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BUREAUCRACY AND DEMOCRACY
How does the Union work?
How should you run your Club or Society?
SUCCESS DURING LOOK, TRY, JOIN
What is Look, Try, Join?
Checklist for Success
Planning your Taster Events
Updating our Website
Setting up your Mailing Lists
Planning your Welcome Fair Stall and Publicity
The Welcome Fair
Try Fortnight
Joining Fortnight
Important Dates and Deadlines
RAISING, SPENDING AND MANAGING MONEY
Managing Your Accounts
Successful Budgeting
Understanding Account Codes
Managing Expenditure
Raising Funds and Managing Income
ROOM BOOKINGS, FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT
Resources for Presidents and Treasurers
Useful Information
Freedom of Speech on Campus
CONTACTING US AND GETTING HELP
CSC Reception
CSC Staff
Sabbatical Officers
Catering and alcohol at Events
Access and Equality at our events
Using External Venues and Facilities
Effective Marketing
Publicity Checklist
PROMOTING YOUR ACTIVITIES AND COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR MEMBERS
Effective Communication
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UCLU is run democratically by students. The senior officers of the Union are the Sabbatical
Officers, who are elected by the student body every year to take a year out of study to run the
Union full-time. In addition to the Sabbatical Officers there are also a variety of other elected student officers who have smaller remits – they are all part-time and current students.
The revised democratic structure of UCLU comprises various networks chaired and populated by students. The network that primarily affects you is the Activities Network You should attend this to influence how UCLU runs and develops its student activity including clubs and societies. The
Activities Network Executive continues to be the group that sets policy and reviews disciplinary issues and affiliation requests specific to clubs and societies. This board reports into the Activities
Network and is made up of the elected Activities, Sports, Arts, Societies, RUMS, PGA,
Volunteering and RAG Officers, chaired by the Activities Officer and supported by the Activities and Events Officer and Activities and Skills Manager.
In addition there will be various groups and meetings associated with specific activity areas e.g. sports, theatre users etc. These will continue to meet and you will be invited along once the meeting schedules are arranged.
How should you run your Club or Society?
Be Democratic and use your Committee
Clubs and Societies are, like the Union, democratic. You are elected via an Annual General
Meeting by your members, and therefore your primary purpose is to run the Club or Society in a way which your members want you to. Presidents and Treasurers have a primary responsibility to provide activities and events for their members.
It’s a good idea to hold committee meetings at least once a month during the first and second term to discuss how your Club or Society is running and to organise upcoming events. Effective communication with your committee will ensure that your Club or Society and its events run smoothly. Always make sure that someone is responsible for taking minutes of your meetings to keep in your Club or Society file.
Be Original, Diversify and Engage with your Union
Obviously we want you to continue to run all the events which have been successful and popular in the past. However, we also want you to think outside the box and think of new events and try new things. Consider putting on events that will be open to st udents who aren’t ‘regulars’
(engaging with our Give It A Go scheme is a brilliant way to do this). Think about whether or not you cater for postgraduate and international students. Get excited about your Club or Society, and put flair and passion into the events and activities you run. Be friendly, open and honest – Clubs and Societies are supposed to provide for as many students as possible. As an added benefit, the more students you engage, the more cash you get through membership fees!
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Look, Try, Join (LTJ) is the Union’s initiative to engage students with Clubs and Societies. It is the most important part of the year for Clubs and Societies, and the more organised you are before the start of term, the more successful your year is likely to be. The LTJ scheme runs over the first
5 weeks of the Autumn Term as follows:
LOOK – this takes place in the first week of term, and is basically the Welcome Fair. The Fair is the most important event of the year for Clubs and Societies, as it gives new and returning students the chance to meet you and to find out about what you do. In other words it is a chance for students to ‘look’ at what Clubs and Societies the Union offers.
TRY
– ‘Try Fortnight’ takes place in the second and third weeks of term. During the fortnight,
Clubs and Societies should organise a wide variety of taster events for potential new members to attend. Effectively, it is your chance to really sell your Club or Society to students. During this period, new students may not officially join Clubs and Societies, only ‘try’ them out before they buy, returning students can join whenever they like.
JOIN – ‘Joining Fortnight’ takes place in the fourth and fifth weeks of term. The start of the fortnight is the first time in the year when all students can purchase Club and Society memberships to become official members for the year. Students can actually join all year round, but by the end of Join Fortnight, Clubs and Societies are required to have at least 30 members to avoid being considered for disaffiliation.
The more organised you are before the start of term, the more successful your year is likely to be.
With just a small amount of preparation for the first three weeks of term you can really reap the rewards when it comes to Joining Fortnight.
To help you out, here is a checklist of the most important things you should do before term starts if you really want to benefit from LTJ. Details of how to do all of these things can be found in the “How to” guides:
May/June:
 Attend the Union training sessions
 Complete your Annual Registration Forms and Officer Contracts
July-August (preferably before A-level results are released in mid-August):

Plan your Term 1 Events (what, when, where)
 Create or Update your website/Facebook with information about your Club or Society (e.g. list of Term 1 Events, contact details for prospective students etc).
 Enter your event details onto the UCLU online calendar to gain some extra free publicity
( www.uclu.org/calendar ). Enter your event details to the online calendar for Welcome Fortnight
& October by 15 July 2015 to have them printed in the What’s On? guides that are posted to new and returning students in the mailings.
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 Set up a mailing list using GroupSpaces/Facebook/Mailchimp/Other method and put the link or the sign-up on your website so that prospective students can sign up before the Welcome Fair.
August-September:
 Finalise your event plans and submit the appropriate paperwork well in advance (event budgets, room bookings (CSC), coach/instructor packs, ticket requests etc.)

Plan your Welcome Fair Stall and your Fair Publicity.
 Attend welcome back briefings in September to receive your Welcome Fair access passes and the location of your Fair stall
You should start to plan what you would like to do in the first term of next year as soon as possible. Make sure that you have at least one event, taster or trial organised well in advance so that you can advertise it at the Fair.
You can book most UCLU CSC facilities, including meeting rooms, venues and rehearsal space well in advance of the start of term. The president will be emailed your Term 1 UCLU room allocations over the holidays (if you requested anything) and you should already know what Sports
Hall and Theatre space you have booked for next year. So you have plenty of time to ensure you are ready to go at the start of term. UCL rooms will not open for bookings until 6 October 2015.
The week before term starts is critical. You will need to put any finishing touches to your publicity and finalise your events. Remember, you must submit any event budgets well in advance of your events depending on how much you want to spend before your events.
Make sure your page and events on our website are up to date (see uclu.org/clubs ), and any other web pages you have (e.g. Groupspaces, Facebook, etc.). Include information on your trials and taster events as well as your regular meetings and training slots. Most new students will start to look at the Union website once their place has been confirmed in mid – late August so it’s a good idea to make sure everything is current.
We set up your UCL Club/Society email account so that you can access it over the holidays and reply to interested people early.
Mailing lists are an excellent marketing tool when they are used effectively, and can be set up as part of your Groupspaces or with Mailchimp for example. The better you manage your mailing list, the more you will get out of it. It’s a free and a direct link to your members and people interested in your club or soci ety. It’s worth delegating the task of updating the mailing list to a committee member if you want to use email marketing effectively.
We strongly advise that you set up an electronically managed mailing list. This is a must for Clubs and Societies.
You need to get information out to your potential members as soon after Welcome Fair as you can. Plan for this and make sure you have a team ready to get things going as soon as you can.
Plan well in advance how you are going to use your mailing list and what you want to achieve. Do you want to send different information out to first years than to existing members? Do you want different information to be sent to beginners than to more experienced people? If you do, you need to think about what information you will need to collect at the Fair to enable you to do this – again, use of a mailing list makes this exceedingly simple.
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You should also consider the following points:
 Separate your mailing lists; have one for potential members and one for those that have actually joined.
 Use the mailing list as an incentive to join your club/society - offer exclusive information to those that are members.
 Your emails should be clear, concise and informative and you should always offer recipients the option of unsubscribing from your mailing list in any correspondence you send.
The rules about Data Protection are outlined in the Club and Society Regulations. However it is important to remember this point in particular:
 Always copy all the email addresses into the Bcc: field, never use the To: or Cc: fields. If you use GroupSpaces this is automatically taken care of.
The Welcome Fair is the most important event in the Club and Society calendar. If your Club or
Society is going to get 30 members by the end of Joining Fortnight, then it is imperative that you have a well-planned and well executed Fair.
The stall itself consists of a poster board, an exam table and a chair. Every stall has a single power point for laptops if you want to do mailing list sign-ups electronically.
You should thing about the following things before the Fair:
What should be on your stall display?
So long as all your publicity conforms with the regulations on the Publicity Statement you signed in May/June, you can put anything up on your stall display. Photos, posters, signs are all acceptable, and we encourage you to think creatively and try and make your stall as eyecatching as possible.
Who should sit at your stall?
Make up a rota for the Fair with a maximum of two people per time slot. As there is very limited space at the Fairs, any unattended stalls will be removed and you will miss out on member sign ups.
You will receive two access passes to have permission to stand at your stall. No more than two people should be at a stall at one time. Additional personnel will be told to leave the Fair.
We suggest that you choose people who have a good knowledge about your Club or Society so that they can answer questions without problems. Committee members are generally best at this, although you can use old members as well if they want to help.
How should you do your mailing list sign-ups?
We strongly suggest that you do your sign-ups using a laptop
– doing it with pen and paper means that somebody has to type all the information up, and it also risks bad handwriting and misspelt names and email addresses! If you have GroupSpaces(for example) account, you can connect to UCL’s wireless network and do sign-ups automatically online – this makes things a lot easier and saves you a lot of work.
What publicity should you give out?
If you have a number of events coming up in the first few weeks of term, think about advertising them all on one flyer along with information about your regular training and meeting
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times. It will reduce your costs and allows potential members to see that your Club or Society has a lot going on and is worth joining. Remember as well that you can send out a welcome email once you have created your mailing lists, and this will allow you to give out more detailed information.
The following is a checklist of things you should make sure that your Fair publicity includes:
 Make sure that ALL of your publicity sticks to the regulations explained on the Publicity
Statement you signed in the June training (it will be confiscated if it doesn’t!).

General Information about your Club or Society
 A list of try fortnight / other Term 1 events, including dates, times, venues and costs.
 Your Club or Society email address
 Your Club or Society website
 Details of how and when people can join including the online shop website
( www.uclu.org/shop ).
What format should my publicity be in?
There are numerous options for this, ranging from business cards to photocopied flyers to professionally printed brochures. As with all publicity, make absolutely sure that it conforms to the publicity statement or it could be confiscated and disposed of.
Where should I get my publicity printed or photocopied?
If you want to use external professional printers, then that is fine provided that you abide by the appropriate procedures as outlined in the ‘How To’ guides. Bear in mind the costs, as it can be more expensive, so think carefully about how much money you are prepared to spend on your publicity and get quotes.
You can get flyers photocopied by the Union as well – the procedure for doing this is also explained in the ‘How To’ Guides, but remember a few of these points if you decide to use the
Union’s Reprographics:
 The
Union’s Reprographics Shop can produce for you A4 or A3 Posters and/or A5 or A6
Flyers. These can be printed in black & white or colour.
 Please note that due to very high demand in printing for the Fair, there are limits to the
The deadline for printing for items to be ready for the Fair is Monday, 28 September 2015 5pm.
volume and type of printing. Check the website for details.

Submit files for printing online via www.uclu.org/print
 If you have your publicity ready before the deadline, please hand it in earlier. In the days preceding Welcome Fair the Reprographics has to deal with very large volumes of photocopying in a relatively short space of time, so it is really helpful to have your publicity in as early as possible.
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UCLU Welcome Fair is a huge event. Over 12,000 students attend the Fair over both days so it is extremely busy. Consequently there is a rigorous set of procedures that you need to follow (most of which are Health and Safety related).
As one of over 250 stalls we need you to help us by managing your own area effectively. Please ensure that all your stall holders are aware of the following before the Fair:
DO

Follow the instructions issued by Security Staff and Union officers.

Ensure your stall is supervised at all times.

Wear your access pass when behind the stall.

Keep fire exits and circulation routes free of obstruction.

Keep the area around your stall tidy throughout the day.

Make it clear that signing up does not equate to membership.

Help the one-way system flow.

Ask for help from the on-duty officers if you need it.

Contact the nearest member of staff should you require First Aid.

Complete the evaluation forms circulated after the Fair.

Place all recyclable and other waste into the bags provided at the end of the day
DON’T

Have more than two people on the stall at any one time. Additional personnel will be asked to leave.

Flyer away from your stall.

Handout publicity that doesn’t conform with the Publicity Statement.

Leave your stall unsupervised.
 Invade your neighbour’s space or alter the position of your stand.

Take any money; NO CASH should change hands at the Fair!

Smoke or bring any alcohol into the Fair.

Cause obstructions to the flow of the Fair.
When organising large events it is extremely important that everyone involved is aware of what's going on and how things should be working. We really need your input on the day to keep the operational team up to date on any problems that arise on the day. Failure to comply with any rules & regulations may result in the removal of you and your Club / Society stall from the Fair.
The Fair is just the beginning. Once you have collected the names of interested people, you will need to get in touch with them and start to promote your events and activities. Get your mailing lists up to date as soon as you can after the Fair and follow up on what you promised at the Fair as soon as possible. They will be expecting information or contact from you within a week.
Alternatively refer everyone to your website and make sure you update it frequently.
After that then just run all of your planned taster events. Be friendly, make sure your prospective members are impressed and really make an effort to get everybody involved – the more people who like your taster events, the more will join your Club or Society!
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Joining Fortnight is all students’ main opportunity to purchase your Club or Society membership.
During Joining Fortnight, memberships will be sold in the Clubs and Societies Centre from 10am
–
5pm weekdays, as well as online at www.uclu.org/shop 24/7. Memberships can be bought after joining fortnight in the same manner, but remember that every Club and Society must have at least
30 student members by the end of Joining Fortnight (including yourselves, Presidents and
Treasurers must join too!).
It’s your responsibility to get people to join your club or society, try and hold events that are free to members in the first week of joining fortnight as an incentive. Ultimately the better your membership sales at the start of term, the more you will be able to achieve in the year.
Once Joining Fortnight is over, all individuals taking part in your activities must be paid up members of your Club or Society as any injury sustained by a student without membership whilst taking part in your activities will mean that they are not covered by the Union’s insurance policy.
Spot checks will be carried out by UCLU staff to ensure this is the case.
Club and Society Training and Registration
A-Level Results Released
May 2015 (top ups in Sept for those that missed it)
Mid-August 2015
6 October 2015 UCL Room Bookings Available
(via UCL website not CSC – Presidents only access)
Deadline to hand in publicity to be copied by the Union Monday 28 September 2015 (12pm for RUMS Fair, 5pm for UCLU Fair)
Welcome Back Briefings
RUMS Welcome Fair (Look)
29(1pm and 4pm) September and
(6pm) 1 October 2015 Venues TBC via email out to C and S pre term 1
Tuesday 29 September 2015, 6pm-
8pm
UCLU Welcome Fair (Look)
Try Fortnight
Joining Fortnight
30 Members Minimum Deadline
Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October
2015, 10.30am-4pm UCL Main
Campus
5 October – 18October 2015
19 October –1 November 2015
2 November 2015 5pm
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All clubs & societies hold two accounts with UCL Union, a grant account and a non grant account, administered by the Finance Department. Clubs and societies may not open external bank accounts and any Club or Society officers found to have opened an external bank account will be subject to Union and potentially College disciplinary procedures.
Grant account
Your grant account is for money that your Club or Society receives directly from the Union, either through the annual grant allocation process or via the additional grant process throughout the year. Grant money can only be used for the purposes specified when it is allocated and any money left in this account at the end of the financial year automatically reverts to the Union. Any deficit is carried forward to the following year.
Non grant account
Your non-grant account is for money that your Club or Society generates throughout the year; this includes membership sales, ticket sales, sponsorship and event income. Any unspent funds in this account at the end of the year are carried forward to the next financial year. The Union’s financial year runs from 1 August - 31 July.
Accounts in Deficit
If either of your accounts go into unplanned deficit they will be automatically frozen which means that no further transactions will be allowed to go ahead. You will be required to agree a repayment plan with the Union.
If you are organising an event where your budget is dependent on income from ticket sales or member contributions, then you will need to make sure that the income is received before you begin making payments. Obviously if you don’t have the money available then you can’t spend it, and your accounts cannot go into deficit.
Keeping Records
The Treasurer should keep separate records of all transactions for comparison with your account statement. A simple excel spread sheet will suffice. By maintaining accurate records the treasurer can ensure that there is enough money in the club or society account before authorising any expenditure. Make sure you regularly check your records of income and expenditure against your account balance. Queries related to your accounts should be directed to csc-finance@ucl.ac.uk
Long Term Planning and Risk Management
When managing your finances, try and think long-term. Is it worth applying to the Union to purchase something that you would otherwise have to hire? Will it save you money in the longterm? Can you use your funds to provide benefits to the Club or Society beyond your term of office?
Additionally, be very wary of risky expenditure – is it really worth jeopardising the financial future of your society? Again, a lot of this comes down to how you budget, which is explained in the next section.
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Budgets
An budget is a realistic prediction of what you think your Club or Society will spend and generate while carrying out a specific purchase, event or activity. Budgets do not have to be complicated or exact, but they must be realistic and cover all possible areas of income and expenditure.
The Budget process allows the Union to:
 check that you have sufficient funds in your club/society account
 assess the financial risk of the event or activity to your club or society
 ensure transparency, accountability and that your money is being spent appropriately.
The following table explains what you need to do when you want to spend money or organise an event:
When?
Level of Expenditure* Approval Process
£0-150
No approval is needed; you can make your purchase without consulting the
Union using a BACS reclaim
When necessary
£150 or larger values procedure.
Complete an EVENT / BUDGET
APPROVAL FORM and submit it to uclu-csactivity@ucl.ac.uk
.
Minimum event.
2 weeks before the
Any event involving the hire of an external venue or facility, trip abroad, stage show or similar large event
Complete an EVENT / BUDGET
APPROVAL FORM and submit it to uclu-csactivity@ucl.ac.uk
. Provide the us with a copy of the venue/facility hire contract.
Minimum 8 weeks before the event.
*This is the total level of expenditure by itself, not the surplus/deficit after income has been taken into account.
Filling in an event budget form
Your event budget should be a prediction of what you think you will spend and generate, r ealistically. Don’t assume that you will fill the venue to its capacity; try to err on the side of caution – we suggest budgeting at 50% ticket sales. Complete an event budget , by listing all possible sources of income and expenditure relating to your event or activity at the initial stages of planning your event.
If your total in the income column is less than the total in your expenditure column, you are predicting that you will make a loss. In this situation you will need to look at alternative sources of income and/or reducing your costs. If you have money in your non grant account you may be able to make up the deficit from there.
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What happens next?
A panel of staff and officers (including the Activities and Events Officer and the Activities and Skills
Manager) will assess your event budgets and do one of three things:
1.
Approve it
– you are then free to go ahead with the planned event.
2.
Defer it – you will then be contacted and asked for further clarification about the budget.
3.
Reject it – in this scenario you will not be allowed to proceed with the event.
If you are organising an event where your budget is dependent on income from ticket sales or member contributions, then you will need to make sure that the income is received before you begin m aking payments. Obviously if you don’t have the money available then you can’t spend it, and your accounts cannot go into deficit.
Account codes are split into three areas. They are used to help the finance department charge invoices to the correct Club or Society. Each time you spend or pay in money you need to specify an account code and what the transaction relates to.
Department Nominal Code Cost Centre
AAA 99999 AA
e.g. GA DRA 99100 (Drama Society grant account spend)
Cost Centre
The first letter denotes the account you wish to use:
Account
Grant
Letter
G
Non-Grant N
The second letter identifies your Club or Society type:
Type
Sports
Letter
C
Arts
Societies
A
X
Department
This is the unique identifier for your Club or Society which will be listed on your account statement emailed to your club email account. Past Presidents and Treasurers should also know this.
Nominal code
Labels all the transactions in your account by type. Using these codes helps you to easily identify how you are spending your money.
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INCOME CODES
99100 C&S COLLEGE GRANT
99301
99308
99315
99322
99329
99336
99350
C&S GENERATED INCOME
C&S MEMBERSHIP FEE INCOME
C&S DONATIONS
C&S DEAN OF STUDENT GRANTS
C&S FUTURES FUND GRANT
C&S FRIENDS TRUST GRANT
C&S SPONSORSHIP INCOME
99357
99364
C&S KIT INCOME
C&S TOUR INCOME
EXPENDITURE CODES
99700
99702
99705
99706
99715
99717
99720
99721
99723
99725
C&S GENERAL EXPENDITURE
C&S AFFILIATIONS
C&S TOUR COSTS
C&S KIT EXPENDITURE
C&S PUBLICITY COSTS
C&S SPEAKERS/WORKSHOPS
C&S ADMINISTRATION
C&S COACH/INSTRUCTORS
C&S INSURANCE
C&S EQUIP & MAINTENENCE
99727
99729
99731
99739
99742
C&S FACILITY HIRE & TRANSPORT
C&S PRODUCTIONS COSTS
C&S FACILITY HIRE
C&S COMPETITION ENTRY
C&S MATCH OFFICIALS
99744 C&S MATCH TEAS & CATERING
There are a variety of different ways to spend money from your accounts, and the procedures are explained in the ‘How To’ Guides on our website. However, the following section is a summary of the various different expenditure methods, as well as some advice on how to properly manage your expenditure.
Firstly, when you know how much you want to spend, make sure you follow the correct spending approval procedures outlined in the section above (‘Successful Budgeting’). Once your expenditure has been approved (if it is over £150) then there are 3 ways to spend money:
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1.
Spend and Reclaim (up to £150, unless approval is sought beforehand)
You or one of your members spends their own money and gets receipts before reclaiming it from the Club or Society account using a Payment Request Form. If someone needs to spend more than £150 of their own money, make sure you gain approval via the event budget form.
2.
Online Purchases
All online purchases, regardless of their value can be made via the Finance Department.
Obviously if they are under £150 then you can use the above Spend and Reclaim procedure to make your purchase if its easier. However, if it costs more or if you do not have the funds available yourself, then you should complete an Order Request Form and submit it – you will then be contacted by the Finance Officer Ramesh Kerai who make the order for you or will book a time for you to go to the Finance Department to make the online purchase using the Union’s credit card if it requires your clarification of details.
3.
Orders Directly to a Company
When you want to make an order directly with a company, you should submit an Order
Request Form via the appropriate procedures. There is a chart that explains this entire process very clearly in the ‘How To’ Guides. Once your Order Request Form is submitted, the Finance Department checks to make sure you have enough money in your accounts to make the order. If you do, then the order is processed, if you don’t then it is rejected. If the order is processed, payment will either be made before the goods are delivered or after the goods are delivered. Again, this is all explained in the ‘How To’ Guides.
When spending money, be careful! You are responsible for the financial wellbeing of your Club or
Society, so make sure you budget carefully and think about all the possibilities. Additionally, look for quotes
– it is good practice and it can save you money. Don’t assume that your predecessors knew the best companies to use, have a look yourself to make sure you are getting a good deal.
Most of dealing with expenditure and budgeting is risk management. Do you really have that money to spend? Are you really going to recoup that much through ticket sales? Is your predicted income guaranteed or assumed? If it is assumed, how safe is the assumption? Budgets will only work if you are realistic
– don’t try and bend the income figures to fit your expenditure desires, as you will ultimately end up in deficit and always have a 15% contingency on events
The bottom line is that the club/society accounts are your responsibility. The Union will not bail you out if you drastically overspend; your accounts will just go into deficit and your funding will be cut the following year and a repayment plan organised
Union Grants
If the Union provided you with an Annual Grant,this is guaranteed money, but it can only be spent on what you stated in the request.
Membership income
Money raised through the sale of membership is the primary source of income for most Clubs and
Societies. Membership income is processed by the Union and banked directly into your non-grant accounts. The money will be visible in your account statements and you can access your membership totals and membership lists online. We ask that your membership fees contribute at least 30% of your total income for the year when considered alongside your grant funding. So think about how much you want to spend, and set your membership fees accordingly.
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We ask for a minimum fee o f £2(unless agreed with us as less under specific circumstances), but some Clubs and Societies cost as much as £100 to join.
Generated Income
For certain events, you will need to sell tickets to make your budget balance out. There are procedures for doing this, but in terms of advice, make sure you give it some proper thought before you set your ticket prices
– don’t set them too low or you’ll end up in deficit. Consider providing a discounted rate for members of your Club or Society (this may also boost your membership figures) and consider other pricing bands like this.
Additional Sources of Income
In addition to your membership income, ticket income and any grant you are awarded, there are a number of extra sources of funding available for your club/society. To apply you should complete the relevant paperwork and return it to CSC admin via email or look externally for sponsorship
College Funds
There are various college funds which can provide substantial additional funding for Clubs and
Societies. You will be advised of these funds throughout the year by us. You should consult with the Activities and Events Officer before you approach UCL staff and departments for funding however.
Additional Union Grant
The Additional Grant Fund helps to pay for new activities and ideas that come up over the course of the year and which weren’t foreseen at the start of the grant allocation process. Applications are assessed by the Union and are considered in the context of the Club or Societies particular needs and previous levels of grant funding. Allocations are awarded from the first Activities
Finance Committee of the first term and at every consecutive meeting until the fund runs out.
Please note that the Union is unable to award grants to cover the costs of social events such as food, drinks and parties or charity events
Sponsorship
Sponsorship is external support, either financial (£)or for goods in kind(e.g.free products, food etc), in return for some form of acknowledgement. Full details on how to go about securing sponsorship can be found in the Sponsorship Pack , training presentation and How To Guide – available from the UCLU website. We strongly encourage you to look into all possible Sponsorship opportunities. Make sure you follow the appropriate procedures in terms of approaching companies and signing contracts and agreements etc, but sponsorship is an excellent way to get extra money to provide extra activities for your members.
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The CSC Reception
The CSC Reception is the primary point of contact for Club and Society
Officer enquiries in person or by phone.
Receiving mail
All club/society small letters should be addressed as follows, and will be delivered to your pigeonhole at CSC reception:
Your name
Club/Society name
C/o CSC Reception
UCL Union
25 Gordon Street
London
WC1H 0AY
Larger parcels and packages are to be addressed and delivered to CSC Reception, 2 nd floor, Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street WC1H 0AH .
You will be notified by email the day it is delivered and should make arrangements to collect it promptly.
Sending mail
Outgoing mail for your club/society can be sent via the CSC reception, but will only be sent second class. If you want to send out a bulk mailing please contact the CSC Admin Team.
Club/Society Folders for Post
Each Club or Society has its own post folder located at CSC reception. You should check it regularly, at least once a week, during term time. This is where all your correspondence is delivered, including incoming post, memos and newsletters as well as messages from potential members and sometimes invoices.
Please note that all club and society post folders are open access so if you leave items in your there, you do so at your own risk. You must not ask members to deposit cash or cheques by post into these folders. If you are found to do this, you/your society may be referred for disciplinary action as this is a security risk.
If you cannot find what you are looking for in this resource pack or would like extra help or information, there is always someone that can help you. Always ask CSC Reception as your first point of contact or email CSC Admin, if the receptionists/admin aren’t able to help you, they will know someone that can and will be able to put you in touch with them.
If you are unhappy with any aspect of how the Union is run, you should speak to one of the
Sabbatical Officers during their surgery or email them or come along to Activities Network. UCLU encourages its members to get involved and help shape their Union.
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Photocopying & Faxes
For small amounts of photocopying there is a machine located in the CSC. You can obtain photocopy cards from CSC reception; the cost is debited from your Club or Society account.
Partially used photocopy cards are kept at CSC reception for club/society members to use.
If you are making more than 20 copies, you should use the UCL Union Reprographics Shop
(Based in UCLU Marketing Office – Lewis Building, as clubs and societies receive special rates.
See How to guide on publicising your activity for full details.
CSC reception has a fax machine, which can be used for sending club/society related faxes; the cost is debited from your club/society account. UCLU will not reimburse any mobile phone costs that have been incurred whilst running your club/society from grant or non grant without prior approval, please advise your committee members of this to avoid dissapointment.
Forms
All the forms men tioned in the Club and Society ‘How To’ Guides can be found online at https://uclu.org/clubs-societies/resources/forms-and-information
If you cannot find what you are looking for, please contact CSC reception or email CSC admin.
Freedom of Speech is enshrined in both the UCLU constitution and in the UCL Code of Practice, so we do all we can to support our clubs and societies in organizing events with speakers that stimulate debate and further the extra-curricular development of our students. UCLU is proud to be one of the few unions in the country that has not adopted the NUS No Platform Policy.
There are, however, limitations on this commitment as set by laws that protect individuals and groups from intimidation, discrimination and the incitement of a crime. As the organisation that facilitates your events we are bound by theses laws and must always act within the law to ensure we provide a safe environment for our students. This includes:
Forbidding of communication which is threatening, abusive or insulting, or intended to harass, alarm or distress.
Forbidding of communication which targets a person or group of people based on their skin colour, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion or sexuality.
Reaffirming that it is a criminal offence to incite or encourage others to commit a crime, including acts of terrorism.
We ask that all speakers and event attendees are respectful of the beliefs and opinions of others.
Once a club or society has submitted a speaker approval form, checks will be carried out on each proposed speaker to identify any risks highlighted by their previous public engagements or publications for example. The speaker approval process, as delegated by the UCLU Trustee
Board initially involves the Activities and Skills Manager. In instances where a high risk speaker is identified, including health and safety risks, reputational risks or risks to students, the Activities and Events Officer, members of the UCLU Senior Management Team, UCLU Trustees, UCL
Senior Management Team and UCL Security may be involved in the decision making process. As stated, we are committed to upholding Freedom of Speech on campus and within our activities, but we reserve the right to veto or cancel events based on concerns around our ability to uphold previously acknowledged laws. We also reserve the right to cancel or veto an event if we cannot satisfy key health and safety requirements. We also reserve the right to perform spot checks on events being held by UCLU clubs and societies.
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To ensure the Union has had an opportunity to carry out sufficient checks on proposed speakers, all speakers MUST be approved by the Union, and the manner outlined in the in the ‘How To’
Guides. If a club or society fails to comply with these procedures, we may cancel or postpone an event until we have had a chance to run checks in order to fulfill our duty to protect our students and UCLU. Failure to follow UCLU policies and procedures may lead to disciplinary action.
When inviting speakers of a controversial nature it is important that you notify the Union of any significant history you are aware of or any media interest you suspect may be initiated by the invite. It is also important to consider any student groups you think may be concerned about the s peaker’s invitation. You may wish to contact them in advance to notify them, or work with them to ensure the event presents a balanced discussion rather than a one way speech
Overall, it is important for us to confirm that we see the role of clubs and societies as fundamental to the opportunities we offer to our students to develop while at UCL. Students are exposed to a range of differing beliefs and opinions while at University and we see providing a safe space to learn, defend and interrogate these ideas is a core function of UCLU.
Full details of UCL ‟ s Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech (which the Union follows) can be found at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/academic-manual/part-c/c18.
It is not recommended that individual members make food to give out at your events due to the associated risks. If you wish to provide food to attendees at your events that it is not provided by
College catering (Sodexo) you must email the following information to uclu-csactivity@ucl.ac.uk
well in advance(minimum 2 weeks) of your event to ensure you are complying with health and safety guidelines:
 the type of food/drink that will be provided
 confirmation that all those preparing or serving food will ensure that proper Health & Safety guidelines are followed both in the preparation, transporting & serving of food/drinks
 confirmation that all those preparing food are sure about the ingredients and ensure that food/drinks containing nuts must have an appropriate notice prominently displayed beside the food/drinks
 confirm that all those consuming food will be made aware that the Union is not liable for any food /drink consumed at/from the event
Where the food/drink is being provided by a Restaurant you will need to:
 confirm that no food to be eaten on the night will be prepared by anyone other than the named Restaurant
 provide the name and address of the Restaurant providing the food
 provide information on how the food will be transported from the Restaurant to the venue
 provide information on how the food will be kept edible, be it cold or hot; from the time of delivery to the time of consumption.
 confirm that all those consuming food will be made aware that UCL Union is not liable for any food /drink consumed at/from the event
You will be emailed back a disclaimer and you will be required to prominently display at least three disclaimers where the food/drink is being served.
Serving and consuming alcohol at events on campus is regulated under UK licensing laws by
Camden Council. Having alcohol at events in UCL rooms where the alcohol will be charged for by
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tickets either on the door or pre sold must be licensed and cannot happen without permission. This can be resolved only by having Sodexo as your catering provider (they are the license holder for
UCL to carry out this type of activity on campus) unless you have agreed with them that your own personal license holder will be provided. Please note they will charge you for this service and you should budget accordingly. Please see the “How To” guide that gives further details on how to run events (including with alcohol) on campus.
Clubs not following the policies on alcohol at events may be referred for disciplinary action and will be unable to hold future events of this type on campus.
1. UCL's general expectation is that any event or meeting held in UCL premises will be open to all, regardless of gender. There are exceptions to this (for example training sessions of men's and women's sports clubs), but events should be open to all unless they are specifically designed for one gender or another.
2. There should be no enforced segregation by gender at events. Pre-allocation of seats by gender, and the use of stewards to direct persons attending a meeting to gender segregated seating are unacceptable.
3. It is acceptable for individuals attending events to choose to sit with members of their own gender. If individuals attending an event wish to segregate themselves on a voluntary basis, it is not acceptable for other members of the audience to compel them to mix, and to do so may constitute harassment.
Unfortunately the Union and the College can’t provide physical space for everything, and consequently we do encourage you to look for space or venues that are external to us. However, in the past, Clubs and Societies have got themselves into severe financial difficulties when using external venues, so here is a checklist of things you should consider before you decide to use an external venue or facility:
 How much money do you have in your accounts? Can you really afford this?
 If you are selling tickets to cover the cost of the venue or facility, how many tickets are you realistically going to sell? As a guideline, never assume that you will sell more than 50% of the tickets available.
 What terms and conditions to the owners of the venue or facility have that you should be aware of? Cancellation policies, damage and deposit policies etc should all be researched.
If you do decide to use an external venue or facility, then make sure you follow the ‘How To’ Guide instructions when booking and confirming. In particular, make sure that all contracts or legal documents are signed by the Sabbatical Officers (submit to CSC Admin), and not by your
President or Treasurer.
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Communicating with your members via your mailing lists is vitally important. We recommend that you send out a regular email with details of your upcoming events and meetings – this may be weekly, fortnightly or monthly depending on how busy your Club or Society is. In addition, keeping your website up-to-date is also vital as you can link to it from the main Union website and from your emails. The following is a checklist of things that you should make sure you consider:
 club/society@ucl.ac.uk
email address
– we require that you set one of these up, as it adds legitimacy to your club or society and is the method we use to send you financial account statements. Never use personal email addresses to communicate with members.
 Mailing list(e.g. Mailchimp) Account
– this can be linked to your club/society@ucl.ac.uk
email address, and it then allows you to send out HTML formatted email addresses. It also has brilliant mailing list management facilities.

Web – you must keep your UCLU web page up-to-date (see uclu.org/clubs ), and remember to submit events to the What's On? guide and online calendar via the UCLU website. You should also have a Facebook page. You can also set up free websites, using blog tools such as Wordpress and Tumblr, or you can invest some money into a website using your non-grant account. Make sure any web pages abide by the regulations on the publicity statement!
Ensuring that your Club or Society and its events are appropriately advertised is key to its success. In addition to any posters and flyers you produce for events that you are holding, there are a number of other aspects of promotion you may wish to consider when advertising your club or society and its event. Get out and about around campus and talk to people. Contact the student media: Pi, Rare FM, Film, SAVAGE, Cheesegrater and Photo Societies and see how they can help you get your message out to the masses. Ideas to consider:

Submit the event to online calendar: uclu.org/calendar. Events submitted online will be automatically included in the printed
What’s On?
guide if it’s there before the print deadline.

Posters, flyering

Banners on the railings at the Union building

Stall in 25 Gordon Street or the Lewis’s Building

Book one of the UCLU videographers or photographers to cover your events

Book stalls/banners/photographers/videographers at uclu.org/marketing/csbookings

Ads on the TV screens

Contact the Marketing Department for more help and information
Before you finalise any publicity designs remember to include the following key information about what you are publicising:

Make sure that it all abides by the Publicity Statement or it could be disposed of.
 Date of Event
 Time (start and finish)

Venue / Location
 Entry Fee
 Full Club or Society Name (e.g. UCLU Mind Society, UCLU Men’s Football Club, etc.)
 Club or Society Email Address and Website

Translation of any foreign languages.
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If you cannot find what you are looking for in the Club and Society Regulations and Procedures or here, or if would like extra help or information, there is always someone that can help you.
Your first point of contact for all enquiries in person should be the CSC Reception or by email to
CSC Admin uclu-csactivity@ucl.ac.uk. If the receptionists or admin staff aren’t able to help you, they will refer your enquiry onto someone who can assist you:
CSC Reception
2 nd Floor, Bloomsbury Building
020 7679 7239 uclu-csactivity@ucl.ac.uk
Opening Hours:
Monday – Friday: 10am-9pm (term time only)
Saturdays: 11am-5pm (term time only)
(Outside of term please email in the first instance)
If the CSC Reception can’t help you, you can also make an appointment to speak to one of the following members of staff:
-
Activities & Skills Manager
-
Societies Development Coordinator
-
Sports Development Coordinator
-
Finance Officer (Clubs and Societies)
-
Activities Administrator (Sport)
-
Activities Administrator (temporary
– non sport)
-
Office Assistant
The Activities and Events Officer holds surgery specifically for clubs and societies throughout term time in the CSC. This is the best time to discuss upcoming events and ideas that you have. They are held as follows:
Mondays 12pm-1pm Thursdays 12pm-1pm
Alternatively, the contact details for the Sabbatical Officer Team are available on our website

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