Has your lifelong dream been to learn how to basket weave underwater? If that is what you have been searching for, then the Underwater Basket Weaving Club will not be able to help you out much.
Despite what the name may suggest, the club is actually dedicated to creating a substance-free, relaxed environment for anyone who just needs to wind down after a stressful day of classes.
“(UWBW is) like a college class that doesn’t give you any necessary job skills,” said sophomore and UWBW vice president Connor Wilson. “We thought that (name) fit well enough with what we were trying to do.”
Before this year, the club was dubbed “Am I The Only One?” or AITOO. After much deliberation and countless suggestions, club officials changed the name to the Underwater Basket Weaving Club.
“For a long time, for ‘Am I The Only One,’ there were only five or six of us who regularly came to meetings,” said Wilson. “Very slowly, we ended up with 12 regular people and then around 20, so we were kind of like, ‘Yeah, we’re not the only ones anymore, so we need to pick a different name.’”
However, despite a change in name, the club has kept to AITOO’s mission.
“We’re an open community for people who don’t use alcohol and drugs,” said sophomore Samantha Evans, UWBW secretary. “We help people who aren’t interested in doing things like that but still want to socialize.”
The club meetings are casual and relaxed, creating a calm atmosphere in which members can play games and watch movies.
“I like that fact that it’s a very laid-back community,” said sophomore and member Laura Todd. “It’s social, but you’re not pressured to be social.”
Even though the club is a substance-free community, you do not have to swear off substances forever in order to join; you can still have your Budweiser, just not at club meetings or events.
“We don’t judge, so if you use substances, it’s not a big deal,” said Evans. “We just don’t use substances together.”
This environment attracts students with diverse interests, but their reasons for joining the club are more or less the same.
“(The club meetings) sounded like fun,” said Todd. “I wanted to make sure I had a community where I didn’t feel pressured to drink or anything like that but could still have fun.”
Like Todd, sophomore Eleanor McTigue likes the atmosphere that the club provides.
“I joined the club because my friend was interested in it,” said McTigue. “Once there, I found I really liked the people and the environment they created.”
The club meets twice a week in The Hut. On Mondays, starting around 5 p.m., members go to kick back in a safe, sober environment and play games like “Apples to Apples” or “Monopoly.”
If your gaming interests lie in places other than the family genre, they also sometimes play “Cards Against Humanity.”
Fridays at 8:30 p.m., the club hosts movie nights. Attendees can bring their own movies a few minutes beforehand and vote on which one to watch. It is like going to the movie theater, minus the outrageously-priced food, plus extra legroom.
If you have some time, UWBW invites you to drop by, even if you do not live substance-free. If you are interested, either drop by The Hut at the meeting times or email Emily Albert, Connor Wilson or Samantha Evans for more details.
“We’re accepting of anybody, so if you just show up, you’re more than welcome to stay,” said Wilson.
If you have been waiting for the opportunity to learn how to basket weave underwater with a cold beer waiting for you on the poolside, then you are out of luck. But if you just want to have a good time with friends in a pressure-free zone, then the Underwater Basket Weaving Club is for you.
