Approximately 50 students joined the Spirit Club at the Upper School campus to catch up with friends by playing games and coming up with spirit ideas for the upcoming year.

The annual Gym Jam began at 3pm in the gym, where the club had set up food and activity stations to occupy the students throughout the afternoon.

“I think it was great,” Sai Sunkara (10) said. “It was nice to not only see familiar faces all back again, but also to go over our plans, spirit-wise, for the upcoming year.”

After giving students about half an hour to mingle, the spirit board introduced themselves to the crowd and set up a series of meet and greet games. They including Cinderella’s Shoe, in which partners found each other’s shoes by signaling directions with sounds.

Students were then dismissed to meet with their class deans, where they discussed a variety of topics such as preparing for homecoming and increasing spirit throughout the class.

“Hearing everybody’s ideas and collaborating with each other at gym jam was the perfect way to kick off spirit for the upcoming year,” spirit public relations officer Angeline Pan (11) said.

Students then headed over to the pool, where they spent the majority of the evening. While some chose to participate in the pool games, others decided to just take some time to relax and stock up on snacks and barbeque.

“Gym Jam was very fun with all the great food and drinks,” Sidhart Krishnamurthi (11) said. “The pool activities and bonding were priceless.”

Students broke from the activities to retreat back to the gym and take a break from the games to brainstorm ideas for Homecoming, Winter Ball, spirit events, class competitions, and spirit days.

The group then voted on their favorite Homecoming and Winter Ball themes for the year. For the first round of nominations, students placed stickers on their favorite ideas from the brainstorming session. A show of hands indicated the winner from these nominations.

Though the spirit club had intended to end the night with a game of glow in the dark “Doctor-Doctor”, ice-cream sundaes, and the Candle Circle Ceremony, the night ended early due to Head of School Chris Nikoloff breaking the news of English teacher Jason Berry’s sudden death that morning.

“It honestly was pretty hard to be focused as the deans had just heard the news about Mr. Berry beforehand,” Junior class dean Diana Moss said. “In particular, incredible huge kudos to Kerry and Mr. Irvine who spent the morning with Ms. Deacon-Berry at the hospital and then had to rally themselves to be with all the kids at gym jam.”

Although Gym Jam ended earlier than anticipated, students and faculty were able to reunite with the community Monday at Matriculation.