Reed Walker wore a box to the Winter Activities Fair. His club was less than a day old, and he forgot to bring a sign-up sheet, so names and e-mail addresses were scrawled all down the right side of his box at Tuesday’s event.

He was encouraging people to join the NU Swordfighting club, a group promoting “Braveheart-style brawls.”

“Dude, I probably got more sign-ups than any other group here,” the McCormick freshman said to a friend.

More than 100 other student groups had booths on the second floor of Norris University Center. The event marked the first time Associated Student Government hosted a Winter Fair in addition to the annual fair in September. About 500 students attended, compared with about 2,000 in the fall, ASG Executive Vice President Jay Schumacher said.

Many students who participated said they were glad to get another opportunity to learn about student groups.

“It’s a bit calmer now and you can actually learn about all the clubs,” said Dai Ngo, a Communication freshman. “It’s kind of nice to get a second chance because last time it was just too crazy.”

Student group leaders weren’t discouraged by the lower turnout, saying their goal in attending the fair was not necessarily to recruit new members.

Weinberg junior Austin Lim, president of the Filipino group Kaibigan, said group members hoped to talk to students who signed up for their listserv in the fall but had forgotten about the group or had time conflicts last quarter. They also hoped to promote a DVD of their cultural show, which was playing on a laptop at their booth.

Dan Foster, assistant director of Titanic Players and a Communication sophomore, said he hoped both to recruit new people to the Titanic Players’ improv comedy classes and to create publicity for their performances.

After a quarter at Northwestern, students are going to clubs that interest them instead of putting their names on every sign-up sheet they walk by, said Brian Trost, area director of international Christian organization Youth Life. His group provides opportunities for volunteers to work with young people.

“We’ve heard about some of these clubs throughout Fall Quarter, so you already know what you’re signing up for,” said Durga Borkar, a Weinberg freshman.

Chen Bai, a Weinberg freshman, came to the fair to look for music groups on campus.

“It’s good for me because I missed the one in the fall, so I’m glad they had it,” he said.

The fair also allowed freshmen who might have been nervous about adding extracurriculars to their classwork a chance to figure out their workload before devoting themselves to student groups, said ASG’s Schumacher, a Communication junior.

“Students at NU are very academically focused, and rightly so,” he said. “The general goal was to give students another opportunity to get involved.”

Reach Diana Samuels at [email protected].