This 2017-2018 school year, a new club was born into the St. Joseph's community. A month into the school year, the Laser News Team had immediately took the title for the largest club at St. Joes’ with 50+ Lasers taking part. Hosted by Grade 11 student Charlize Alcaraz, the Laser News Team comprises several interests and duties other than the obvious journalism facet. This is the main factor to the huge number of members, showing the diverse passions and creativity that St. Joes’ students are capable of.
The club is divided into 3 main special categories and a complimentary category. Social Media Correspondents are those who promote the news site, and actively use social media to post all of the articles and update students on special events. They are also in charge of answering questions through the accounts. The editors come next, as their role is extremely crucial to the club. Editors take on the leading role for the writing, as they are in charge of their specific category and motivate their writers to publish an article a week. Editors are also in charge of writing and publishing one article a week while editing and giving feedback to their writers. The writers provide the articles using their journalism skills to write about all matters inside and outside St. Joes. Their job is to write an article a week in their assigned category, ensuring that it is high quality and approved by their editors.
The last component is for the creativity and enhancement of the entire Laser News Club, the Graphic Design Team. This consists of photographers, photo editors, video producers and web maintenance. They capture the big events occurring and complement the articles with their creative skills. Charlize Alcaraz has created a great and versatile community to be a part of, as this will encourage and expand the opportunities for those looking to get involved and try new things. This club is the perfect example of the saying, “do not judge a book by its cover” as there is much more to it than you think!
Charlize speaks about her insight and inspiration in the creation of Laser News and its flexibility to the St. Joseph's community in an interview down below;
Laser News: What inspired you to create this club?
Charlize: I was a new student last year in Grade 10 from Toronto. I had no knowledge of Windsor, or anyone from here at all and my Grade 10 year became so much more idle compared to my Grade 9 year because I was too shy to actually get to know the place. Once I had gotten myself comfortable though, I started exploring the idea of creating a ‘core site’ of where St. Joes’ students could explore their own school and their community! I have always had the passion for journalism, and combining that with my love for community involvement resulted into the creation of Laser News!
Laser News: How might this club contain a variety of skills to accommodate the interests of students at St. Joes?
Charlize: St. Joes’ students are definitely one of the most vibrant and creative group of people I have ever met. Since the beginning, I knew that they had ultimate potential to be successful. Laser News promotes the idea of executing your inner creativeness and radiance towards community and school involvement through the power of journalism! It also creates relationships as our News Team would have to collaborate and work as a team to get high quality news out. To summarize, our club promotes the three R’s—respect, responsibility, and relationships
Laser News: What is the overall idea or possible message wished to convey through this club?
Charlize: Our News Team’s mission is to amplify the importance of school involvement. It is undeniably true that school work can be really stressful, but taking part in fun clubs such as Laser News could ease with the stress as it wouldn’t feel like doing work at all! You would be too busy doing things you’re passionate about—whether it’s be writing, photography, interviews—to even stress about them! Hopefully we can spread the message that school can be fun as long as you maintain your interests and hobbies that you enjoy doing.