How to Guide
Here, you should find a comprehensive list of how to do almost everything activity-related. All relevant forms can be found on our Resources page. If you cannot find the answer to something, please contact us and we'll do our best to help!
Searching, joining and setting up
AGMs & registering
Money
Booking rooms & stalls
Catering & events
Club specific
website
Miscellaneous
Question not here? Let us know and we’ll do our best to help…
Go to the club/society search page and if you know what you are looking for, type it into the search bar, otherwise feel free to browse through the extensive list of activities available.
To sign up to a club or society online, you will first need to ensure you have an account on the SU website. To create one, click login in the top right-hand corner and select Create New Account. Select the relevant account (i.e. if you are a student, create student account, and if you are an alumni/member of staff/other, create guest account) and enter all the requested details. Once you have verified your email address, you will be able to purchase club and society memberships. Please note that guest members will only be able to purchase associate membership* – please contact Heather Carroll should you have any enquiries about this.
Alternatively you can pop into the ARC to pay for your memberships.
* Please note that some students are still only able to register as guest members - if you think you need this changed so that you can purchase student memberships then please come into the ARC so that we can sort this out for you.
First of all, check that the club or society you are looking to create does not already exist. If it doesn’t, then download and complete the relevant form on the Resources page - Setting Up a New Club or Society, making sure you state your aims clearly, and return this to the Sports and Societies Administrator. We also strongly recommend that you arrange to talk through your idea with the Activities & Development Officer.
Your request will be referred to the Students’ Union Activities Committee and as long as your proposed club or society does not duplicate any existing activities and its aims conform to the objects of the Union and do not contravene Union policy, your request should be accepted.
You will then receive confirmation of the decision that has been made, and if your request has been accepted, a club or society pack along with some useful information, all of which is also available online as well. Your will need to get 20 members to sign up and pay for membership before being able to book an AGM.
Clubs and societies are permitted to book one room only in which to hold an introductory meeting including the election of officers before they register. Please go to Conferences AGM booking page where you will be able to request a room; you should receive a response from the Conference Office within a few days.
Once you have received confirmation of the details of your AGM, please contact the Sports and Societies Administrator to advise of the date, time and place of your AGM so that we can keep track of which societies have held their AGMs when.
When you have received confirmation of your room booking, you should email all your members to publicise the election – giving at least 48 hours notice.
If you are really organised you could book your room ahead of the Freshers’ Fayre and publicise your AGM at your stall! This allows new members more time to make sure they can attend and will ensure a higher turnout.
Because only society members are allowed to vote you’ll first have to tick everyone in the room off against your membership list. Please note you cannot sign up new members at this meeting.
Remember you need a minimum of 20 members!
If you wish to make any amendments to the standard society constitution, this will have to be approved by your members and you will have to vote on them at this meeting. If you are thinking of amending your constitution please contact the Activities and Development Officer for guidance.
First, you need to appoint someone to chair the elections; this cannot be someone who is standing for election. The chair’s job is to explain the different positions available and then invite candidates to run for the various positions.
Candidates should be given time to make a speech and answer questions. Once this has taken place the candidates must leave the room and all remaining society members in the room will be allowed to vote. Ideally, this should be carried out in secret using the Single Transferable Vote system but a show of hands can be used if previously agreed with the Societies Development Coordinator at least two days in advance of the meeting. Unfortunately, voting by proxy or in advance is not allowed. Please also remember that you must include RON – re-open nominations!
In the event of a draw between candidates, a recount must be held. If there is still a draw, the election must be rerun using the STV method of voting (presuming it hasn’t already been used). Finally, if there are still any problems the returning officer (which unless previously named is automatically the previous Chair of the society) has the deciding vote.
Sometimes elections are not plain sailing and some members may want to dispute the results or integrity of the election. If this is the case they must send a signed letter of complaint to Charlie Glyn, the Students’ Union Activities and Development Officer, within three working days. This issue will then be discussed by the Executive whose decision is binding.
Please fill in a Society Registration form (found on the Resources page) – please note that this is different to the Setting up a Society form – and submit to the Sport and Societies Administrator. You will need to complete one of these forms any time you elect a new chair, treasurer or secretary .Once you have done this, the chair will be allocated the society email address (starting with su.soc…@lse.ac.uk), and you should receive an email from IT, asking you to pick up your login details.
For more information on this please see: https://lfylive.lse.ac.uk/lfy/tc/enquiries/enquiry.html?a=4&q=39680 and please also read the School’s IT Conditions of Use: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/intranet/LSEServices/divisionsAndDepartments/itservices/about/policies/home.aspx
It is not necessary for clubs to complete a registration form. If you have had a changeover in club captain, please let either the Sports Development Coordinator or the Sports and Societies Administrator know, and you will be allocated an AU club email address (starting with au.club…@lse.ac.uk).
If you receive a message from IT Services advising you that your club or society email address is about to expire, this is usually because the individual who the email account has been assigned to is graduating.
You will need to contact the Sports and Societies Administrator, ensuring that you have already returned your up-to-date registration forms to the SU with your exec details, and she will contact IT to reactivate your account. This can take up to 5 working days.
The Students’ Union provides a certain amount of funding for clubs and societies. Details of how to apply for grants is circulated to treasurers and there are several opportunities to claim throughout the year. Please see the Grant Request form on the Resources page, and contact Iain Pullar (societies) or Harriette Rothwell (clubs) for more details.
Looking for funding for a project? The Annual Fund might be able to help! The Annual Fund raises unrestricted funds from alumni, governors, parents, staff and friends of the School to support projects across campus that would otherwise not receive funding. Clubs and societies will be able to apply to the Annual Fund during Michaelmas Term and details of the process will be emailed out.
For more details visit: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/supportingLSE/achievements/LSEAnnualFund/Home.aspx
On top of the money the SU gives you, you can also approach businesses to sponsor you. This doesn’t have to be just for money though; some other free stuff you can wangle includes: food, venues, concert tickets and even frisbees amongst others. The most important thing is to tailor your sponsorship requests to the business you’re applying to, for example, if you wanted to put on a dance show you could approach dance supply stores to provide costumes.
All sponsorship deals must be signed by the Student Activities Manager. Send a copy of any contracts to Jarlath O’Hara in order for them to be checked and approved.
The AU has some sponsorship restrictions due to its sponsorship agreement with KPMG however this doesn’t mean club sponsorship is impossible. Please contact the Sports Development Coordinator for further information.
Once you have had your contract signed by the Student Activities Manager, we will arrange for an invoice to be sent out to the relevant company so that they can transfer the funds to the SU account. This will be automatically allocated to your club or society.
Should you wish to pay money into your club or society account by bank transfer, an invoice will need to be raised before you can do this, so that the funds can be allocated accordingly. We will need the following details:
Contact name
Contact email address and/or telephone number
Company name
Company address (including postcode)
Amount to be invoiced
Details as to what the payment is for (e.g. sponsorship for Knitting society event – January 2010)
If you would like to pay in cash from a fundraising event or similar, please pay this in to the Sports and Societies Administrator in the ARC, ensuring you know how much you have before depositing the money. Please note we do not accept personal cheques.
As long as you have the funds available and your project has been approved, we will be able to arrange payment of invoices for you if you bring them into the ARC. Please allow around 2 weeks for payments to be processed, and try to give us as much notice as possible if you are requesting a large amount to be paid. Note that at present, our payment run goes on a Wednesday morning (and payment will usually hit payees' accounts by the following Wednesday), so we require invoices to be submitted by 12pm on a Tuesday.
Fill out a payment request form (available online or from the ARC), staple relevant receipts to the back of your claims form and get your club or society treasurer to sign the form before handing in to us in the ARC (treasurers wishing to claim expenses of their own will need the president or secretary to sign off their forms).
If you have enough money in your club or society account, your request will be processed and providing you have given us bank account details and there are no queries regarding your claim, you should receive payment straight into your bank account. Note that at present, our payment run goes on a Wednesday morning (and payment will usually hit payees' accounts by the following Wednesday), so we require forms to be submitted by 12pm on a Tuesday. Please also note that if your claim is under £10, you will be reimbursed with petty cash from the till in the ARC.
If you are a club wishing to book a room in the school, please email the Sports Development Coordinator to arrange this. If you are a society, please fill in the Room Booking form as well as the Society Registration form (see Resources page) and return both of these documents to us. You will also need to attend the room booking talks held by Conferences in the first few weeks of term - dates to be publicised once confirmed.
Following this, you should expect to be set up with room booking rights within a week, and you will then be able to log onto LSEforyou and book rooms on behalf of your society.
Should you wish to book the MPR, you will firstly need to join the music society, which you can do at Orientation Fayre, online or in the ARC. To set yourself up as a user for the MPR, please see the MPR page on the school website and follow the instructions. An updated list of music society members will be sent weekly to the music subscription email address so that your music society membership can be verified. You will then be able to book the MPR via LSE4U.
Clubs and societies can usually use the Underground and Quad for free – just pop down to the Tuns bar to find any of the Commercial managers who will be happy to give you more information about this. Alternatively, please email Alex Bond for availability.
Please contact Heather Carroll about booking these facilities. Please note that clubs have block bookings and priority throughout the term and therefore time is extremely limited.
See the document on our Resources page for booking procedures.
There are two sources of catering that are available to societies wishing to order food or drinks for events – SU Catering and LSE Catering. Regardless of which type of catering you wish to order, please ensure you read the Schools' Guidance notes first.
Should you wish to book SU Catering, please have a look at the SU Catering pages, then contact Patience Ohabuiro to get a quote, fill out an SU Catering form and return to the Sports and Societies Administrator who will sign the form to confirm you have enough funds to pay for this and confirm the order with Patience. Orders made through SU Catering will usually have to be picked up from the SU unless prior arrangements have been made.
Should you wish to order LSE Catering, please either obtain a quote from Catering Services, or if you know exactly what you would like to order, fill in our LSE Catering form (found on the Resources page) and return this to the Sports and Societies Administrator, who will sign this to confirm you have enough funds to pay for this and return it to Catering Services who will then be able to confirm your order. For more information on where LSE Catering will deliver to, please see the Catering Services website.
When planning an event make sure to get in touch with us to discuss your ideas and to see how we can support you. The Students’ Union can help with budgeting, venues, publicity, and more.
Please contact your relevant development coordinator for more information.
Posters aren’t the only way to publicise your event – try to think about other ways to get your message out there. If you would like your event to be publicised in the weekly SU global mailout, please contact the SU Communications Manager. To get your event in LSE Student News, please contact Nicole Gallivan from LSE External Relations, attaching a completed copy of the Society Profile Questionnaire which can be found on our Resources page.
For ULU matches:
The administration of these fixtures is down to Team Captains but they are usually fixed for a Monday however can be rearranged upon agreement between both team captains according to ULU rules. It is important to keep on top of all fixtures and ensure that they are all played by the end of the season or else points may be needlessly lost which may drastically affect finishing league positions! Contacts for other university captains are listed in the ULU Handbook which you can pick up at the ARC at the beginning of term and/or are posted on Fixtures Live.
For BUCS matches:
It is the responsibility of the Sports Development Coordinator to arrange and organise all BUCS fixtures. However, it is the captains’ responsibility to inform her with as much notice as possible should there be any reason or request to rearrange the fixture. According to BUCS rules, all fixture confirmations have to be made 48 hours before the Wednesday fixture so the more notice captains can give for rearranging matches, the more likely the success of changing the date so that we do not incur any penalty points.
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BUCS General regulations which are applicable to all BUCS competing sports teams can be found here
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BUCS Sport Specific rules can be found here
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ULU rules can be found here
Please run all kit requests past Harriette Rothwell, the Sports Development Coordinator, before placing orders to ensure the kit is within the club budget. If kits have been agreed to be paid by the AU, we will need an invoice from the company or a receipt from the person who has purchased it in order to reimburse them. All playing kit needs to have the KPMG logo prominently placed on it. Please contact Harriette for logos and logo guides.
Certain members who have been designated website admins have access to update club/society webpages, send out emails, post pictures and blogs, create events and tickets and much, much more! Please let us know if you are having trouble doing any of this and we will do our best to help you!
Anyone who is currently a website admin can add and edit other admins so that new exec members can have access to sending out emails (please note this is totally separate from your club/society email address and any other systems). This is done by logging into your account on this website, selecting organisations/admin then selecting the 'groups' tab. If you click into the group that you want to change, e.g. President, you can select new members to fall under this category.
You can also create new Exec member groups that will automatically have admin rights - for instance if you want to add a Social Secretary or Vice President. You just need to remember to add people into these groups so that they get access to the admin privileges.
All club, society and media mail is sent to the ARC unless it is too bulky to fit in our pigeonholes. If you are expecting a delivery of large or bulky items, please confirm with Josephine Sesay that it is OK to get these items delivered to the Students’ Union, as there is limited storage, especially around Freshers’ Week.