ALIVIA GILES
STAFF WRITER
With the semester under way, many clubs and organizations have started holding meetings and events. Recently, Alma College welcomed a new organization. The PAGE (which stands for Pop Culture, Anime, Gaming, and Entertainment) Club has begun hosting various campus events.
The PAGE club was founded at the end of last year. The organization was formed from the merging of two separate groups: ACOG (Alma College Otaku and Gamers) and the Gaming Guild.
Mike Oliver (’20) serves as the organization’s president. As he watched ACOG and the Gaming Guild’s number of members drop, Oliver felt it was important to unite the two groups.
“The [two organizations] were not doing very well for a number of reasons,” said Oliver. “And there was rivalry between them, which was very unfortunate because they were very similar clubs.”
When the founding members set to work organizing the club, they kept in mind some of the best parts of ACOG and the Gaming Guild, while also looking at where improvements could be made.
“When we were drafting the constitution, we thought about what ACOG was as a group. [It] wasn’t quite a club in the traditional sense,” said Oliver. “It was very, very broad. It was [more like] a social organization. What [the founders] wanted to do was expand on that and make it a bit of both.”
Oliver hoped this new structure would help draw in new interest – and it seems to have worked. “ACOG and the Gaming Guild only had four members going into this year. Now we’re at, as of our last count, 38,” said Oliver.
Sophie Flater (’23) works as the club’s Alumni Liaison and Social Media Organizer. After hearing about the organization as a freshman, Flater became involved with the Gaming Guild. When the Gaming Guild and ACOG merged to form the Page club, she decided to get more involved.
Flater’s favorite part of being involved in the PAGE club is how accepting the organization is. “Our [social media] offers a place for people to feel accepted, vent, ‘geek out’, and just generally feel like a part of a community,” said Flater. “It’s a really great environment to be in and I hope even more people will join in the future.”
According to Flater, the PAGE club is “essentially an umbrella club for all things nerdy” so they have something for just about everyone. So far, the club has hosted a variety of successful events, including Pokémon Night, an Among Us event, a Studio Ghibli viewing event, a Smash event, and most recently, a “Bad Fanfiction” reading event.
Flater is looking forward to what the PAGE club has in store for Halloween. “There will definitely be some interesting events for Halloween lovers,” said Flater. “On the third, we will be hosting a horror movie night, and a few of our [members] are currently working on a spooky, supernatural escape room experience.”
Abigail Ely (’24) serves as the club’s Inventory Manager, keeping track of storage and assisting people in checking out items. She also helps run the group’s Thursday night Dungeons and Dragons event.
Ely’s favorite part of being involved in the PAGE club has been the connections she has made. “I have become good friends with most of the people who attend [events] regularly,” said Ely. “The people I’ve met in PAGE are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and I’m so thankful I joined this club.”
Ely would like to encourage any student to get involved in the PAGE club. “You don’t need to consider yourself a gamer or ‘nerdy’ to join this club and be active in it,” said Ely. “PAGE is a club where you can be yourself and have fun with people who truly care.”
For more information on the PAGE club’s upcoming events, students are encouraged to join the organization’s Facebook group or Discord Server.
