1. We’ve got trips planned, including a “Ferris Bueller” day in downtown Los Angeles and a ghost tour of the Queen Mary.
2. Make lunch a party! Celebrate each decade with food, movies, music, and games.
3. Be a part of a national organization. As WHS’s chapter of the National History Club, members will earn stoles and cords, and be given the opportunity to use all the resources that the NHC provides.
4. Leave something for the future - we are planning to bury a time capsule at the end of this year.
5. Impress people with your vast knowledge of pop culture, drop references to Mary Pickford and laugh silently at how sad and unaware everyone else is, know why your teacher always repeats, “Bueller” during roll call even though there isn’t one in your class, and make history and English class much more exciting - because you have been in a soup line, danced the Charleston, and rocked out to the Beatles.
6. Let your retro flag fly - we won’t judge your secret love of Chet Baker, fantasy of living in the 20s, or hidden stash of beatnik poetry.
7. Gifts and prizes. Each member earns points for being active - coming to meetings, participating in activities, helping out at the Oct. 9 festival, etc. At the end of the year, the member with the most points gets a gift box based on their favorite decade. Everyone else - fear not! There are chances to win prizes along the way.
8. Club Retrospect is kinda like time-traveling…history comes to life. Although this isn’t always a good thing, (e.g. Abraham Lincoln appearing at the foot of your bed in the middle of the night) history doesn’t have to be distant and stuffy. It’s more than black and white pictures in your APUSH book, and more than a taxidermied sabertooth tiger in a museum. At one point, history was the present.
