By Sarah Fromm

Much has been happening in Winchester High’s Latin Club, our very own chapter of the Massachusetts Junior Classical League. JCL, which occurs on both state and national levels, brings together Latin students or classics-loving kids to gain points for their school or state by participating in a variety of activities. These activities range from certamen (a sort of classical trivia played with buzzers) to arts competitions to community service. Last year was amazing for Winchester- we tied with Boston Latin School (BLS) for 1st place. Last year was not without drama, of course, but many traditions that worked well for us we decided to implement again this year. For club fundraisers, our Valentine’s Day Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Sale will surely become an annual occurrence. 

Like many clubs, JCL knows the importance of Valentine’s Day as a great time for fundraisers. The strawberries were an unexpected hit last year, and we hope that trend will continue! We have also had a steady stream of community service. We did some hours of Bookends gift wrapping in the days before winter break, and have been collecting can tabs for the Ronald McDonald House Charities for a couple months. Another constant source of community service which can be easily done is Cards for Hospitalized Kids. We’ve done it for so many holidays, and the year usually started with a ton of card-making during after school club times, where we can both talk business and keep our hands busy. In fact, card-making even made its way into a WIN Red activity. 

The MJCL year always starts off with Kickoff, held for the past couple of years at Winchester. Kickoff is generally more laid-back than other events. Typical activities include street certamen (certamen but its pop culture), jeopardy, catapult, and gladiatorial games. The catapult and gladiator fights were held on the field. I participated as a gladiator, in which you swing foam swords and tridents at each other. If you get a hit on a limb, you can’t use that limb. If the heart is “stabbed”, you lose. The games are really casual and fun to watch, and after a couple rounds they set up a separate section for “war”- just an excuse for there to be different teams thwacking each other with fake shields. It was a little like “capture the flag”, honestly.

Another event that occurred earlier in the year was Classics Day at Boston University. This has been a long-standing field trip for Latin students and JCL members, an event where professors and classics majors come for three sections of lectures on a chosen theme. This year’s was “Titans and Technology”. Classics Day is also the origin of the Classics Day Skit. Each chapter does a skit, usually relating to the theme. Which explains why there were a ton of skits incorporating Chat-GPT. We placed second on the script, if I remember correctly. 

A lot of certamena have also happened in the time since Kickoff, notably Yale and BLS. I didn’t go to Yale, but I think our teams- sorted into Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced- did pretty well. BLS was last week, and the theme was “Oscars”. Our Advanced team placed fourth, and the intermediate team (an usually large group of five- comprised of three WHS students and two newbies from Milton) scored second in prelims and second in finals. I was on that intermediate team, and I must say, it felt good to finally succeed in certamen!

Though competitions for JCL are relatively the same as last year, there is a new way to gain points: Latin League. Latin League is a group test taken by no more than five students, with five sessions in total. There are two sections: JV and Varsity, JV for lower levels and Varsity for higher, though we both receive the same tests. Both teams have done excellent winning practically every match, even though it was a hassle to get the JV team together. The last session was in February. 

A lot is coming up in the future. This includes personal exams, like the National Latin Exam and other tests dedicated to grammar, vocab, mythology, etc. Winchester JCL is running, for the first time, our very own CertaWIN. So, question writing, organizing, and merch-making will keep us busy. The year concludes (on the state level) with the MJCL Convention held in Barnstable. This is when all competition pieces are submitted, the final rounds of certamen played, and the personal and school-wide awards dealt out. It is a time of great joy and chaos and I am incredibly excited for a second year of it. During this first semester, Winchester JCL has shown nothing but progress, and we are sure to dominate as convention season heats up.