One day last May, the head editors of The Goliard gathered all of us who had worked on that year’s issue together for one more meeting. They then informed us that due to budget cuts (and their negligence) The Goliard was underfunded and could not print an issue that year. They explained that the College had been cutting back on the money allotted for student publications, The Wooster Voice being an exception. So they doubted any appeal would be productive.

For those of you who do not know, The Goliard is a literary magazine run entirely by a staff of fewer than 20 students. It hosts Covers (a monthly event where students can showcase their musical talent) and publishes a magazine of student-submitted prose, poetry and art among other things.

It is what you would call “a small club.” Of course, anyone can (and should!) submit their work to it, but for the most part, those roughly 20 students are the only ones for whom The Goliard is a big deal.

Moreover, The Goliard is not highly marketable for the College. It is more exciting to display the Quidditch and Ultimate Frisbee clubs (which are fantastic, by the way) as examples of passionate student involvement to wide-eyed prospective students. The Goliard and other small clubs like it sit in the background, quietly doing what they do.

If you think along the lines of, “Well, it’s a small club, what do you expect? How much does it affect the campus?” it would come as no surprise that a club like The Goliard is underfunded. But this line of thinking isn’t healthy for the campus. We need small clubs.

I recognize that The Goliard is not an important part of the lives of most of the people reading this. However, it is still important, just as every small club is important. It satisfies a relatively niche interest, but it still fulfills a need that is not otherwise met. Besides giving artists experience in submitting to a literary magazine, The Goliard provides them with a stage from which they can share their work with their peers.

Most small clubs are like The Goliard; they languish in obscurity, operating on razor-thin or non-existent budgets. In short, they do what they can with what they have.

However, the lack of funding to small clubs begins a downward spiral. With less money, small clubs can do even less. Thus, they are less visible to the student body, and fewer people get involved in them, and they become even smaller clubs.

This does not mean that The Goliard or any other club in its position should give up. Small clubs thrive if the campus supports them.

So all I ask is the next time you see a poster in Lowry about some weird event on Friday hosted by a club you have never heard of, stop and give it a chance.

Perhaps you will find a group of people as passionate about your hobby as you are. I’m sure they will be more than happy to have you.

Daniel Sweat, a Features Editor for the Voice, can be reached for comment at DSweat19@wooster.edu.