Scott Farmer has worked within the Students’ Union movement for over 15 years from an Officer at UWE to a Director at Bristol via roels at Surrey and NUS. He now supports not-for-profits through a range of solutions via TempleFarmer Ltd.
Anyone in their right mind likes to look at the similar organisations around them and within the students’ union movement we have a plethora of practice to pick and choose from when we are looking to make quick fixes and/or improve a situation.
I recently spent some time supporting University for the Creative Arts Students’ Union thinking about how they go about their work and preparing them for the recruitment of a new Chief Executive.
What was striking was the way in which the organisation appeared locked down by systems and process and indeed appeared inefficient and cumbersome to its members, even parts of its inner elected circle.
The immediate cry is that the organisation isn’t resourced efficiently to meet the needs of its members and with a dwindling NSS score against a rising score of the university this focussed the mind of the University and the Officers.
In particular in the area of clubs and societies upon first glance the organisation appears to have a sound system and process. The usual requirements are there:
- So many members required to start a group
- A constitution needed to state how the group runs
- Application required to be submitted to the grants committee for funds
- Basic risk assessment for the groups activities
- An elected President, Secretary and Treasurer required.
All of these are staple requirements of a good system for student groups in students’ unions, to look at it slightly differently we might justify these activities as:
- Participation evidenced
- Decision-making and governance model evidenced
- Auditing achieved
- Students are safe
- Democracy safeguarded
Let’s look again at this scenario, from the point of view of a student wanting to start the club or society for the first time or even a student wanting to re-start or re-invent something that has existed before.
- You need 10 members to start the group.
- You need to ensure you hold elections, an annual meeting and hold a committee meeting monthly.
- You need to tell us how much money this will cost and how you will raise more money to support you.
- You need to fill this form in otherwise you can’t run, won’t have access to funds and people might get hurt.
- You need to create a power system so you are legitimate in our eyes and we can hold you to account.
If we take ourselves back to the first time we got involved in something and then being met with those requirements. I think it would make all of us think again; it certainly doesn’t enable you ‘get involved’.
What has caused this problem? My view, and it is just a view, is that in order to ensure we have a system in place to run an area of the organisation that most others deliver in our sector, we all too often look at those around us to get the quick fix. Large or small, each students’ union that runs clubs and societies will have that first list of requirements or something like it and as such we become beholden to the rules and requirements to ensure that we are operating ‘effectively’. Yet, it’s not really effective or efficient in the long run.
So two questions for you:
- Are those 5 requirements truly necessary? Yes, I hear you cry.
- Does it encourage people to get involved? I can’t hear you. Ah not really.
So, if we do need those requirements and we are thinking about kickstarting engagement the real question should be ‘when do we need to have those requirements in place by?’
You might then ask, ‘We must have the rules for finance in place surely?’
My response to this is, ‘Are you going to be kicked by the University or any other regulatory body by providing a kickstarter budget to a new idea or one that has been restarted or reimagined?’
This can go on and on. UCA Students’ Union is changing the way it thinks about clubs and societies and in particular the way to engage people in the beginning by removing the barriers to participation at the start and helping coach those who want to start activities through their first year and putting in place a development plan for each activity.
Jamie Stratton, the new Chief Executive, has led this development and says;
“ It is important that recognise that when a student comes to us to form a club or society, they are not going to be ready with all of the immediate answers for how to run it. We recognise that students form and lead clubs and societies to be part of an active social community on campus, and we are developing a system at UCASU that coaches and mentors students throughout that first year of development in order to create strong and sustainable clubs and societies in the future.”
This is just one scenario, in one moment of time however my argument is that there is room for authenticity and common approaches. The authenticity of your activities are about you and your organisation and understanding:
- The diversity of your student body
- The courses they study
- The activities they are interested in
- The backdrop of your institution
- The local area your students live in
You might say that these in themselves are not authentic, the real test of being authentic is how you map them together to work for you and enable the real sense of your organisation to shine through in a genuine sense.
The backdrop of UCA Students’ Union is that it is a specialist arts university, engaging 6,000+ students in HE and FE covering 4 campuses in 4 towns covering 2 counties with a round trip of 200+ miles. Due to the nature of the courses its students are highly interested in activities which connect their learning with experiences that either directly or indirectly enhance their future portfolio. Academics and students are highly connected with relatively high periods of contact time which provides an excellent backdrop for the development of discipline based activities.
My plea to anyone who has made it to the end of this article is to:
- share your practice, especially your mistakes and learning as a result
- don’t be afraid to look at others practice,
- don’t be afraid to rip up the rule book and start again, just because that’s how it’s always been done. Doesn’t mean it is right for now.