/p1709817092190039)!


*Not quite Christmas, but the club fair!* I’m Phaedra, a hack clubber from Boston, Massachusetts! I run a Hack Club at my school, and here’s the story of how I had the most extravagant table at my school’s club fair.


The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

A Hack Clubber's journey, written June 2021. Hi there 👋 this is my attempt at a comprehensive guide for leading Hack Club's clubs program. I'll cover everything from my personal Hack Club journey to all the different parts of the clubs program and how to think about them, including specific actions you can take from day one to improve the program.


Letters From Leaders

... to Leaders

How I Ran Out of Chairs At My Last Hack Club Meeting

Technicolor 🟦🟪🟥🟧🟨🟩

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Dinosaur BBQ