George Yim entered his senior year and needed to devote more time to his studies (as well as other things), and a new president was elected. This time, it was Mr. Tony K. Yip, who eventually wound up being the Coordinator for the Anime Track of I-Con for two years and forgetting about the club. He left it in the hands of a Mr. William Rogers and a Mr. Jason Crystal, both of whom, despite the fact they were not Stony Brook students, did an admirable job of keeping the spirit of the club alive.
Rogers and Crystal brought many new anime to the club. The club by this time had relocated to the Science Fiction Forum, where the gracious forumites allowed the use of the room to them. It was here that Gerald Garcia spent much of his time and would meet Young Jeohn and the Cheng Brothers. The three enjoyed watching the anime that Rogers and Crystal brought. Unfortunately, since Rogers and Crystal were not SUNY Stony Brook students, they were not able to re-establish the club.
As the year progressed, Rogers and Crystal were separated, with Rogers relocating to Rutgers University in New Jersey and taking the reins of the Rutgers Anime Club. Mr. Rogers was then also working with the organizers of Anime East, an up and coming convention in New Jersey. Mr. Crystal found a job in NYC, working for Central Park Media, one of the largest anime distributers in the US.
New leaders were sought, and Cheng, Cheng, Garcia, and Jeohn rose up to the occasion. They re-established the club under a Polity Budget and renamed it Animated Perspectives. After one year spent showing anime in Gershwin College in Roth Quad, the organization moved into Javits, where they currently reside all the while planning for the future. The four also managed to establish a Video Library that ran from the I-Con office. And this is the story of how Animated Perspectives was created in the 4th dynasty of the decade before the new millenia.
Continuing this tradition of excellence from 1996-1997, Eugene Cheng was re-elected to his position as president, with Jackie Cho as Vice President, Michael Chau as Secretary, and Edgar Mahinay as Treasurer. In addition, three cabinet positions were appointed: Dominick Santoriello as Head Librarian, Clark Cheng as Advertising Coordinator, and James Wu as Office Manager. The seven of them managed to move the showings into a larger room in Javits and also moved the Video Library to its current residence in Club Alley. From there, the membership of the club quadrupled to the impressive number of 200 people. It was also then that the club re-established its Polity Line Budget and secured its funding for the future generation. Unfortunately, Mr. Cheng's iron-fisted reign was not eternal, and the advent of his graduation forced him to reluctantly relinquish power to a successor.
The reign of power has shifted to Eugene's brother, Clark. In the 1997-1998 academic year, Clark Cheng was elected President, Dominick Santoriello was elected Vice President, Michael Chau was elected Treasurer, and Elizabeth Shea was elected Treasurer. Unfortunately, the executive board lost their secretary to the study abroad program, and Jackie Cho took over temporarily as secretary. Tee Lek Ying was appointed Head Librarian, Andrew Johnson as Advertising Coordinator, and Brandon Broadnax as Office Manager. Again, tragedy struck as Tee Lek Ying stood on the brink of impeachment as he neglected his responsibilities in favor of other activities. So, instead, he volunteered to take on the less time-consuming role of the secretary, which left the club without a Head Librarian. It was at this time that the president, Clark Cheng, ever mindful of political correctness and the distribution of the duties of the cabinet members, instituted a change in cabinet position titles in order to better reflect the changes occurring in the club. Head Librarian was renamed Library Coordinator, Advertising Coordinator was renamed Publications Coordinator, and Office Manager was renamed Facilities Coordinator. Thanks to the efforts of the President and Publications Coordinator, Andrew Johnson, the creation of membership cards came into existence. The staff also managed to secure a larger space within Club Alley, expanded video showing times, and expanded the library by more than one hundred tapes. Thanks to the efforts of the staff members, membership increased by fifty percent to the an impressive 300 members, which helped lead to an increased budget for the following year.
Andrew Johnson took over as President for the 1998-1999 academic year. Dominick Santoriello remained as Vice President and Michael Chau was elected Treasurer for another term. Folasayo Fadahunsi became the new Secretary for the club in what would prove to be a somewhat turbulent time for the anime club.
During this year, membership swelled to over 350 members. Andrew was responsible for streamlining the club web page and, as the number of tapes in our library grew to fill a third cabinet, computerized the library. The club's library tracking system was put on a database, though not without a few weeks of confusion in the chageover. Additionally, a second Anime show was added to the schedule on Wednesdays during Campus Life Time (12:45 - 2:10 pm).
But despite the continued success of the club, a series of events led to a club crisis in the Spring Semester. With many members gearing up for graduation and other concerns, a number of librarians and officers had to step down or cut their hours. This led to tapes constantly being out of order or misplaced, advertisements for the shows not being printed - and those that were, not posted, minor acts of unintentional (and intentional) vandalism, abuses to the furniture and equipment of the club, and a mass proliferation of garbage and cafeteria trays which no one bothered to clean up or return to the cafeteria. The lack of responsibility in the club was appalling. But for every initiative Andrew took, there were a greater number of setbacks. In a fit of disgust, Andrew resigned.
Note: After Andrew resigned, he went on to organize the anime track for ICON 18, which turned out to be an incredibly successful show.
Dominick took over in late February 1999 worried the the club might be on the brink of collapse. Although he was able to get a few members to take over the job of library coordinator, the jobs of advertising and cleaning up were going to be unfilled. Very little expansion took place under Dominick's tenure as president. The only items of note were that he cancelled the long-delayed club t-shirt project and moved the club meeting to Friday afternoon, insisting on a shorter meeting. Michael Chau was elected Vice President to fill the vacancy, but maintained the treasury for the rest of the semester, since elections for the upcoming 1999-2000 term was near.
Dominick had once said, "The job of running our library is probably one of the most important positions in the club. It isn't easy, but if you do your job right, you have as much influence as the president in determining club policy."
Since the inception of the club as Animated Perspectives by Eugene & Clark, there had been five head librarians/library coordinators: Dominick Santoriello, Tee Lek Ying, Brandon Broadnax, and co-coordinators August Eberling and Dak Sreevatsan. In the newest election, August was elected President, Brandon was elected Vice President and Dak was elected Treasurer. Aziza Brown, one of the club's ever-present librarians was elected the new Secretary. With a new executive board with such library experience, who knows what the next year will bring?