Key Club was my first experience with the wonder of
politics, complete with
corruption, secret alliances, power hoarding, etc. Although the stated purpose of the club is
community service (and we did do a bit of that), it is really more oriented towards
politics, and social activities. No one really joins the club to do good for the world. The girls join because it looks good on their
college applications and the boys join for the girls. Every once in a while you will find a true
altruist just out to help people, but it is quite rare. But once people are in the club, out there doing stuff, they usually do get into the service part. My main contribution to this club while i was in high school was a local
habitat restoration project at a nearby place called
madrona marsh.
The politics of the club resemble those of most high school cliques, only more severe. Our club was brought together by one political visionary (and backstabber, but that's another story) who enlisted her friends to help her get something good going. She was overly moral and altruistic, to the point that she actually often did more harm than good. But she did get that club running. While she was around, the club was basically one 'clique', so things went smoothly. But the next year, the president, although a hard worker, didn't have the charisma to keep things going so smoothly. The club soon split up into 2 factions, one loyal to the president and the other, which i was a part of, dissenters. This damaged the club quite a bit and caused any board meeting to last for hours. The year after i left, the 'leader' of the dissenting faction took over, however he used his power a little too liberally and lost support as well. ces le vie, i guess.. Leaving Key Club, i thought that the politics were a symptom of immature high school kids. Now I know that it's how any group works.
One of the strange features of Key Club was that nearly everyone in the california-nevada-hawaii district was Asian. I was one of three white people in my large club, and only a few dozen in the huge convention they held. It was a bit strange, but I never really recieved any racism out of the whole deal, so i didn't mind.