Create a Group

We advise you take the following steps to check your idea so that it doesn't get rejected when it gets to the committee.

• Check it against the criteria for starting a new group
• If it is similar to other societies or clubs, contact them and discuss your idea. You may have to slightly mould what you do so you can be different. We expect to have spoken to other groups and to tell who you have spoken to specifically, in your application!
• Are you better off being a society or a campaign group? We have been working with the campaigns team to outline some guidance to help distinguish between whether your group is a society or campaign group.
• If you are linked to an external organisation you will need to show how you are independent of them. You are not allowed to be governed by them as you are an LSESU society. You also cannot just market on their behalf your society must have activities that provide opportunities for students.

Who is going to run the committee with you?

You may already have some friends who are keen to support you in setting up your new group. They may have even come up with the idea with you. This makes life easy. The next step is to assign roles. The three founders need to be put in to the following roles:

• President
• Treasurer
• Secretary

You can have other committee roles too but you will need to recruit these later down the line once the group is approved. When thinking about your committee structure you can look at our role profiles on our hub. https://lsesu.training/committee-training-guide/

Getting 17 student to sign up for interest or recruiting other committee members

For the application you need 3 founders and 17 students who register their interest in this group being created. If you don’t already have other LSE students who are interested, there are ways in which you can connect with students to get them to support you. You will need their student ID’s.

• You can try asking others on your course
• You can reach out to other similar societies and ask them to promote this for you
• You can put a post out on our various facebook groups
• If none of these work, you can contact us and we can arrange some promotion for you. (but we will want to see proof that the other avenues haven't worked)

All you need are the students' names and ID so do not collect any other sensitive information. We advise you to keep these records yourself.

You now need to think about the operations and delivery of your new group. Here are a list of things to think about:

• What regular activity will we offer our members?
• What events do we want to offer?
• How much will all of these ideas cost?
• Are there any potential sponsors we can reach out to?
• How can we make this financially sustainable?
• What spaces or equipment will we need to do these activities?
• Are there any legal or health and safety implications to do this activity?

 

Top Tips To Help you Out

Starting a new club or society can be a daunting process for some, however we think it can also be one of the most positive experiences of student life at LSE! Here are some tips we feel could be helpful when starting a new group.

• If you are not sure what regular activities or events you could put on within your group, then have a look around at other student's Unions websites as there will most likely be the same or a similar society at another institution. Or look at similar community based organisations!
• Worried about finding a facility for your new sport? Speak to local clubs all over London, the same club at another London University or the Sports Development Coordinator. There will most likely be somewhere for your activity to happen
• Not sure how you are going to fund your activity? Lots of groups are funded by sponsors, look at similar groups pages and contact the same sponsors.

To start a new student group there are a number of legal documents that have to be completed to ensure the activity you plan is governed properly, delivered safely and primarily is of a high quality for students.

Please look at the information below, complete the attached templates and attach them to your group application form. If you are not sure, please follow the support links provided for training or contact the Student Activities Team on su.activities@lse.ac.uk

1. To ensure your activities are safe you have to complete a risk assessment for your activities. If you are not sure how to complete this, please head to our Health and Safety Training for Committees and this should be able to help.
2. Create a draft constitution; this will need to be uploaded to your application form. You can find templates on the student documentation page.
   • Student Group Documents
3. All groups should financially plan their activities for approximately the first year. You should consider all aspects of running a group such as membership, finance, events, facilities and much more. Please provide a breakdown of this in your application form.

Now you have taken the starting steps along your journey to creating your new group, it is time to submit an application form. Your application will be taken to the next Activities Committee. The Activities Committee week every 2 weeks during term time and you find out more information about the committee here.

Submit Your Application

Once they have reviewed your application at the next committee, a member of staff will get back to you regarding whether your application was approved or rejected with reasoning.

If approved, you will be assigned a member of staff within the team to support your development process.

Unfortunately, if your application was rejected there is no appeals process. If there is a similar group to yours, we would advise talking to them about whether your idea could be a potential sub-committee or venture for them.