CULS 2012-2013 President’s Report
Executive Committee
President: Jacynth Bassett (Murray Edwards)
Vice-President: Megan Young (Pembroke)
Treasurer: Charles Olisanekwu (St Catherine’s)
Secretary: Louise O’Hara (Downing)
Committee
Membership: Jamshed Bilimoria (Trinity)
Per Incuriam: Laura Williams (Pembroke)
Foreign Affairs: Charlotte Kelly (Trinity) and Danny Corteville (King’s)
Master of Moots: Oberon Kwok (Downing)
Mistress of Moots: Claire Rogers (Jesus)
Sponsorship: Michael Foster (Downing)
Law Ball President: Frances McDonnell (Christ’s)
Careers: Molly Cox (Downing)
Socials: Shayhan Patel-Master (St John’s), Jessica Goldring (Murray Edwards)
and Alex Chidgey (Homerton)
Speakers: Gretel Scott (Downing)
Graphic Designer: Eliska Haskovcova (Magdalene)
Web Developer: Andrew Aistrup (Christ’s)
Assistant Treasurer: Bethany Parker (Murray Edwards)
We decided to introduce the new position of Assistant Treasurer this year to
support the Treasurer given the now additional task of making the VAT return
every three months.
Subcommittees:
Mooting, Law Ball, Careers, Speakers, Per Incuriam
This year we introduced the careers subcommittee in response to membership
demand to increase the Society’s offerings with regards to careers events and
information. Additionally, we introduced the role of Speakers Vice-secretary to
support the Speakers Secretary in response to previous speakers secretaries
feeling it was a role that was too burdensome for one person.
General Remarks by the President
As CULS is one of the largest student societies not only in Cambridge but also in
the country, my aim this year has been to restructure the society to reflect this.
In order to maintain the high standard expected by members and to increase
CULS’s offerings to its members, I have increased centralisation and approached
the society more as a business in order to develop new and stronger
relationships with sponsors. The Senior Treasurer and Committee supported
this stance, and I believe this has been successful, as indicated by increased
sponsorship this year (see below) and the high quality offerings we have
delivered.
Additionally, over the past few years the Society has garnered a reputation for
excellent socials, with its more academic aspects being overshadowed to a
degree. In response to this, I have attempted to restore the balance by increasing
offerings in relation to careers, speakers and Per Incuriam, to name a few.
In general, I believe this year has seen CULS become more relevant and up-todate, whilst maintaining its strong reputation, and it has offered a diverse variety
of events and activities to members so as to cater to the demands of many more
members than before.
1. Treasurer
CULS became registered for VAT on 2nd July 2012.
On 31st December 2012, Dr Neil Jones resigned from his position as Senior
Treasurer. Dr Jonathan Morgan has succeeded him, and the Law Faculty has
supported this.
As part of our ‘Treasurer’s Treats’, we have continued to negotiate with local
Cambridge businesses to provide members with the best possible discounts. This
year we have provided members discounts at 6 different establishments.
2. Membership
To take into account the fact that we are now registered for VAT, we increased
membership fees to initially £20 for annual membership and £25 for life. These
fees remained as such until 16th October to encourage new members, in
particular freshers, to join at an early stage. Following this date they increased to
£25 for annual membership, and £30 for life.
This year saw the introduction of the online membership sign up via our website.
In addition, it is still possible to become a member at the Freshers’ Fair or via
cheque sent to the Membership Secretary. Introduction of online membership
has resulted in a 40% increase in new members this year.
3. Website/social media
Our Web Developer completely redesigned the website. It is now more
professional and offers more features to members. This has been met by all
round positive response from both members and sponsors.
New features include:
- online calendar which is updated in real time and is downloadable to
members’ mobiles and computers
- twitter feed
- Term card and Per Incuriam download and archive
-
online stash store
updated sponsors profile page
search function
The new website also saw the launch of our new logo.
The new website has seen a significant increase in traffic: we receive on average
100,000 unique page hits a month, and this has sometimes reached 200,000.
Additionally, we launched the new public Facebook page over Easter 2012 and
the CULS twitter account.
4. Sponsorship
This year, sponsorship monies have increased by approximately 25% compared
to last year. Additionally we have fostered new sponsorship relationships with 8
new firms and organisations.
One of our aims with sponsorship this year has been to develop relationships
with smaller firms and chambers to increase membership awareness of them.
With this in mind, we introduced a new sponsorship package tailored to suit
these firms and chambers whereby they would receive publicity in exchange for
a small sponsorship rate. We received positive feedback from a number of firms
regarding this sponsorship package and, whilst some of them were unable to
take it up this year due to their budgets, they expressed keen interest in the
package for next year. Therefore we hope our successors will continue this
initiative.
5. Careers
In line with our aim to improve the careers aspect of the society, we held more
career related events. Last year there were 3 careers events in Michaelmas Term
and 3 in Lent Term. This year, in Easter Term we held 1 career event, in
Michaelmas Term we organised and/or publicised 11, and in Lent Term we
organized and/or publicised 4 (6 were scheduled but 2 had to be rearranged due
to unforeseen circumstances).
Additionally, we re-introduced a sponsorship rate for publicising a careers event
on a sponsors’ behalf. For a small careers administration fee per event, a
sponsor’s career event received extensive publicity through a variety of different
mediums. Additionally, where required by the firm, we helped to organise the
event.
This year saw our first Negotiation Competition – a competition similar to
mooting, but for aspiring solicitors to practice negotiation skills. The prize was a
vacation scheme at a Law Firm. The judges were highly impressed by the level of
entries, so much so that an additional vacation scheme placement was offered.
To help freshers on their arrival at Cambridge, the careers team also produced
an introductory guide to careers which was included in the freshers packs. This
provided information on the meaning of different terms, where they could find
out additional information, and advice on how to plan ahead with regards to
career options.
6. Socials
This year we hosted 1 social in Easter Term (due to poor turn out in previous
years, we decided to cancel President’s Drinks this year in order to focus on the
end of year Garden Party), 6 socials in Michaelmas Term (including our annual
charity Winter Comfort Quiz which raised £9,641 for the Winter Comfort
Charity) and 2 socials in Lent term. 3 socials were new, and 2 were new twists on
already existing themes. All but one social sold out, with 3 selling out in less than
10 minutes.
Normal ticket prices were £5 for members and £10 for non-members.
In previous years ticket prices were £5 for members and £8 for non-members.
The increase was to take into account that we are now liable to pay VAT. We
decided to increase non-members tickets to the extent that members’ tickets
would not have to be increased.
One of our new events was free and exclusive for members to see how well it
was received. All places were taken up.
At the end of Michaelmas Term the Executive Committee unanimously decided
to promote two of the socials sub committee members to the Committee as joint
socials secretary along side the current socials secretary. This was because they
were already working as a team and the Exective felt it important for this to be
reflected in their positions to boost morale and to ensure productivity.
7. Law Ball
Due to a fire at Chilford Hall, we were forced to move venue this year to the
beautiful Anstey Hall. This year’s budget was increased by 26% but the number
of attendees remained the same, at 220, to maintain the high quality per head.
The headline act was Ms Dynamite, supported by Truly Medley Deeply.
Ticket sale was run in the same way as the year before: raffle tickets are given
out to mark each person’s place in the queue, with the sale itself starting at the
time scheduled. Unfortunately, individuals now arrive several hours in advance
to ensure they get a ticket, meaning that those who arrive even 2 hours before
the sale may miss out. Therefore a new ticketing system will be considered by
the new committee.
8. Speakers
Sponsorship for the speakers series increased by approximately 43%. We hosted
6 speakers events this year, and invited different speakers to appeal to different
interests and areas of study. We identified the particular subjects which each
speaker event would compliment when publicising it, so as to help members
know which events they would most benefit from attending.
Speakers were:
Philippe Sands QC
Luke Scanlon
Paul Bowen QC
Sir Richard Dearlove
Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick
Fellows Tort Debate with Mr N McBride, Dr A Steel, Dr J O’Sullivan and Dr J
Morgan
All events were well attended and the Fellows Tort Debate was the first of its
kind to be hosted by CULS in 5 years. We should like to offer our thanks to the
Fellows who kindly gave up their own time to attend the debate.
9. Foreign Affairs
This year we led two exchanges: one with Madrid, and the other with Leiden.
CULS has relationships with Madrid, Leiden and Paris Universities. We decided
to visit Leiden this year rather than Paris merely to provide members with an
opportunity to visit another country and learn about its jurisdiction. We hope to
continue our strong relationship with all three universities for a long time into
the future.
Both trips were a great success and we are looking forward to receiving students
from Madrid and Leiden this Easter.
10. Mooting
One-off events we held in Michaelmas Term:
- a judges’ workshop
- a mooting workshop
- a freshers’ speed moot
- a second and third years’ speed mood
- a non-law mooting workshop
- Cambridge University-Warwick University Moot (new for this year)
One-off events we held in Lent Term:
- mooting workshop
- non-law speed moot
- Varsity moot
Internal mooting competitions we held:
-
Fledgling’s Moot
Cuppers Moot
De Smith Moot
National Mooting competitions we entered this year:
- ESU
- OUP-BPP
- ICLR
- UKLSA
- UKELA
- Francis Taylor Building Moot
International Mooting:
- In Summer 2012 our team were runners up in the International Space
Law Moot at the final hosted in Hong Kong
- This year we entered a team into the Price Media Law Moot
11. Per Incuriam
Per Incuriam has maintained its reputation as a high class legal magazine
containing articles by students and professionals on pertinent legal issues, and
continues to be popular with both members and non-members. We produce 500600 copies a term, and all are taken up.
We pay members if we publish an article written by them in the magazine. In
previous years how much we paid was discretionary. However, in the interest of
fairness, this year we set a standard payment for all published articles, and a
slightly higher one for published first-class essays.
Lent Term has seen the introduction of a Per Incuriam Subscription service
whereby members could have the magazine delivered directly to their
pigeonhole for free. This was for two reasons:
a. To guarantee frequent readers of Per Incuriam their own copy of that
term’s magazine
b. To monitor the distribution rate of the magazine in order to keep
publication costs as low as possible
Members responded to this offer positively and we hope that the service will
continue to grow over the next few years.
We also held a Per Incuriam essay competition over Christmas, where we set a
choice of 3 topics for members to write about and a leading law firm selected the
winning entry. The prize was £100 and a trip to the law firm. Whilst we did not
receive many entries for this competition, we were pleased with the standard of
entries.
Other changes and developments
- CULS sports
o Male 5-aside football team and female netball team introduced
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CULS has been open to considering teams of the same sport
but different sex or different sport if there is membership
demand
Term Card
o It is now delivered directly to the pigeon holes of every member
Constitution
o Following a unanimous vote by the Committee at a meeting on 1st
October 2012, changes were made to the Constitution in
accordance with the constitutional requirements.
o The Constitution was altered to reflect the need for flexibility
when hosting events and to cover potential economic/monetary
circumstances.
o Additionally it moved forward elections by a week and introduced
the Executive Committee-Elect. The Executive Committee-Elect
now shadow the outgoing Executive until official handover at
Annual Dinner to ensure the smoothest possible handover.
Stash
o New stash design for 2013 to incorporate the new logo
o Sale of clearance stash at reduced prices
o Creation of a stash inventory
Newsletter
o A weekly e-newsletter is now sent out every Sunday evening to
notify members of important information and details on events for
the upcoming week
o The newsletter is viewable online for those who cannot see it in
their mail client
Committee socials
o This year we have limited committee expenditures by setting
smaller budgets for committee socials
o We removed subcommittee socials and instead held a joint
committee and subcommittee social on 4th March 2013 to increase
cohesiveness.
Jacynth Bassett
CULS President 2012-2013
Murray Edwards College