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Training & Support


As well as the information provided here in the Committees Hub, we run training sessions throughout the academic year to equip you with the skills and knowledge to effectively run your group.


Training for Sports Clubs

Training for Sports Clubs is provided to committee members each year in July and September. If you missed training for the 2022/23 academic year, please contact su-sportsadministrator@qmul.ac.uk.


Training for Societies, Volunteering Groups & Student Media

Our training is to enable and empower our student leaders to run their Student Groups safely and successfully.


Staff Support (main contacts):

As a Student Group you have staff at the Students’ Union who can help with your queries - remember you can always approach your staff support if you have need any help with running your events and activities such as reviewing contracts, raising money, and contacting the University.

Training takes place in the summer before new committee members take over their Student Groups on the 1st of August to prepare them for their roles.

Presidents and Treasurers (or equivalent for Student Media Outlets) are expected to attend or watch back virtual training sessions from the June training programme

  • The sessions your President (or equivalent) must watch are: Welcome Session, Selling/Promoting your Group, Health & Safety, Event Training, and How to be an Effective Committee.
  • The sessions your Treasurer (or equivalent) must watch are: Welcome Session, Fundraising & Volunteering, Finance Training, and How to be an Effective Committee.
  • Volunteering Group committee members are also required to attend or watch back the Volunteering Groups Induction Session.
  • Managing Editors (or equivalent) are also required to attend or watch back the Student Media Induction; all other committee members of Media Outlets are also welcome and encouraged to join this session.

If you are unable to attend the June training sessions, the sessions will be recorded and made available to committee members to watch back and record their attendance. There may be further training sessions or guidebooks in September.

Want to browse through our recorded training sessions? We have created a video library for you to watch the training sessions. Note: you will need to log in with your QMUL details.

Watch here
President

The responsibilities of the President (or equivalent) include:

  • Being the figurehead of the Student Group.
  • Ensuring that the Student Group operates in accordance the Students’ Union’s Articles of Association, by-laws and policies and procedures.
  • Attending Students’ Union training sessions as appropriate.
  • Calling General Meetings of the Student Group.
  • Organising fair and transparent elections for the following year’s committee in accordance with the Student Group by-law and relevant affiliation procedure.
  • Being the point of contact between the Students’ Union and the Student Group members. The President is mandated to keep in regular contact with the appropriate staff member and relevant elected officer(s).
  • Authorising the withdrawal of expenditure from the Student’ Group’s account in occasions where the Treasurer cannot.
  • Ensuring a thorough handover of the Student Group onto a new committee, where relevant.

Volunteering Group Presidents will also be responsible for maintaining and submitting up-to-date volunteer trackers within set deadlines.


Treasurer

The responsibilities of the Treasurer (or equivalent) include:

  • Keeping current accurate financial information of the Student Groups’ activities.
  • Ensuring the Student Groups’ financial transactions are conducted in accordance with the Student Group by-law and guidance provided.
  • Authorising the withdrawal of expenditure from the Student Groups’ account.
  • Attending Students’ Union training sessions as appropriate.
  • Ensuring that all relevant financial documents are retrieved from the previous Treasurer and passed on to the next Treasurer.

Welfare Representative

If you do not already have a Welfare Representative in your student group, we highly recommend that you appoint one from within your committee to become one. (Please note that it is a requirement for Sports Clubs and Student Groups to have a Welfare Rep).

The Welfare Rep will:

  • Act as the main point of contact for students in their Student Group regarding welfare concerns.
  • Signpost students to relevant support services and welfare resources within the Students’ Union, QMUL and wider community.
  • Foster a culture of wellbeing by supporting and promoting Students’ Union campaigns, such as Study Well, Zero Tolerance and others within their Student Group.
  • Foster a culture of accessibility and inclusivity within events, communications and any other activities run by their Student Group.
  • Receive training on recognising welfare concerns, signposting to support services, bystander intervention, self-care and other relevant topics.
  • Contact their staff support if they feel further support or information is needed to carry out this role.

It is estimated that the time commitment for Welfare Reps will involve regular attendance of meetings of your Student Group. Welfare Reps will also be required to attend two training sessions of around 3 hours in total.

The staff support contacts for Welfare Reps are as follows:


Other positions

If you have other position on your committee, it is a good idea to keep note of their responsibilities so it is clear on what they are expected to do, and you can use it to advertise the role when you run elections for it.


Student Media Outlet Role Descriptions
Managing Editor

The responsibilities of the Managing Editor (or equivalent) include:

  • Being the figurehead of the Student Media Outlet.
  • Being responsible for the content of their Student Media Outlet.
  • Ensuring that the Student Media Outlet operates in accordance the Students’ Union’s Articles of Association, by-laws and policies and procedures.
  • Allocate duties and responsibilities to, and provide support for, editors and other post holders.
  • Attending Students’ Union training sessions as appropriate. Calling General Meetings of the Student Media Outlet.
  • Organising fair and transparent elections for the following year’s committee in accordance with the Student Group by-law and relevant affiliation procedure.
  • Being the point of contact between the Students’ Union and the Student Media Outlet members. The Managing Editor is mandated to keep in regular contact with the appropriate staff member and relevant elected officer(s).
  • Keeping current accurate financial information of the Student Media Outlet’s activities.
  • Ensuring the Student Media Outlet’s financial transactions are conducted in accordance with the Student Group by-law and guidance provided.
  • Authorising the withdrawal of expenditure from the Student Media Outlet’s account.
  • Ensuring that all relevant financial documents are retrieved from the previous Managing Editor (or equivalent) and passed on to the next Managing Editor (or equivalent).
  • Ensuring a thorough handover of the Student Media Outlet onto a new committee, where relevant.

Deputy Managing Editor

The responsibilities of the Deputy Managing Editor (or equivalent) include:

  • Supporting the Managing Editor with their responsibilities.
  • Undertaking the duties of the Managing Editor in the event of the Managing Editor’s resignation or removal.
  • Attending Students’ Union training sessions as appropriate.
  • Authorising the withdrawal of expenditure from the Student Media Outlet’s account.
Your First Meeting

If you are a new committee, you should hold an initial meeting to get to know one another. You may have some people who have been on the committee before, but you may have some new faces, or these existing members are taking up a different position. Instead of talking about what you are going to do as a group, use this first meeting to build yourselves up as a team, learning about each other’s strengths and areas for development.


Regular Meetings

As a committee you should hold regular meetings so you can plan for the year in your events and activities, agree between yourselves who will be in charge for each task and have a space to review events after they have happened and discuss what could be improved for next time. Here are some tips to hold effective meetings:

  • Meet regularly: Set aside time for you and your committee to meet; don’t just rely on messaging one another. If you can’t meet physically, you can use various online platforms such as Zoom, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp Rooms, and Google Meet. You could have one big meeting at the beginning of the year to discuss your plans for the whole year, and then have smaller meetings if you need to meet up to discuss organising a specific event/social.
  • Set an agenda: Before you meet, have someone who will pull together an agenda of topics you want to discuss as a committee before the meeting happens. This should then be sent round to everyone, giving people time to prepare before the meeting.
  • Write minutes: Keep a log of what was said during meetings and a list of actions you have agreed so you know who is in charge of what. You can download a template minutes below.
Download template

When you are running a student group it can become incredibly stressful, especially if you are working on a big event or have a lot of deadlines coming up in your studies. Here are our top tips for a well-run committee:

  • Communicate: Respect each other's workload – e.g., upcoming deadlines, part-time work, personal commitments.
  • Set Expectations: Have set agreements and deadlines – write them down.
  • Delegate: Accept that someone else may not do it the way you would have done it, but you can’t do it all yourself – share out the work.

Here are some common issues that come up within a committee and how you can address it:

Common Issue #1: This person is not pulling their weight in the committee

Have someone on your committee to reach out to this person and find out why they have not been as active as you would like them to be. They may have some personal circumstances which prevent them from being as engaged with their committee work. As a committee ask yourself if the work you need to do is distributed evenly across the committee; are there reasonable deadlines to work towards? It may be that this person who is not contributing has a lot of other priorities: the key is to find out how much they can commit and mutually agree on actions.

If this becomes a persistent problem you may need to sit down with this person and ask them to step down from the committee position, especially if it is a demanding role. You may also want to remove this person from their role; if this is the case contact your relevant staff support.

Common Issue #2: Everyone’s too busy and now I’m stuck with doing all the work

It may be that it is a very busy time of the year, meaning that the rest of the committee can’t give as much time to the Student Group then they would normally. Review what you’ve got going on: you may need to scale your events/activities down to make it more of a manageable workload for yourself and the committee to be able to handle. If it is a busy time of the year, such as deadline week, then it’s also likely that your members will be too busy and will not be able to attend your events.

If the whole committee continues to be non-responsive, call for a committee meeting. Your relevant staff support can also offer a mediation session, where they also attend this committee meeting to help the group to work through any issues.

Common Issue #3: It’s easier if I just do this myself/This person is doing all the work and won’t let us help

It’s quite easy to slip into the mindset of ‘I can do this myself so it’s easier if I just do all the work’, but from that you could unintentionally leave out the rest of your committee. If you are passionate about a certain project or event, communicate with this to the rest of your committee but be open to suggestions. You are representing a whole group so you should share the work out and have a shared common goal.

If you are someone who wants to help but this other person won’t let you, try and frame it so that you are trying to help them ease the workload off them. Even if you have been elected to carry out a certain role, there is no shame in helping one another: each role has their own roles and responsibilities, but the demands of each role varies depending on the time of the year.

Common Issue #4: I’m/members of our group are uncomfortable with some of the decisions that are being made

Make sure that your committee has space for you to discuss any decisions that are made on behalf of the committee – you may not always agree on what happens, but you should be given the space to voice your opinions. All our committees should be democratically elected, and decisions should be transparent.

Challenge others when you can, but if you do not feel comfortable with this, or you feel that you are not being heard, please contact relevant staff support.

Staff Support Contacts

Being a Committee Member doesn’t mean you are expected to know or deal with everything that might come your way. If you are ever unsure of how to respond to something, please contact your staff support who can help you.


Further Resources

Report & Support

Report and Support is the QMUL reporting platform for sexual violence, harassment, domestic abuse, hate crime and bullying. It contains information on these issues as well as details of a range of support services that may be helpful for students to access.

Find out more

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Contact Us

Clubs & Societies

Contact your Students’ Union with any questions you may have.

Societies:
su-societies@qmul.ac.uk

Sports Clubs:
su-sportsadministrator@qmul.ac.uk

Student Media:
su-studentmedia@qmul.ac.uk

RAG:
su-rag@qmul.ac.uk

Volunteering:
su-volunteering@qmul.ac.uk