Society Events
Your Launch Event
Who To Invite
How To Publicise
Once your society has been set up, the first thing you should do is contact your NUT regional office and the NUT Student Officer to let them know. Often, the NUT will be able to put you in contact with local divisions in your area, who may donate a small amount of money to running your first event, or may be happy to come and speak at one of your events on your issues. Your student officer will be able to put you in touch with other NUT Societies in the region, so that you can share ideas and network with each other.
Now it's time to go about planning your launch event.
The purpose of a launch event is to: create networks, get people's contact details and introduce the work of the society. You can get everyone together to agree on what you want to achieve with the society and what kind of issues you will be discussing.
You will need to think of a theme for your social. There are packs on the website of some template socials you could run, with themes such as Student Finance; Job Applications, Classroom Behaviour and others, or you might have ideas of a different theme that you would like to use.
- If the social is to be held in September or October, you could hold a Welcome Back to Uni social for all members to catch up on news since June.
- If you are holding a social right before a major block placement, you could organise an afternoon in the Students Union where you can all share tips and best practices for a successful placement.
- If you think bullying might be an issue for many of the students on their placements, you could hold a session on how to address harassment in school.
Here are some suggestions of people you could invite to your launch event. The list is by no means exhaustive and different events would suit different groups of people.
NUT Student Officer and Regional Officers
A representative from the Teachers Support Network
President and Education Officer from your Students Union
NUS/NUT Scholarship Holder
Course or Cohort Leader from your Faculty
Once your speaker is confirmed, book a venue for the relevant date and start to publicise your event. Either speak to your course tutor about booking a lecture hall or classroom, or ask the SU if you can book a room in the Students Union.
Always book a room for half an hour longer than you think you will need, to give yourself time to set up and clear up.
Things to consider here are:
- How many people are you expecting?
- Can you have food and drink in the room?
- Is it accessible?
- Will the event be at a time when most people will be available?
- Is it easy to find and get to?
- Will I need to include a map on the flyer?
Start to publicise your event between one and two weeks in advance. More than 2 weeks is pointless, and less than one week is cutting it fine. Publicity should intensify until the launch takes place.
- Contact the NUT student officer who will list your event on the NUT email newsletter in your region
- Download and print off the flyers and posters on this website
- Write an article for your student newspaper about the new society
- Set up a Facebook group
- Post the event on other related groups such as your Faculty's group or the NUT Student members group
Make sure to use any communication you have available to you. If your students union have Societies pages on their website, make sure you add contact information and upcoming events to it. Also, contact the NUT Student officer, who will list your event on the NUT website.
Logos: The NUT will develop a logo for your society to organise this email the NUT Student Officer
Make sure you set up a Facebook group for your society, to keep the members updated.
The media is free publicity, read by a large number and wide spectrum of students:
- Submit an article about a relevant topic and, if you have an upcoming event on that topic, publicise that too.
- Announce upcoming events in the Calendar section of the student media
- Write a regular column or series of articles on a relevant topic
- Offer interviews with every guest speaker to student newspapers and radio
- Host a radio show yourself!
- Request a press presence at an event
