A new club hits campus
This week, the Fulcrum spoke with Aidan Abraham, a third-year student in biomedical sciences and vice-president of the University of Ottawa Health and Fitness Society (uOHFS) to talk about their new club.
“The club was formed last summer by Philo [Malek], Jaiman [Lawrence], and I,” said Abraham. “Our first event was cliff-jumping, back when the club was really small.”
The club has been gaining some traction recently, hosting a variety of events both on and off-campus.
Abraham described uOHFS as an “all-around club” that aims to keep its members active in some sort of way, either mentally or physically.
“Everyone has been inside, and COVID-19 sucks,” said Abraham, when asked why the club was started in the first place. “Everybody stopped physical activity, nobody was walking to school, just sitting and eating; lots of students seeing unhealthy weight gain and unhappiness with their lifestyles.”
Not only current students have shown interest in the club. uOHFS’ events see attendance from U of O alumni, too.
One active member of the club’s Discord server, “Jobin,” whose real name is Jobin Chaussé, is a U of O alum. Chaussé graduated from the computer science program with a specialization in data science during the Fall 2019 semester.
“I was mostly interested in meeting new people as I’d already been working out for about two years already,” said Chaussé.
Chaussé originally found out about the uOHFS through Taj Matthews, the club’s editor-in-chief, in a Discord student hub.
Regarding the increase in popularity of the club’s Discord server, Abraham said “[The increase] shows that there’s a huge niche for [our club].”
The club now seeks to broaden its horizons, seeking PhD and Master’s students at the University.
“We want to explore different avenues of fitness and rekindle [our members’] love of sports,” said Abraham. “We find that physical fitness has a great effect on how well people do in school.”
“It’s a great feeling to help people with school and other aspects of their lives; it’s great to see people happy.”
The club has a few more events on the horizon. Currently, a rock climbing event is being planned, and the club hopes to organize skiing or figure skating events soon, too.
