TOWAMENCIN – The officers and exchange students of the 2014-2015 International Friendship Club (IFC) have been very busy over the past week, not only because they got to know each other at a fun filled bowling outing, but also because they held their first IFC meeting of the year.

International Friendship Club, or IFC, is a club that allows foreign exchange students to get introduced to their classmates and make new friends. The club allows students to explore different cultures all around the world.

On Sunday, September 28th, the officers of IFC, Yvonne Pham, Remi Bulanhagui, Tim Dikenson, Janine Heinrich, and Connor Schiefer, went on a bowling outing at Earl Bowl Lanes with this year’s exchange students, Nele Kanzer, Pia Wolf, Jorge Lopez Palacios, and Ludovic Francis, to kick start the year.

“It was a great social outing with lots of laughs and great conversations,” said Janine Heinrich, officer of IFC, “It was an indicator of an amazing upcoming school year.”

The year certainly did start off well for IFC because at the kickoff meeting on Wednesday, October 1st the first meeting was filled with smiles and laughs.

Students gathered together to meet this year’s exchange students and welcome back North Penn’s very own exchange students from the 2013-2014 school year.

“My favorite thing about the club is that it is able to gather so many multicultural people together,” said Sensei Coyle, four year adviser of IFC, “you’re always learning about different cultures while having fun at the same time.”

Coyle will work with IFC’s five new officers, throughout the year to make it the best it can possibly be.

The first meeting seemed to go off without a hitch. There were plenty of stories and laughs to go around as this year’s four exchange students introduced themselves to their fellow peers. They all smiled from ear to ear as they shared a little bit about their experiences so far here in the states.

North Penn’s very own exchange students from last year followed them up, each sharing stories about their fulfilling adventures from overseas. Everyone was so excited to hear about their experience that it was almost hard to get them to stop talking about it!

To bring everyone else into the fun, the club played a game where students had to describe stereotypes that they associated with each of the countries our exchange students are from. Many stereotypes were rattled off, including the French are snooty, Germans were stubborn, and Spanish were good dancers. It was definitely very hard for the exchange students to bite their tongue as various stereotypes were being pinned with their countries.

Even though some were confirmed true, the exchange students were happy to get revenge on Americans by naming their stereotypes. They said all the typical ones including Americans are fat, lazy, and stupid. It took a lot of debate amongst the members of the club to decide if they were all actually true.

That activity was a terrific ice breaker to really kick off the start of the club. This is truly a unique opportunity for all students to meet people from other countries and learn what their life is like. Based on the first meeting, it is most definitely going to be one exciting and fun filled year in IFC.

For all updates regarding the International Friendship Club, keep an eye out for a new Facebook group and Twitter page to be created soon.