#cajcl

@imeanlikeliterally put on a BOMB ASS STATE CONVENTION this weekend. She worked her BOOTIE OFF ALL YEAR and it showed. 

MUCH

FUCKING

HYPE

FOR 

CONVENTION

@imeanlikeliterally IS PULLING OFF THE BEST YET

MAD PROPS 

Gosh darnit, I started writing this and somehow the draft didn’t get correctly saved, so now I’m going to rewrite what I’d written. Anyway, yes! I have advice.

At my school, we started up a new chapter a couple years ago. The first year we weren’t an official chapter, just basically members at large coming to check out the state convention, and then the second year we became officially registered with the California JCL and the NJCL.

The first thing you definitely need is a teacher to lead your chapter. Ask your school’s Latin teacher, and then you guys should contact your state-level JCL for information about how to become a registered chapter.

I would recommend holding meetings about once a week and also finding an electronic way to communicate within your club. We ended up setting it up so that every Tuesday at lunch was Latin Club, aka magister saying a bunch of JCL information at us, and every Thursday at lunch was an optional time for people to come to the Latin room and study, work on things for convention, get help from older students, or (let’s be real) hang out with Latin Club friends and talk about nerdy things. We also got an email list together.

Growing a club/chapter/program takes time. Reach out to your school’s Latin classes, but don’t expect to be a fully fledged chapter immediately. Our first year, I think five of us students went to convention, plus Magister. The next year, it was around ten, plus Magister, Magistra, and a chaperone. When there’s chapters from schools where JCL is an integral part of taking Latin and as many as 150 kids come to convention, being a small chapter is overwhelming. The best thing to do it not to be super competitive as a chapter. (The chapter that has the most students is by far the most likely to “win” best overall for having the most convention awards, and that’s just how it works!) Encourage people to do whatever individual events they want, and organize group things (certamen, chariot race, etc) if you feel like it. Have fun, get a sense of the JCL universe, and don’t worry too much if you don’t win the Shouting Really Loud contest (spirit) or the Pressing a Button Fast contest (certamen) or anything else. JCL is kind of cult-like and it’s not for everyone; to quote a friend of my magister’s, bonum est, sed non ad Latinitatem pertinet (and besides, Latinitas itself isn’t a contest!). It’s totally okay to roll your eyes at some of the things that happen at convention. The nice thing about being a small chapter, though, is the bond you’ll form. When I went to conventions with my school, we all ate together and shared inside jokes and went to all each other’s events to support and cheer on our classmates.

Also, make your Latin club not just be JCL. Do other stuff! Recruit incoming eighth-graders to take Latin! Geek out about linguistics together! Take the NLE! Practice your spoken Latin! Form a tutoring group to help the younger Latin students!

However, those giant and competitive JCL chapters who win every year can also be a great resource for new chapters. One such school just over the hill from my school took my chapter under its wing. They invited us to some of their Latin Club social events (pumpkin carving, movie night), gave us advice and explanations to help us with convention contests (how does certamen work? etc), and most importantly let us ride along in their buses to convention and book hotel rooms with them (provided that we paid our share). This was a huge help because they had lots of people traveling so it wasn’t hard to add a few of us, and they had the logistics of convention down pat from many, many years of doing the same thing. tl;dr get help from other chapters, especially nearby ones or ones whose teachers are friends with your teacher. Often it’s assumed that you’re either a chapter or you’re not, and the existing chapters know exactly how everything goes, so if you’re a new chapter, the state JCL website might not have all the information you want.

I’ve never been to the national conventions, but the main thing to know about it is that it’s like a bigger version of state and that instead of your school being your chapter, your state is. You can absolutely go even if you have nobody from your school to go with, though your state JCL may be as reticent and unhelpful as they often are with state conventions. If you’re a new chapter, focus on state and local events for the time being. Lack of assistance from my state chapter was a part of the reason I didn’t go to Nationals this year; even though I had become acquainted with a few JCLers from other schools in my state due to being, like, the best known non-officer at state convention, I didn’t understand how anything worked, and the state leadership was being extremely uncommunicative. I wasn’t part of the JCL culture, and it was hard to break into that culture.

By the way, almost nobody at JCL knows Latin with any degree of proficiency (at least where I live). The only acceptable language to speak is English. Speaking Latin within your chapter to people you know is okay, but if you try to talk to anyone else they will get very confused, may make fun of you, and often won’t even know what language you’re speaking. This applies not only for parent chaperones, but also for students and for some teachers. It seems really counterintuitive given that you’re at Latin convention, but that’s how it goes.

JCL lingo that might confuse you:

Sponsor: the teacher who runs a chapter

Delegate: any student who is part of JCL

Spirit: a contest where all the chapters cheer for their schools really loudly in a gym. i think it’s expected that everyone go (I loved it and by loved it I mean I almost sensory overloaded D: ), but hypothetically you could avoid it by just not going.

Certamen: it’s like quiz bowl but with Latin.

Ludi: refers to most non-classical convention contests, like sports and chess

Officer: delegates can run for leadership positions at the state and national levels. they help run the JCL in various ways.