The Committee

Every Club or Society must have a Committee. The structure of a committee varies, but as a minimum there should be a Captain / President, a Vice Captain / Vice President and a Treasurer. Other Committee roles can be allocated according to need (e.g) Secretary, Social Secretary etc.

The Committee should work together to ensure all the key responsibilities are met:

• Conduct of members
• Safety of members
• Maintaining good communication with SU inclusive of updates and financial planning
• Promotion to recruit new members during Freshers’ Week/Give It A Go
• Keeping an inventory of equipment for its security and good maintenance

 

 

Electing a Committee

 

All committees must hold elections at the end of the academic year to select the committee for the following academic year. Elections must take place at a General Meeting of the club/society and members must be given advance notice. Only members of the club/society can stand for election and vote in elections. Voting should be done in person at the meeting by secret ballot.

Further advice on holding elections is available from the SU.

 

 

Team and Society Handover and Continuation Pack

Your Team or Society year will start and finish with a handover pack and a continuation pack. Here are some guides to explain and help you through this process.

 

1. What is a ‘handover’?

To ‘handover’ means to give up your committee position and pass over all the really important information and skills to the new committee member who is taking over your role. This is one of the main events in the year and will help your team or society continue it’s success.

 

2. Why do you need a handover?

A good committee handover can set the new committee off to a flying start and ensure that:

a) Your team or society can develop further, and build on the hard work that you’ve put in this year. It’s great if the new committee can benefit from your experience and not make the same mistakes that your committee may have made.

b) To ensure the great things you did for your society continue and the benefits of these are properly explained so they won’t get dropped by the new committee.

c) New committee members feel like they have the support they need to run your society. Lots of new committees come to the Student Union in September because they haven’t been given enough information; and they can feel very anxious about this.

d) If it’s something specific to your society (e.g. the contact details for another organisation, how much you charged for membership last year), then the staff may not know the answer, so make sure you tell the new committee!

e) Put yourself in their shoes, do you feel like you had enough support when you started? What would you have liked to know?

f) A good handover is an investment in your society and it will benefit all your members in the long-run. In a nutshell, a good handover will keep your team or society amazing!

 

3. When to Handover?

You should handover just after your society’s AGM (which must be before 15th April) using the handover pack emailed to you by the SU.  Complete both the handover pack AND the continuation pack and email both to the SU by the 5th of May, then give the the handover pack to your incoming committee. 

a) It’s best to have a ‘handover period’ of anything between 2 – 6 weeks (whatever is right for your society) where both the outgoing and incoming committee attend all the meetings. That way the new committee member can ‘shadow’ the old one to see how they do things.

b) Arrange specific handover meetings between each outgoing and incoming committee position (e.g. your outgoing Treasurer should bring the incoming Treasurer to the Activities Office so they can show them all the forms and introduce them to the staff).

 

4. What should you tell the new committee?

There is lots of information that you need to handover to your new committee. We would suggest that you run your own handover meeting and create a handover document for them.

Remember: Sometimes things might seem obvious to you because you’re already experienced in the role, but try to remember what it’s like for a new committee member, who may not know anything about the Students’ Union or running a society!

 

a) Submit all documents

First and foremost, the newly elected committee must email the SU a completed copy of both the continuation pack and the handover pack (both get emailed to committee members in March)  – if we don’t receive them then the society will be classed as dormant!

 

b) Pass on training dates

You also need to tell the new committee that they need to attend the compulsory Committees training at the start of the year. If they do not attend these training sessions they will be unable to apply for funding from the Student Union.

Dates are confirmed via email by the Student Union to your committee over summer, so please check your emails regularly.

 

c) Contacts, using the Student Union

The Student Union Office is here to help - the general opening hours are 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Email us at union@qmu.ac.uk.

If you can, it’s always worth leaving your contact details with the new position member, so that if they need to ask you something important that you may have forgotten to handover then you can help. This doesn’t mean you have to be on call for them all the time, but it’s good for the odd emergency question!

 

d) Handover Packs/Continuation Packs

You will be emailed both a handover pack and a continuation pack in March.  The handover pack contains all the information an incoming committee will need, including passwords to social media accounts.  The continuation pack contains all the information the SU will need for your team/society to function for the next year - including the budget form, constitution, new committee member details etc.  A great legacy to your team/society is to create a fantastic, in-depth handover pack which can be passed on to the new committee. It’s fantastic experience for you to reflect on your experiences as a committee member when you come to write your CV and apply for jobs.

The challenges you faced and skills gained through being in a position of responsibility in a committee, are gold dust to employers and it’s really important that you practice articulating these. Plus it’ll be invaluable to the new committee members for them to have an insight into what it was like for you running the committee.

Don’t forget to hand over anything physical too, such as locker keys, equipment and resources, money box, banners etc to your new committee as well!

 

Questions to think of for the handover include:

 

· What did you use at Fresher’s Fair to publicise your society?

· Pass on any banners, posters, flyers, films played on laptops, spread sheets used to collate membership data – the new committee will find all of this really useful!

· How much did you charge for membership and why?

· Do you organise any big events throughout the year? What are they? Where did you book the venue?

· Who did you contact? What did you charge for ticket prices?

· Did you have an external coach or teacher? How should the new committee contact them? How much did they charge? How did you pay them?

· Did you have a rota for who went to your workshops/classes/socials? Who organised these?

· Do you use any special equipment? Even if you show the new committee how to use this it can be really useful to have something written down, to refer back to after the summer.

· Do you have sponsorship? What are the contact details – try to introduce new committee members to the sponsorship contact to create a good working relationship.

· How do you manage your accounts? Have you been using a spread sheet to record membership fees or payments to sessions? – Pass this on! Describe how to use it.

· Do you order any merchandise? What company did you use? How much did you charge?

· How often did you have committee meetings? Where did they take place?

· How would you define your role?

· What challenges have you faced through being in this committee position?

· What do you feel it takes to be a good committee member?

· If you could replay the year, is there anything you would do differently within your committee role?

· Would you say you’ve gained any skills throughout this role?

· Do you have any ideas about what the next committee could do to develop the society next year?