Introduction

This article isn't designed to be an exhaustive list of how to complete re-affiliation, but it offers some advice and support to enable you and your colleagues on the exec to complete the process.

The first thing to note is that the Students' Union is here to offer advice and support to enable your society to carry out the activities you enjoy most. You have a dedicated team of staff here to support you, all of whom are experienced in being on Exec positions, running activities, events and supporting students. You are welcome to call and see us anytime during your time as an Exec.

The Students' Union office is based at the University House , at end of the Learning Zone.

We hold drop-in sessions every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon from 12pm until 4pm, so, please, come in and   speak to us. We also work on a reduced basis during the holidays, so we are here to help you all year around.

You can also email us with questions (although you will get a speedier response if you come to our drop-in sessions).

COVID-19 Update: Because of the impact of COVID-19, staff support at the Union is  reduced. Drop-in sessions are help online at least until the beginning of Term 2, please send questions and queries into help@lancastersu.co.uk.

What is Re-affiliation?

Society Re-affiliation supports an effective handover between current and incoming Exec and prepare all societies for accepting new members during the summer and Welcome Week. It is consists of necessary completion of activity planning, activity reviews, financial management, health and safety management, and governance of the society.

Furthermore, as one of the Exec members of an affiliated society, you are also one of the student leaders within a registered UK charity, and so have certain obligations. You are asked to complete re-affiliation for your society to ensure that your group is meeting these obligations.

The Process of Re-affiliating your society is broken down into 2 key areas:

1. Individual Exec Training

There are a number of short training modules to work through covering key areas such as Health and Safety, Equality and Diversity, as well as Data Protection. The combined time for completing the training modules is approximately 2 hours.

It is compulsory for ALL your registered Exec Members to complete these to successfully re-affiliate the society for the next academic year.

2. Required Re-affiliation Documents

We ask you to submit certain documents that should have been developed as part of the handover to the new Exec team. This includes an 

• Annual Activity Plan.
• Forecasted Annual Budget, which accounts for all of your projected income and expenditure.
• Up to date society bank account details and signatories.
• A terms of reference/constitution the group has.
• Any other documents which you may wish to submit (e.g. risk assessment).

Re-affiliation must be completed by the end of Week 30 in order to be an official Lancaster University Society in the following academic year, and have a stall at Freshers' Fair.

Here is a quick guide to the tasks you need to complete as part of Society Reaffiliation:

1. Register the New Exec with the Students' Union

In order to ensure that you receive all the correct information and opportunities to get involved with uni life at Lancaster, we need to ensure that we have the correct contact details for your current exec.

You can complete this online form and it will send the information directly to us.

You will need to know the library card number, and contact details (including the @lancaster.ac.uk email address) for ALL the exec members.

2. Get the bank account transferred to the new exec!

Ensure this is done ASAP, before any of the old exec leave Lancaster. 

It can be quite a long and tedious process, so start as early as possible!

Most bank accounts require at least two signatories. You can have more people named on the account. All these people will need to provide a photo ID and proof of address to the bank. They will be credit checked.

It may be worth discussing this straight after elections to ensure that everyone meets the criteria to hold a UK bank account. That way, any potential issues can be addressed as early as possible.

3. Familiarise yourself with your group area on lancastersu.co.uk (Union Cloud) and make the necessary updates

With over 9,000 memberships processed through the Students' Union website each year, this is a great way to recruit members and manage your society.

Every group manages their own pages on the website, so you control what people see about your group. You can also sell memberships and tickets with no card transaction fees. All events that you create and promote through the website also feed into iLancaster, giving your group even more visibility. You can link social media pages too.

Apart from visiting the guidance pages, you can also email the dedicated Support Team and arrange to meet with them for one-to-one support.

4. Ensure you all understand your individual roles and expectations within the group

This might sound obvious, but it's worth having a discussion at one of your first meetings to ensure that there is a true understanding of everyone role involves. That way, if there is anything you were unaware of, or need support with, then you can discuss this with each other (or the Students' Union) early on in your time in the role.

We would also encourage you to discuss your motivations for wanting to be on the Exec, so you can get a better understanding of the group dynamic.

5. Ensure the handover is completed with the past exec, and that any important information is passed on

Each incoming exec has a different handover experience. Some receive valuable and useful information, whilst others receive virtually nothing!

You may want to ask questions such as:

• What events they have committed to in the future?
• What is the current bank balance?
• What worked well last year?
• What do they wish they had done differently?
• What advice would they give you?

6. Plan your activity

For a start, in order to plan your society finances, it is vital to ensure you know on what you're going to spend money! Thus, planning your activity ensures that you charge the correct membership fees, allow your members to budget for trips enables to have an understanding about the spaces you would need throughout the year.

Additionally, planning your activity will give an understanding if you would need any additional funding fora specific event. If you need additional funding, it is important that you apply for this early on in the year. You can apply up to a year ahead, and we can ensure that the cash is saved for you.

If you apply late, we may have run out of cash - remember there are over 200 other groups who can apply for this funding!

If you want to hold a big show, or event, then space can be difficult to find. By requesting the space early, then you have a significantly higher chance of securing the space. The later you leave this, the less likely it is that the space will be available.

If you want to invite a special guest or speaker to campus, you may need to ensure that they are booked well in advance. You may also have to book transport or hotels for them too.

Below is a full year plan, so as an exec you can use this as a template to plan your activity.

Start by describing the activity that you would like to do. Once you have got the full year planned, you can then start to look at the logistics.

Once you've agreed on the completed activity plan, and all agreed on what your activities will, you can then start to think about the expenditure and income from each activity, and compile the annual budget.

7. Compile the budget

Previously, there have been a countless number of groups who have miscalculated the cost of an event or activity, and found the society in significant financial difficulty. As a consequence, this has added stress, upset and worry to the experience of running a society.

We fully appreciate that everyone has different experience, and knowledge, and we work with whatever knowledge you may have!If you're confused or worried about anything, then you must speak to us!  

You can start to put together the income and expenditure for the year by using the completed activity plan, membership numbers for last year and target members for the coming year.

You may have opportunities to gain some additional income, either through charging a little more for events, or membership, sponsorship, or even paid opportunities through the Students' Union.

Hints and tips:

• Get at least three quotes for high expenditure.
• Talk about the procedure for spending the money. Can people claim it back from you? How will you agree the smaller items for expenditure?
• If you are required to sign any contracts, ask the Union's Commercial Manager's advice! There may be some hidden clauses in there!
• Do you need to reconsider the society membership fee?
• Is this a sustainable budget? Will it bring in enough cash? Would you need additional funding from the Students' Union?
• Ask for help! If there is anything at all of which you are unsure or just want need advice, then come and see us! Just because something has been in a certain way in the past, it does not mean you have to do it that way!

8. Ensure that the relevant people have completed mandatory training

You will need to ensure that you have completed the following online training courses:

• Online duty of care training 
• Online data protection training

Failure to complete the training could result in your society being disaffiliated with Lancaster University and the Students' Union.

9. Come into the Students' Union office and say "Hi"!

We really enjoy working with our student groups. Coming along to a session means we get to share what you enjoy and could help us to create even better opportunities for you in the future!

The dedicated Societies' Support Team has over three decades of experience between us, and we like to think we have seen and heard it all before. We will always try to do our best to help, or just listen.

We welcome feedback on what we can do to help too, so please do let us know how we need to improve.

We work full time, 52 weeks a year, so there should always be someone available to help.

There are also drop-in's every weekday afternoon during term time. Just come into the Students' Union office.

Video to help with Re-affiliation

This video has been created to help you through the re-affiliation process with a step by step guide on how to complete the group documentation and add information to Union Cloud as well as FAQs and tips and support. If you can't access the video, you will need to log into Microsoft Stream using your @lancaster email address and re-load the page. 

Contents:

1:20- What is re-affiliation?

4:18- How to complete re-affiliation

5:37- Moodle space walk through

20:42- Union Cloud checklist

25:45- Tips and Support

33:15- FAQs

Link to the presentation slides

Finally...

Network with other societies.

You are not competing, you're all student leaders, you are all colleagues. So, please collaborate, share ideas, and work together to continue making Lancaster an amazing place to be a student!

There is a dedicated Societies Federations Team, so please do join.