Fire clubs in colleges?

This thought sprung from the "psych student" thread.
I was thinking about trying to start a fire-spinning club at my school. But I haven't because I figured the school wouldn't allow it because of the fire risk involved. I also thought about creating a club of spinners, only without fire. My school has some clubs, but none of them look very interesting. Does anybody have a fire club at their college? What kind of reaction do you think I'll get when I walk into the student government office with my idea? Or do you think I should just start a spinning club, then try to talk the school into letting us use fire at a later date? Has anybody tried this before, and what did the school say? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

There's a few ways you could go about it.

Along with your idea of starting without fire, you could make a general circus club and slowly incorporate fire into that. That's if you've got enough people doing general circus things (juggling, etc.)

The one at my Uni (Macquarie, Sydney) grew out of fire-spinners needed for Conception Day (just another excuse to party). So if you've got any up-and-coming events, could take off on that basis.

I think at any rate you've got better luck getting a club together first, and then submitting it to the Student Council. I'd imagine it's easier for them to say "no" to one person than to many.

The experience with our club wasn't too bad, however the Student Council was a little uptight about knowing the names of everyone involved for insurance purposes. Pretty understandable.

Best of luck to you, and even if you get an official "no", doesn't mean you can't set a weekly meet and get everyone to bring a bit of kero. =))

i helped to start up a fire performers club at my old school (western washington university). the club is called O.P.A. (otherworldly pyromancers anonymous) opa is also a greek word that means "joy of life" ya yell it when you break something or light it on fire to start the club we basically told them that our goal was to put on performances and to teach others how to do SAFE fire spinning. we emphasised the safe part with the angle that people are going to be playing with fire anyway and our goal is educated them on fire do's and don'ts. we had all of the required people for prez, vice prez etc.. before applying and basically gave a good expanation of what we wanted to achieve and the type of circus related experience that many of us have. it was a very cool club (i'm not sure how it's doing this year cuz i'm far away) we had between 5-10 regular fire spinning students plus a killer band that blended klezmer, gypsy/eastern european, percussion, and punk music together. we would get together and the more experienced fire folks would talk about safety, construction, and moves. then we would light up or practice unlit. the nice thing about forming a club is that many schools give out grants to student organizations. our club also helped to have the school sponsor a show with the cirque du flambe (we did the opening set of acts.) our club also regularly got together and did benefit shows for local non profit organizations (like an arts center and an alternative/anarchist/community education library center) sounds kind of crazy but forming a student run fire club can be done it's also a cool way to meet other fire spinners in the area.

I ran lesson's at my High school, teaching people how to twirl. But now I'm at TAFE i've been thinking about forming a club or something, sounds like most schools will permit it, we'll just have to wait and see about mine.

As long as give a list of people who would be interested and convey some idea that you arent going to burn anything down i don't think that any will mind all that much.
Just present yourself well and all will be fine.

Cheers
APB

Cool thanks for your imput and experiences! I think my school could really use a cool club. All we have are various ethnic clubs, academic achievement clubs, future teacher's clubs, and religeous clubs. The only one I am even remotely interested in is the academic achievement club, but I have to get more course units towards my associates degree to be eligable for that one. I think I will give it a try, without fire first, them slowly try to incorporate fire into it. I hadn't thought as far into the future as doing shows for charity benefits but I think it's a good idea. As far as starting something off campus, I have already started to gather a fire troop in San Diego. It's in the beggining stages (we only have 4 people, and we haven't been able to coordinate our sceduals to have group practice yet), but we are moving along, and should start developing a "show" soon. I was thinking we could do poi for parties and stuff, nobody does it around here, and I think it would be a hit.

Here I go getting off topic on my own thread!

Anyways, I will try it, and tell you guys how it went. Thanks again for sharing your experiences with me and the rest of us!

Later