How to engage people in debates?
So, let me start with the backstory: our club was founded last year by students who had already graduated. The responsibility for it fell on my shoulders, even though I'm new to debate and know incredibly little! And this will be my first year as leader. I'm terrified of messing things up; I'm not very social, and everyone generally considers me a freak. The leadership is fixated on putting a boy in charge of the club. And so I'm facing pressure from all sides.
I decided to believe in the power of Reddit and specifically downloaded it so that I could at least find answers somewhere.
The biggest problem turned out to be recruiting participants. There aren't enough proactive people in our school (I'm in Europe); they don't even want to study, and no one wants to stay after school for at least an extra hour. Last year, when I joined the club, seven more people came with me, and now there are only three of us left: me and my team. Currently, we're the only members of the club. People who come and go just as quickly, and we can't engage them.
Our school administration is also obsessed with debate, so our club has to organize demonstration debates among students and teachers, but we're short-staffed! There's simply no one to judge. It seems easy to the administration—we can't cope, so they should take over the club and make it an elective. What makes things worse is that even people interested in debate prefer to play debate at these very events, but refuse to join the club. That would kill debate at our school, because the students who are willing to do anything would be deprived of the opportunity to influence the club, and the administration would quickly forget about it.
In general, things are dire right now. My team and I don't really embrace the school's popularity; we're freaks. Dyed hair, black clothes. People really don't like us because of our appearance...
And now this year, we'll be recruiting 10th-graders again. How can we attract students, how can we show them the kind of debates they'll enjoy, how can we become a full-fledged club?
This is incredibly important to me! And all your answers will be valuable, thank you in advance!