By Gabriela Rey
Correspondent
The College’s Manhunt Club will be hosting a full alumni weekend on Friday, Nov. 6, to Sunday, Nov. 8, for students and alumni to celebrate the club’s 10- year anniversary.
The weekend will include a “semesterly” alumni game of manhunt on Friday, Nov. 6, followed by a semi-formal banquet on Saturday, Nov. 7, according to Manhunt Club President and senior biology major Mitchell Vaughn.
The club was formed 10 years ago by a group of students who wanted nothing more than to play manhunt on campus. The club today has gained popularity among students who share the same love for manhunt as the first ever club president, Chris Rindosh.
“(The club) was actually started by a bunch of friends that would just get together on Friday nights,” Vice President and senior criminology major Robin Schmitz said. “It was an alternative to going out and partying... they wanted to get together and do something else. So they started playing manhunt.”
Besides weekly games of manhunt on Fridays, the club also works collectively to invent new games that enforce team building and are just downright fun.
“We sometimes play capture the flag. We’ll also play assault the flag, which is a variation of capture the flag,” Schmitz said. “We also work on developing our own games, like ‘color vampire.’ ”
Along with playing around campus, the club makes an effort to connect with the campus community and with other clubs at the College by helping out with the career fair, freshman move-in day and co-sponsoring with clubs including PRISM, Union Latina and The Magic Circle, according to Vaughn.
Over the past 10 years, the club’s membership has increased, with over 25 members attending the weekly meetings. The club’s membership also has a large variety of majors, which makes meeting new people that you wouldn’t normally see in your classes all the more interesting.
“The great thing is that our regulars shift,” Schmitz said. “Yes, we have 25 regulars, but you’ re also not guaranteed to see the same people every single week so you’ re constantly meeting new people or meeting people from different majors."
"We actually have a lot of variety in the people that join our club. On our E-board right now, we have English, secondary ed, business, criminology, biology, chemistry and IMM (majors),” Schmitz added.
Campus safety is also a large issue that the club tries to regulate by making rules and guidelines to make all of their games safe and school appropriate. The club runs everything by Campus Police before they begin to play.
“Last week, Campus Police was like, ‘You need to tell us when you’re playing,’” Schmitz said. “And we were like — ‘We’ve been playing this for 10 years, but we’ll send you an email just to make sure that you know that we will be hiding in bushes on Fridays. Please do not be alarmed.’”
Overall, the club has its merits for being one of the College’s most entertaining, fun and interesting clubs offered. They are a “low commitment club,” according to Schmitz, filled with genuine people and a mile long list of funny stories to pass down for years to come.
“We have a lot of fun, and for me personally, it’s (all about) the people,” Manhunt Club Treasurer and senior accounting major Martin Faynor said. “It’s kind of like when it comes down to it, we’re all really down to earth just trying to have fun and we don’t necessarily care if we have this reputation... they can think whatever they want, but we’re gonna have fun and we’re going to enjoy our time here.”
