Eti-Quit: a guide for quitting clubs
Earlier this month, I said goodbye to the club that’s been my primary activity for the past seven years. In my past involvement with this club, I’d been feeling stressed and burnt out with this commitment on top of my course workload. Ultimately, it came down to scheduling conflicts and prioritizing my mental health this year. After a long and arduous decision-making process that involved extensive conversations with both of my parents separately, I sent a long email to the leaders and parted ways. While I am usually a fan of leaving listservs and ghosting clubs that I spontaneously signed up for during the Activities Fair, this particular club held (and still holds) a special place in my heart. It deserved a more respectful and upfront departure.
With my limited experience in leaving clubs, I feel more than qualified to advise our readers on how to do the same. First, one must decide if, and why, they would like to depart from the organization. Time conflicts? Disinterest? Maybe make a pros and cons list! I always find those helpful. If after reflecting more, you’ve decided that you in fact want to stay a part of the club in question, congratulations! You can stop reading now. Be sure to check back with the Blognonian for more thrilling articles by yours truly. If you still want to quit: alright, now we’re at the hard part. You’ve got a few options here: the aforementioned ghosting, calm and courteous email, or drama-extravaganza.
I’m sure you’ve heard of, or sadly experienced, ghosting in a romantic sense. Ghosting a student organization would take the form of leaving a listserv, deleting club emails whenever they pop up, and not attending meetings anymore. Hopefully, if you do this for long enough, the club leaders will forget you were ever a part of their organization. You’ve escaped!
If you’d like to make a more clean break, you can email or speak to the organization leaders to discuss your departure. This is what I did. I started with a nice greeting before diving into my reasons for leaving. I emphasized how much I enjoyed my time as part of the organization, and offered to help out in other ways in the future if needed. I offered to meet in person if the leaders felt that this was necessary, and closed with a similarly kind farewell message. No excuses, blaming, or critiques of the organization, but just a concise and neutral description of why I felt that it was best for me to part ways.
If you’d like to leave with a ~bang, causing a scene by quitting in the middle of a club meeting or writing a strongly worded email are routes to consider, though not condoned by the Blognonian or its writers.
Ultimately, be kind and polite, and do what is best for you and your mental health. Some clubs will have to undergo shifts in the wake of your departure, so it is best to offer help in finding your replacement and to inform the leaders of your departure as soon as possible, once you begin thinking about it.
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