Running Your Society

Running your Society - how not to end up doing everything yourself!

Smarter not harder

We all know how demanding studying for your teaching qualification can be, and sometimes it feels like there is no time for anything else!

That's why the NUT has written this handy guide on how to run your society, and has even formulated template social packs for you to use.

Contents:

A View of Your Committee

Elections

The Art of Delegation

A View of Your Committee

The core 3:

  • Chair/Chairperson/President - chairs the committee, and is the main liaison with the NUT Student Officer, the SU and the NUS' NUT Scholarship Holder.
  • Secretary - takes the minutes of meetings and prepares mailings, and also oversees compliance with society rules.
  • Treasurer - oversees the money. Most students unions will help you with this.

Additional, desired roles:

Equalities officer - fights to encourage under-represented groups to participate in action, and to campaign against all forms of discrimination. If there is a high demand for this role, you could break it down into 4 or more roles, as Women's officer, Disabled Member's officer, Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Officer and Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Officer. Equalities Officers might find useful ideas or resources on the NUT’s equalities pages (http://www.teachers.org.uk/topichome.php?id=213). Also, there is a wealth of information on sites such as Love Music Hate Racism , Show Racism the Red Card, School’s Out and many more.

Campaigns officer - organises and leads the campaigning efforts of the society. For campaign ideas, follow the links on the left side of the page, or canvass views on the NUT Student Members Facebook group

Events officer - organises the social aspects of the society, encouraging networking and booking resources for talks and activities. For events ideas, check out the society modules on the Resources page.

Mature Students Officer - serves to represent the views and needs of the mature teacher training students on campus.

 

Society Elections

You will have to run elections during Spring term for a society committee for the next year. Organise this as you would a social, by booking a room and publicizing the event.

Advertise for nominees and list the positions available, giving a deadline for nominations of around 2 weeks. On that deadline, advertise for the Elections event happening in another 2 weeks, and list the nominees on your Facebook or Society webpage so that people can think about who to vote for.

Each member of your society gets one vote.

Quick Tip: Talk to particularly 2nd years about putting themselves forward, as they are most likely to make great committee members. They have had a year to settle in but are not stressed-out finalists!

Again, contact your students union and NUT Student Officer for help with this event.

Use a sheet like this to help organise yourselves to plan the event a blank one is available to download here.

 

  Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Call Regional Office Claire        
Confirm room booking Adam        
Organise refreshments for event   Lucy Lucy    
Distribute sign up forms for event   Adam and Jane      
Print and distribute posters and flyers   Jane Jane Jane  
Call speaker and regional office to finalise plans       Claire  
Hold event!         Claire, Adam, Lucy and Jane

 

Art of Delegation

  • Communication is vital. Make sure you keep and share up-to-date info so that you can contact all your members quickly and easily. If you or anyone on your committee changes their contact details, be sure to let your members know!
  • Make sure you all meet to discuss issues regularly, so that the work doesn't build up for anyone in the group. If regular meet ups are difficult, agree on a weekly or fortnightly catch-up on MSN or Yahoo messenger.
  • Play to people's strengths, if someone is a PGCE student who used to be a graphic designer, they would probably find it quick, easy and enjoyable to run off a few posters for you. If someone has a very supportive head teacher, they could ask their head if he or she would be available to speak at a society meeting.
  • Give your committee and members small tasks. This keeps them involved and also reduces the pressure on you. The society is not one person, just as a union is not one person. Also, they might really take to the task you have given them, and end up developing their skills to the point that they nominate themselves for the committee in the future.
  • If you think someone would make a good officer, be encouraging and supportive and give them the opportunity to enhance their skills from public speaking to article writing etc
  • Use the checklists to share out tasks and take the pressure out of arranging a social.