Discover fresh faces and exciting opportunities with the newest clubs at McMaster University
McMaster University has over 250 student-run clubs on campus across diverse categories that include but are not limited to academics and athletics, culture and religion and social issues.
Students have the freedom to pursue their passions that are related to their degree or independent of it. The variety of clubs at McMaster create spaces for students to connect with likeminded individuals and get involved with exciting initiatives and events.
While there is a vast amount of MSU clubs, this number only continues to grow as new intelligent cohorts join the McMaster community. Here are a few new notable MSU clubs to check out!
Eating Disorder Awareness McMaster
To raise awareness of eating disorders and their effects on people's lives, Eating Disorder Awareness McMaster aims to share helpful information to the McMaster community and resources to those affected. EDMAC is a newly created affiliate of the Collaborative Eating Disorder Awareness Association, a nonprofit organization that shares a similar mission to generate a better understanding of eating disorders in Canada. Sharing information about eating disorders spreads awareness to those ignorant to their severity and validates students that may not know how to seek treatment.
McMaster BlackPrint
Made for black men by black men, McMaster BlackPrint is a club dedicated to creating spaces to bring together and uplift black-identifying male students. Black male students are often underrepresented in university spaces. Through collaborative events with other MSU clubs and support from the Black Student Success Centre, showcased on their social media, BlackPrint creates safe spaces for mental health discussions, academic tools, and career-planning resources.
McMaster Chapter of the Golden Key International Honour Society
An exclusive club that supports McMaster’s finest academics, the Golden Key International Honour Society is an invite-only club where its members are among the top 15 per cent of their field of study. The Golden Key International Honour Society is stated to be the largest collegiate society on both their social media and official website. Holding connections with over 400 universities, this club represents the McMaster chapter of this honour society. Members of this club are provided exclusive networking opportunities, scholarships, and career-building resources.
McMaster Young Liberals
Currently McMaster’s only politically affiliated MSU club, the McMaster Young Liberals are returning after
“My big goal is I want a lot of people to come out and see that politics can be fun. I want to decrease that perceived barrier of entry into it. I want to get people to come out and realize they can make an actual difference in their community and really be involved,” said Max Dressler, provincial president of McMaster Young Liberals.
McMaster Young Liberals hopes to create a space for students both new and familiar to politics to openly discuss their concerns and opinions.
“Get involved and share your opinions because those opinions may very well become law,”
Whether you're looking to meet new people or discover a new interest, consider checking out a new club this semester.
Everything you need to know before joining the gymnastics and parkour club this term
This year, McMaster University’s former gymnastics club was ratified to encompass both gymnasts and parkour athletes. Despite the official ratification only coming now, the club is no stranger to the sport of parkour. McMaster Gymnastics & Parkour president, André Morin, is one of many parkour athletes that have trained with the club over the last few years.
“[At] my gym back home, gymnastics and parkour were practiced in the same facility. For me it just seemed obvious that the club should merge if we were going to make a parkour club — so that’s what we did,” explained Morin.
The overlap between gymnastics, parkour and other related sports has allowed the club to expand rapidly and was only helped with the return of ClubsFest this past September. McMaster Gymnastics & Parkour now currently consists of around 50 members that attend practices regularly but has reached over 80 students if including those that drop-in from time to time.
“The communities merging have been really exciting. It’s a big community now with lots of camaraderie . . . We have everything from ex-gymnasts all the way to beginners and then we even have some cheerleaders and parkour athletes mixed in, so it’s a really fun crowd,” said Morin.
“The communities merging have been really exciting. It’s a big community now with lots of camaraderie . . . We have everything from ex-gymnasts all the way to beginners and then we even have some cheerleaders and parkour athletes mixed in, so it’s a really fun crowd,”
André Morin, McMaster Gymnastics & Parkour President
The club hosts practices twice a week at World Class Gymnastics at 95 Frid St. Unit 12, a gymnastics facility close to campus. Since the club rents the facility themselves, participants pay an upfront fee for the semester or $10 for two hours of drop-in practice.
Practices times are structured as open gym time where members can practice independently or work with the club's various coaches specialized in women's artistic gymnastics and parkour.
“We try to make this club as inclusive and welcoming as possible, so we have lots of coaches to help with spotting and instructions and making sure people learn safely and effectively,” explained Morin.
Including the club’s coaches, the club has 15 executive members that are usually available to offer pointers or lend a hand. Particularly, beginners are able to communicate their goals with the club for a more tailored plan.
“A lot of people join gymnastics and parkour with the goal of wanting to do like a backflip — that's a very common thing — we can help target that and make them strong enough to do that move first which will keep them motivated and wanting to learn new moves,” explained Morin.
“A lot of people join gymnastics and parkour with the goal of wanting to do like a backflip — that's a very common thing — we can help target that and make them strong enough to do that move first which will keep them motivated and wanting to learn new moves,”
André Morin, McMaster Gymnastics & Parkour President
Within the next year, Morin is interested in organizing possible competitions for the club with neighboring schools. Members would then have the opportunity to train more seriously or to continue training casually.
Beyond this, Morin and the club’s executive team have a number of exciting plans for the club, including team merchandise, fundraising events and social events with neighbouring businesses in Hamilton or other clubs.
McMaster Gymnastics & Parkour practices weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. in the winter semester at World Class Gymnastics.
C/O Kyle Head
Clubs reflect on the previous year and prepare for a new year as students are welcomed back on campus
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and conditions rapidly change, students have also been doing their best to adapt their extracurricular activities. Starting Sept. 9, 2021, McMaster Students Union clubs are to follow a new set of guidelines tailored to in-person events.
Although in-person events are permitted, events are limited to 100 people outdoors or 25 people indoors. Students must always adhere to any physical distancing or room capacity limits as well.
Following the same format as the year before, MSU Clubsfest took place online. For the virtual Clubsfest, MSU Clubs features a variety of clubs from the five divisions—academic, cultural, recreational, religious and social issues — across their social media.
With over 300 clubs under the MSU, many clubs do not require students to gather in person. On the other hand, there are also clubs that operate heavily with in-person events.
Absolute Pitch, McMaster’s show choir, is one such club. As a show choir, the club involves singing and dancing for live performances. This year, Hayleigh Wallace, Absolute Pitch’s president, said that all auditions and rehearsals will be done in person.
However, the club will still be following all protocols and thus, the cast may be smaller than usual in order to abide by the 25 person gathering limit.
For performances where the club can’t have a live audience, such as their annual coffee house performance in November, those will be recorded beforehand.
Looking back on how the previous year went for the club when everyone had to be done online, Wallace said the club learned a lot about being flexible.
“I think we also just learned a lot about flexibility and we’re going to try not to enforce really hard deadlines this year, or like, we need to have this number perfected by this day. We understand that it’s okay to be flexible,” said Wallace.
“I think we also just learned a lot about flexibility and we’re going to try not to enforce really hard deadlines this year, or like, we need to have this number perfected by this day. We understand that it’s okay to be flexible.”
Hayleigh Wallace, Absolute Pitch President
Auditions for Absolute Pitch are being held Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 for both the vocal and dance cast. The club is also currently recruiting band members.
Similar to Absolute Pitch, the McMaster Musical Theatre is another club that bases its operations heavily on in-person gatherings. This year, the MMT will also be having their rehearsals in person and will be recording any performances that cannot have a live audience.
Due to the fact that MMT’s cast and crew will likely be over the 25 person limit, Isabel Diavolitsis, MMT’s president, expressed that the club plans to split up the cast and crew for rehearsals in order to follow the protocols.
Last year, with everything being done online, MMT asked club members to record individual videos of themselves reimagining and reenacting songs or scenes that they love.
Although there were some challenges, Diavolitsis said the club was able to learn from the experience.
“[There] definitely was a learning curve I'm sure like at the beginning of the year just sort of getting into it how are we going to do this and I’m sure lots of clubs had that sort of awakening. But then, after that, things started to run a bit more smoothly. I think folks have now learned that there are some things you can teach virtually which is kind of cool and maybe will reduce the amount of time we have to spend in person, especially if we want to keep limiting contact,” said Diavolitsis.
"I think folks have now learned that there are some things you can teach virtually which is kind of cool and maybe will reduce the amount of time we have to spend in person, especially if we want to keep limiting contact.”
Isabel Diavolitsis, Mcmaster Musical Theatre President
Mac One Act, a club that offers students the opportunity to participate in a variety of short plays, is also planning on incorporating in-person performances this year.
Toluwalase Awonuga, president of Mac One Act, said that the club plans to do in-person plays, but will also have some virtual plays to allow those who can’t make it in person to join.
Each play involves a group of typically no larger than six, so Awonuga believes the club should have no difficulty adhering to the COVID-19 protocols during rehearsals.
The club is looking to include both virtual and in-person plays in their final showcase in the Winter semester. Awonuga expressed that their hope is to offer the showcase to a live audience, but also online as well.
Currently, the club is reviewing scripts for their plays this year and auditions will begin at the end of October.
Aside from performance-based clubs, other clubs such as the Mac Soup Kitchen, also involve in-person activities.
Mac Soup Kitchen is a club that advocates food security, fundraises for various food accessibility programs and helps organize volunteers for local food banks and soup kitchens.
Vanessa Wong, one of MSK’s co-presidents, said that last year, the club shifted from volunteering and fundraising to more advocacy-related activities. This included online events such as a games night and coordinating a virtual food drive.
“Asking students to provide monetary donations is kind of [something] we didn't feel like was the right thing to do, knowing that everyone was you know going through hardship last year, so we wanted to just shift our focus to spreading awareness of food insecurity,” said Wong.
“Asking students to provide monetary donations is kind of [something] we didn't feel like was the right thing to do, knowing that everyone was you know going through hardship last year, so we wanted to just shift our focus to spreading awareness of food insecurity.”
Vanessa Wong, Mac Soup Kitchen Co-President
Arushi Wadhwa, MSK’s other co-president, said that a positive from last year was being able to reach out to a wide range of people through social media. However, conducting synchronous online events posed a challenge at times as the club is used to advertising for events on campus through posters or drop-ins to classrooms.
“[T]here were definitely some drawbacks, but given all of that we've definitely learned a lot [from] hosting like completely online events last year and we're really excited to implement new changes and see where MSK goes this year,” said Wadhwa.
This year, due to the difficulty of contact tracing, Wong and Wadhwa said they plan to remain mostly online.
“Keeping everyone safe is our number one priority, so we are going to remain mainly online, explained Wadhwa.
However, the club will be facilitating some in-person volunteering at food banks and soup kitchens if any club members express interest in doing so. MSK will not be heavily involved in the entire volunteering process but will help inform volunteers of when food banks or soup kitchens need volunteers.
