The History, as told by Club Chair Mark Kraska
The history of this club isn't too detailed, considering how young it is (when compared to the other larger anime clubs seen in the Colorado area ^.^).
Back in Fall of 2002, founder Clayton Zimmer created the JAC acronym to stand for Japanese Animation and Culture, and established a club at UCCS. He held regular meetings and did basically what I do. He had somewhat of a rough time setting up the club and keeping a consistent schedule, but it worked for the next two years afterwards. In addition to founding the club, he also established our club email account. In Spring of 2004, Clayton was forced to resign from his position as club chair and left UCCS to pursue his studies in Denver. At the time, he had petitioned for others to take over for him, but no one responded...
That's when I came in, Fall 2004. Having been part of the LPAC (Lewis Palmer Anime Club) with one of my best friends, John Taylor, I was inspired to either join the club at my college, or to start a new one if it didn't exist. I contacted Clayton with this info, and at that time he offered to let me take over for him. Surprised, I agreed. At this same time, Brad Cuppy, the Vice President, had already put in the paperwork for the club, unbeknownst to me. We met up later and began to coordinate our re-organization of the club. Our first major change was to the name of the club, transforming it into the Japanese Anime Club. We did this because the former name was not working. We really didn't focus on doing much for culture back when Clayton was prez. I have attempted to incorporate some of the original aspirations of the club into our schedule. I also changed our meeting format. Unlike other clubs, we stick with one series and run it straight through. More importantly, we changed the rules by enforcing a switch-off of the language for the anime. I did this to allow all members to be happy. There are naturally those who prefer one or the other, so I forced this upon them in the hopes that they would grow to appreciate the other format a little more. We do make exceptions (the Evangelion Japanese track isn't too impressive, and the Love Hina dub is HORRIBLE). I got this idea from my friend from LPAC, John Taylor, and it seems to work well.
Other major changes were our meeting schedule and meeting selections. Clayton tended to try out experimental, odd animes that most people hadn't ever heard of. This was fine for some members, but most people did not think this worked. We at JAC tend to mix it up a bit (or try to any ways). One change that has increased member turnout was our meeting day. Clayton used to hold meetings Tuesdays or Thursdays, and this was apparently very inconvenient for many members. We now try to meet on Fridays, and it works fairly well.
Our first semester went very well, up until the end. The scheduling office gave me a scare when they challenged the legality of our programming. It seemed for a while that JAC would have to end up meeting somewhere else or disappearing off the face of the Earth. Determined not to let this happen, I consulted with some of the big-wigs of the University Center and got help. Dr. Mary Yates, director of Campus Living, presented me with a web address to the Prospector Unified Library Catalog. The rules for UCCS state that if I can find a title in their system, then I am permitted to show it. Through this, and through some wheeling and dealing to get all ADV titles approved, I saved the club from disaster. This means that we are forever restricted, but the Prospector System is quite extensive, and is growing every day.
Around mid-January, Spring 2005 semester, I learned of the ADV ADVocates club sponsorship program, through John Taylor. Seeing this as a great opportunity to expand the club, I signed us up. Now we get monthly free goodies, such as ADV propaganda and sample DVDs. I have learned recently that ADVocates members are entitled to free screenings of ADV titles, which is extremely helpful and will be taken advantage of for the Fall 2005 semester and beyond.
In March, due to scheduling conflicts, we were forced to meet off campus. Luckily, some club members have connections, and we managed to snag a projector for this purpose. As a member of the Kendo club of UCCS, I learned that the Vice Prez Adam worked at the Miyaki Japanese Restaurant, and he informed me that his boss was interested in hooking up with JAC for a sushi event. I followed some leads, did some wheeling and dealing, and on March 8th, we held our meeting in the restaurant. This was a very successful and fun evening, and the owner was so impressed with the turnout that he invited us to come back some time in the future. We may take him up on his offer.
Around March of 2005, I initiated the JAC's library system. Our collection consists of items that club members are letting the club borrow. This makes things cheap, and means that we won't have to charge dues to expand the club library. In May of 2005, we received a generous donation of several Manga titles from Melissa Morgan. This was also when we tried meeting in other rooms of the University Center, such as the theater room in UC 302. I plan on trying to nab that space as often as possible for next semester's meeting.
More recently, this website was completed as yet another reform of the club. I plan on sticking around for the next three years, and who knows what will change in that time? I expect some increase in turnout for Fall 2005. Most of our current members joined Fall 2004 when I started, and combined with our advertisement at NDK, this should help us to grow greatly. Right now we get around 12 regulars, I hope to have close to 20 by Spring 2006.
During the summer of 2005, I learned of Funimation's sponsorship program, Operation Anime. They send us entire volumes of select series and allow us to keep them as long as we send in feedback forms. Additionally, the people who watch it get a 40% discount on that DVD from Funimation's online store.
- Mark, Chair
