The quad bustled with activity on Friday, Sept. 26, as students milled about and looked at the multitude of tables laid out in concentric rectangles, each one operated by a different club, all vying for the attention of the student body. As the sun shined down and the line for the free lunch thinned, more and more people roamed toward the club tables, whiling away their extended lunch finding which clubs were right for them.

For many students, Club Day is the best way to learn what clubs will be offered at the school this year. And for many clubs, Club Day is the only way to recruit new members. While Club Day is a chance for Paly’s more established clubs, such as the Key Club, the Gay-Straight Alliance, and the Thespian Society, to continue to increase their membership, many other clubs that are new, or simply lesser known, use Club Day to introduce themselves to the student body.

For example, the Juggling Club put on several successive juggling performances to try and grab the attention of passers-by and draw some new members into the several-year-old club.

“Heck yeah, we’re going to get more people,” senior John Xia, a member of the club, said while swinging a pair of poi’s, a sphere in a cloth sleeve, as part of a dexterous performance.

Other clubs had smaller displays, such as the Go Club, in which members play a similarly-named board game. During Club Day, club leader senior Valerian Scheurer had an open Go board at his club table and taught the basics of the game to any who were interested, as a means of drawing in potential members.

This was the Go Club’s first time manning a booth at Club Day. Although the club did exist prior to it, “We were around the second half of last year, but this is essentially our first year,” Scheurer said.

The Go Club is not the only club that has existed without being noticed by a majority of the student population. The Ultimate Frisbee Club is in its fourth year, but this is the first year in which they have had a table for Club Day.

“It [having a table] has doubled or tripled our membership,” senior Avi Miller, a founder of the Ultimate Frisbee Club, said.

The Ultimate Frisbee Club is structured as an open event; even non-members are welcome to attend and participate.

There are also several new clubs this year, such as the Parkour Club.

“Basically, Parkour is going places and climbing over stuff,” senior Tom Marks, a member of the club, said. “We go in a straight line, over whatever’s in the way.”

The Parkour Club hopes to introduce people to the sport, and help people find and organize Parkour events.

Another newcomer is the NASA Club, which will be participating in a national contest in which the participants theoretically design a viable space settlement. Students from Jordan may be familiar with the contest.

“If you went to Jordan and took Space Settlement Design class, we’re entering that contest,” senior Tim Han, leader of the NASA Club, said.

Although this is the club’s first year at the school, they won the first prize in the contest in 2006, working with Lockheed Martin, where Han is an intern. When asked about his time working with the aeronautics company, Han said, “I’m not allowed to talk about that.”

The Juggling Club meets on the grass between the English building and the portables on Wednesdays and Thursdays at lunch, The NASA Club meets in the Science Resource Center on Mondays at lunch, the Parkour Club meets in room 215 on Thursdays at lunch, and the Ultimate Frisbee Club meets on the quad on Fridays after school.