On September 14th, the first forum meeting of the year was held. Student Body President Karn Kaura ‘24 led the discussion which began with a review of how the club fair went. Sam Hardy ‘24 and Ella Duplessis ‘26 both agreed on it being better in the courtyard than it being in the gym. Uma Bhardwaj ‘24 and others thought it was a little crowded in the courtyard. Stacy Heimbrecht-Wilson suggested using the east parking lot next year. But it was overall successful with lots of signups for clubs.

Next grade retreats were reviewed. Senior and sophomore retreats were reviewed to have gone well. But a few issues with the carnival were brought up. Kaura mentioned a lot of people wanted to leave the carnival early.Will Bohrnsen mentioned food lines were very long, suggesting more food options. Many people also agreed that the bounce house wasn’t used very much and people didn’t really enjoy it. 

Next convocation was brought up. Kaura and Hardy both thought there could have been more time in groups. Ben Cady thought the speeches and poems were a bit long, making it harder for younger audience members to stay engaged. Bhardwaj brought up the orchestra and band performances, saying that since the event was only 2 weeks into the year there wasn’t enough time to prepare for band and orchestra.

Next, plans for the blood drive were brought up and have been known to be started. Kaylee Chen ‘25 and Joaquin Pliego ‘25 are assumed to be in charge of the blood drive.. Cady is connecting Chen and Pliego with someone from Memorial Blood Drive.

Next Hardy led the discussion about Defend the Den. He plans to work with the Event Coordinator, Katie Code, to help plan the event. Code had some interesting ideas for the event, like bringing a band in for it. Sam also plans to work with Director of Alumni and Parent Engagement Jon Friedell. Friedell says alumni events haven’t been very successful in the past, so he wants to combine the events to make them bigger. Cady said it should be on a Friday, and others agreed. 

Kaura spoke about aiming for transparency about Forum in the Blake community. Kaura has two ideas to go about this. First, Kaura proposed to get rid of rank choice voting and replace it with normal voting because he thinks it’s confusing, and forces people to make decisions they may not want to make. But some members are not on board with this because the state of Minnesota uses rank choice voting, and by doing this students are learning how to vote in this state. They also believe rank choice voting makes students’ voices more heard. Cady also agrees rank choice voting is important. 

Kaura’s next idea is having bigger election campaigns. Kaura thinks only having a two minute speech isn’t enough to get to know a candidate. Hardy agreed and said there should be other opportunities to get to know a candidate and a speech should summarize their campaign. Michelle Baroody likes the idea of campaigning but thinks it could get a little too competitive between candidates. Many agreed and shared inputs and examples of how this could happen. Cady closed the meeting by saying these ideas will be revisited.