Sitting down with student leaders about the ins & outs of student organizations. This edition we interviewed Rachel Luoma, a senior biology major from the Archery team.
Q: You were CRI’s Female Athlete of the Year in the spring. How did you earn that award?
Luoma: Last May, in 2013, we attended the United States Collegiate Archery Championship in Utah, and at that I placed first in female basic bow category. I also substituted in on the male barebow team and we won first at that as well. That was one of the main wins. After that I participated in several local and state competitions where I consistently won first in my category. At the United States Collegiate Archery Indoor Nationals, which Georgia Southern hosts our region of, that was in March of this past year, I placed first in the region and third nationally.
Q: The archery team was the Small Club Sport of the Year. What does it take to earn that award?
Luoma: Well in the previous year we were actually Most Improved Club of the Year, and then this past year, we were Small Club Sport of the Year. In reality, we only have about 15 active members on our competition team but even with so few of us we put on a fundraising tournament series and we host three tournaments throughout the year where a couple hundred dollars each time to help us get to nationals.
In addition we actually have a recreation team where we provide the equipment and everything for students, faculty and staff who want to learn. We teach them every Sunday and that is really a big time commitment for us but it’s something we really care about and how we draw a lot of members. We do a lot of things to help promote our club and our sport and we do a lot of volunteering.”
Q: Is there anything you have learned from being the president of a student organization?
Luoma: There was definitely a lot I had to learn. I had been in officer positions before but none as time consuming as being the president of the archery club because doing the recreation team takes up a lot of our time, making sure we have instructors out there because we are all volunteers, we aren’t paid to do it. Being president also meant I was more or less tournament coordinator. I had to actually plan for the tournaments and make sure we had the space available, concessions, food, how to advertise, how to get the name out there because if people don’t know about your tournament they’re not going to come.
