Management Group Manual
imperialcollegeunion.org
Management Group Manual Page 1 imperialcollegeunion.org/training
Contents Contents
2
Introduction
3
Imperial College Union
4
General Financial Information
9
Approving Expenditure
12
Approving Budgets
18
Other Finance Things
21
Dormancy
23
Frozen Accounts
24
Updating Mailing Lists
25
Online Resources for Groups
25
eActivities for Management Groups
27
Meetings
33
Management Group Meetings
37
Documentation Deadlines
43
Appendix 1 – Useful Contacts
48
Appendix 2 – Union Structure
52
Appendix 3 – Honorary Senior Treasurers
53
Appendix 4 – Transaction Codes
55
© 2011 - Imperial College Union Version 2.0 - 24 June 2011 Management Group Manual Page 2 imperialcollegeunion.org/training
Introduction Congratulations on being elected to be a Management Group officer or if you are thinking of becoming one, good luck. This is a really great opportunity to help the students running Clubs, Societies or Projects which are under the control of your Management Group, as well as getting really involved with the Union. Your work does not go unnoticed! Being a Management Group officer can be demanding at times, but it shouldn’t ruin your degree; it is important to find the right balance for you. The good news is that you aren’t alone, and you’re part of a big team, some of whom have been doing this for years. This means that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help, particularly if you have any big deadlines or exams coming up, and hopefully be in a position to help some of your peers if they get into the same situation. Similarly, if there is something you don’t know, please don’t be afraid to ask- it’s much better to ask beforehand if you are unsure than do something wrong, and there is always bound to be someone who knows the answer.
Monya Zard Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) E: dpcs@imperial.ac.uk T: 020 7594 1763, extension: 41763
Michael Foster Deputy President (Finance & Services) E: dpfs@imperial.ac.uk T: 020 7594 8060, extension: 58062
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Imperial College Union The Sabbatical Officers The Union is run by students, for students. Every year, during the spring term, a campus-wide election takes place where every full member of the Union (i.e. a full-time UG/PG student) can stand and/or vote for who will be running their Union for the next year. There are five Union Sabbaticals. The Sabbatical Officers are: • President: Ultimately responsible for everything in the Union. As a Management Group officer you mainly come into contact with the President at meetings, such as Union Council, or a payment of over £1000 needs counterapproval.
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• Deputy President (Clubs & Societies): Responsible for looking after and representing all the Clubs, Societies & Projects in the Union. Also organises Freshers’ Fair. This is the Sabbatical with whom you have the most contact and to whom you should address all your Club-related queries, unless they are specifically finance things. • Deputy President (Finance & Services): Responsible for the Union’s money and budgets. If you have any financial queries from clubs that you cannot answer, they are the one to ask. They also run the Ents Committee which is a termly meeting that reviews and approves Clubs holding events in Metric, and deal with approving items in
Imperial College Union cont... the website shop. • Deputy President (Welfare): Responsible for looking after all welfare related activities the Union undertakes. This is the Sabbatical to whom you should address all your equal opportunities or campaining queries to. • Deputy President (Education): Responsible for all the academic representation the Union carries out. You will rarely need to contact them on Club, Society or Project matters. There are two other officers on sabbatical who work for the Union for a year: • Felix Editor: Responsible for ensuring that Felix, the student newspaper, is written and printed every week. As a publication which is read by nearly everyone in the College, this is an excellent place to encourage clubs, societies or projects to advertise. Adverts cost money to put in felix, but match, trip and tour reports do not, though these are subject to space constraints. • ICSMSU President: Responsible for running the Imperial College School of Medicine Student Union. While the Sabbatical team work full time, as a Management Group officer you are the most important link between Club, Society & Project officers and them. For the majority of the time, you will be a group’s first port of call if they have
any issues, but it’s also good for you to be aware of when groups are doing well which they sometimes forget to tell you! You should familiarise yourself with the types of potential challenges likely to affect your Clubs, Societies or Projects and be ready to offer advice and guidance, or be able to redirect them to someone who can. For this reason, you need to ensure that all of your Clubs, Societies or Projects know your officer email address (eg. acc.chair@ imperial.ac.uk), and you should check this regularly. More often than not, you’ll receive emails with some of the more day to day questions, like how to hand in paperwork or when will a payment be ready. If information gets sent out to groups from someone other than yourself, please make sure to read it as well because you may receive questions about it later. On the other hand, the Union does appreciate that you’ve got a degree to do. If there is anything, like questions that you don’t know how to answer or an issue that you don’t have time to resolve, feel free to pass these up to the most appropriate member of staff or sabbatical who will be able to help you out. Often you won’t be the one specifically making a decision, but more helping to implement those decisions that have been made.
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Imperial College Union cont... Management Groups There are close to 300 Clubs, Societies & Projects, which are generically known as ‘groups’, in the Union. They are divided, according to theme, into Management Groups. There are 14 Management Groups which include Clubs & Societies Committees (CSC), Faculty Unions (FU), Constituent Unions (CU), President’s Committees (PC) as well as the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA). With regards to groups these all sit at the same level Constitutionally. Some Management Groups have other additional responsibilities, and structures to reflect this. As a Management Group officer, you play an integral part in the Union in helping with the administration of groups. Clubs & Societies Committees •A thletic Clubs Committee (ACC) looks after all competitive sports and martial arts Clubs & Societies. •A rts & Entertainments Board (AEB) looks after all arts and entertainments type Clubs & Societies for anything like music, performing or visual arts. •M edia Group looks after all the media Clubs & Societies. •O verseas Societies Committee (OSC) looks after all the overseas Clubs & Societies. •R ecreational Clubs Committee (RCC) looks after all recreational type sports & activity Clubs & Societies. •S ocial Clubs Committee (SCC) looks
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after all common interest Clubs & Societies (including religious, political and discussion based). Faculty Unions Imperial College Union has three Faculty Unions. These student organisations are a fundamental component of the Union’s
Imperial College Union cont... welfare and representation provision. Each Union represents the students within that Faculty: • Royal College of Science Union (RCSU) represents student scientists. • City and Guilds College Union (CGCU) represents student engineers and students in the Business School. • Imperial College School of Medicine Students’ Union (ICSMSU) represents medical students.
President’s Committees • Raising & Giving (RAG) looks after projects of a charitable nature and raising money for charities itself. • Community Action Group (CAG) looks after projects of a volunteering or outreach nature.
Together these three organisations represent every Full Member of Imperial College Union. Constituent Unions • Royal School of Mines is a constituent Union of City & Guilds College Union. It looks after the Clubs & Societies with a historic connection to the Royal School of Mines. • Silwood Union is a constituent Union of the Royal College of Science Union and looks after the activities of the Clubs & Societies which are based at the Silwood Park campus. Graduate Students’ Association The GSA is like a Faculty Union in that it covers much of the same areas, but its members are all Postgraduate students. It looks after Clubs & Societies that have specific links with the postgraduate community, either geographically or course specifically.
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Imperial College Union cont... Management Group
Group Chair
Treasurer
ACC
Henry Abbot acc.chair@imperial.ac.uk
Philip Sandwell acc.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
AEB
Chandana Shankar ae.chair@imperial.ac.uk
Henry Whittaker ae.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
CAG
Heather Jones cag.chair@imperial.ac.uk
cag.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
CGCU
Jacky Kwan engineering.president@imperial.ac.uk
Patrick Pang vpfs@imperial.ac.uk
GSA
Robert Tang gsa.chair@imperial.ac.uk
Georgious Makkoulis gsa.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
ICSMSU
Florence Chamberlain medic.clubsandsocs@imperial.ac.uk
Peter Davis medic.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
Media
Charles Betts media.chair@imperial.ac.uk
Frank MacHin media.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
OSC
Wenjun Er osc.chair@imperial.ac.uk
Theodoros Stylianides osc.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
RAG
Jack Hewitt rag.chair@imperial.ac.uk
rag.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
RCC
Joakim Scharp rcc.chair@imperial.ac.uk
Gareth Naylor rcc.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
RCSU
Luke Kanczes rcsu.president@imperial.ac.uk
Karmen Chiu rcsu.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
RSM
Richard Simons rsm.president@imperial.ac.uk
Alexander Karvelas rsm.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
SCC
Kajann Prathapan scc.chair@imperial.ac.uk
Rebecca Clark scc.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
silwood.chair@imperial.ac.uk
silwood.treasurer@imperial.ac.uk
Silwood
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General Financial Information Financial Responsibility As a Management Group officer, you should be familiar with the levels of Financial Responsibility that officers have. This is shown in the diagram below: £0
Club/Society/Project Chair or Treasurer
£20 £1,000
Management Group Chair or Treasurer
£50,000 £500,000
Deputy President (Finance & Services)
Executive Committee Trustee Board
The way these levels of authority practically translate are when you are approving expenditure. Depending on how much a claim is for will determine who needs to authorise it. Most of the time, claims will be within your financial responsibility limits, but see the section on processing claims for full instructions.
Treasurer, it is necessary to complete the Key Information, Principal Officers, Finance Overview, Finance Operations, Requesting Spaces and Marshalling training, both so you know the content for yourself and so that you can answer any questions that groups may have. After completing the eLearning it’s necessary to validate learning by doing the associated quizzes that have a 70% pass mark. These are open book, and can be done as many times as necessary in order to pass. Only once these are done can an officer sign a Financial Responsibility form. These are one of the few pieces of physical documentation the Union still requires, most other information is collected by online submission. By signing this form, it holds the person responsible for that year’s accounts, for the following seven years so it must be taken seriously.
Training Quizzes & Forms Budgeting Advice & Helping Groups In order to gain financial responsibility, and thus be able to authorise any expenditure, either as a Management Group officer or at a group level, you must first do some training. This should create an awareness of how the Union’s systems work. Details of the training required can be found online at imperialcollegeunion.org/training. As a Management Group Chair or
Every year, a couple of groups struggle with their finances for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s a case of mismanagement, other times it’s a combination of unfortunate factors. Either way, the Union takes groups in debt very seriously and relies on Management Group officers to help groups to try to avoid that situation.
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General Financial Information cont... It is important to make clear to groups that if they don’t have the money in their account then they can’t spend that amount – the Union doesn’t run an overdraft service. If a group that has been having trouble wants to spend some money, the first thing to do is ask to see a budget, or get the group to put one together if they haven’t already got one. If they’ve suffered from mismanagement in the past, this is a good exercise for them. A template for this can be found at imperialcollegeunion.org/forms. For some groups, this will be enough for them to see where their shortcomings are. You may have to help them by prompting them to think of all their expenses - some aspects like post-event cleaning get forgotten; or help them to think of other methods of getting income. Encourage them to think creatively, but realistically. Helping Groups with Internal Grants And Sponsorship The Imperial College (IC) Trust The IC Trust currently considers applications from students in respect of conference funding (i.e. funding to attend conferences where the student is presenting or giving a poster presentation) and from students or groups of students in respect of other activities (excluding tours, equipment
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and expeditions in respect of which IC Trust already provides funding indirectly) Information about the IC Trust, eligibility and processes are online at http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/secretariat/ governance/committees/ictrust Harlington Grants Committee The Harlington Grants Committee has money to award to student groups, which has been accumulated from money received from gravel extraction at Harlington Sports Grounds. The awards help to finance new or improved facilities and equipment but will not meet the running costs of a Club, Society or Project. It does not replace lost or stolen equipment. Additionally, it will not support tours. Each year, the Committee awards approximately £50,000. The Union President is a member of the Committee. Tips For both of these sources, there are a couple of points to note: • I t is worthwhile for a Management Group officer to read over an application before it is submitted. With some oversight of which groups have applied for what, it may be the case that you can help share best practice between potential applicants. • I f an application the the Harlington Trust is successful, then a group may only apply to the same fund in three
General Financial Information cont... years time. There are some situations when this can be overlooked, but its best to consult with the Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) if a group thinks this might apply to them. • There is no deadline for applications, but the committees do meet a couple of times a year, so check with the Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) when the next one is. •M oney is sometimes quite slow to appear in the accounts of a Club, Society or Project which has been given an award from these sources. However, it’s helpful if an application is successful, to forward the confirmation email to the Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) so that the Union can chase this up if necessary. •A Management Group Executive Committee can also apply for money from these sources, but all of the Clubs, Societies or Projects in the Management Group should have access to the benefits equally, e.g. a Sports First Aid course open to anyone in an ACC Club. Sponsorship Clubs, Societies & Projects should always be encouraged to look for sponsorship because the less they rely on the Union to keep costs down, the better. There is a Sponsorship booklet with stepwise instructions and advice at imperialcollegeunion.org/training. The best way that you can help groups is by
looking at their covering letters and the packages they are offering companies in return for sponsorship. You can be the impartial reviewer to say whether you think this is realistic and offer improvements, particularly once you’ve seen a couple from your groups and have seen what’s worked. If there is a deadline that a group needs the money for, they should really start the process at least six months before that deadline to give themselves enough time to prepare applications. Encourage groups to keep you updated if they do get sponsored and remind them to fill this in on the form when it comes to budgeting. Any sponsorship contract must be signed off by the Deputy President (Finance & Services). Finally, remind all groups that they should not spend any sponsorship money until it is in their account as it sometimes takes a lot of chasing up for this to happen. If groups have any queries about invoicing companies or chasing sponsorship money, these are best directed to the Deputy President (Finance & Services) via email or in a booked meeting. Information about raising invoices can be found in the Finance Operations training.
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Approving Expenditure Management Group Chairs and Treasurers have Financial Responsibility over all of the Clubs, Societies or Projects contained within that Management Group. They have Financial Responsibility up to £1000, and have a very important role in approving expenditure for Clubs, Societies & Projects. This work is primarily the responsibility of the Treasurer and sometimes an Assistant Treasurer, though often the Chair will need to assist during busy periods. This forms a large part of the role of a Management Group, and it is crucial this work is carried out accurately and efficiently. Definition: “Cheque runs” are the process by which the Union turns a Claim Form into a cheque to reimburse a group member or to pay a company for goods or services. Reviewing Claim Forms A Management Group Chair or Treasurer will review all Claim forms from the Clubs, Societies or Projects in their Management Group; together with giving approval to any over £20. There are some things to remember when reviewing expenditure forms are: •M ake sure that the Club, Society or Project has the money they are trying to claim in their accounts, if they don’t then say NO. You should have the
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online transaction pages open when reviewing Claim Forms. Make sure there is money where they are asking for it to come from. If there isn’t money there, you should reject it, and ask them to contact you regarding whether they would like to take the money from somewhere else, or make other arrangements. •M ake sure the receipts or invoices add up to the total amount that they are claiming for on the form. Sometimes the better trained clubs start to make this confusing by separating things out into an item funded by Grant and the rest of the same item’s cost being made up from Self Generated Income (SGI). While this is perfectly acceptable, it takes a bit of getting your head around, this level of attention to detail is to be encouraged. Though, it might be worth asking them to leave you a note in the ‘notes’ box on the form just to clarify what it is they are doing. •M ake sure the Club, Society or Project hasn’t got frozen accounts - you can tell if they have frozen accounts because there will be a red box in the details summary page on eActivities. This will indicate which committee members have not completed the correct training or purchased membership. Don’t approve expenditure until they have done that paperwork. •C lubs, Societies & Projects have financial authority of up to £20. Anything up to this you shouldn’t really
to be doubly sure of all of the above. If you are a Management Group officer, and the claim is for you, then you should let the other Management Group officer sign off the claim. •A bove £1000, all of the above still applies, but the Deputy President (Finance & Services) also needs to sign it off. Raising Cheques During 2011 the Union is moving to online approval of claims, the details of which will be avaiable over the summer. It is useful to include this section though about the more traditional method of writing cheques for make payments.
interfere with, unless it’s something dodgy – eg. they are claiming from Union Grant for food & drink (see finance regulations). In that situation feel free to amend the form rather than reject it outright. You can bring up that sort of thing in your next Management Group meeting and give your groups pointers on the things they are consistently getting wrong. •F or Claims between £20 - £1000, the group Chair or Treasurer approves the expenditure, but someone at a Management Group level also needs to sign it off i.e. either the Management Group Chair or Treasurer. At this stage you’re putting your name on it, so best
After reviewing all the Claim Forms, as per the previous section, the next stage is to write cheques and have them approved for all suitably authorised claims. Set a day and time that works for you to process claims and write cheques – groups should also regard this as a time when they can come talk to you about their finances. If this day changes for any reason eg. a different day or you have to miss a week, please email your groups to tell them this! Process: 1. Go through all the Claim Forms which you have received, checking the points
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Approving Claims cont... discussed in the previous section – particularly the supporting paperwork. 2. For Claims Forms over £20, sign the Management Group box if you are happy. Over £1000, put them to one side and bring them as one pile to the Deputy President (Finance & Services) to approve. 3. Ask the Clubs & Societies Finance Officer for your Management Group cheque book and write out cheques which correspond to the suitably approved Claim Forms you have. Don’t forget to write the cheque numbers on the corresponding expenditure form. Once you’ve written the cheque, tuck the expenditure form in front of it in the cheque book so that the Honorary Senior Treasurer (HST) can refer to it in the next stages.
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4. Call your Honorary Senior Treasurer and make sure that they are in to sign the cheques. If yours isn’t in, then try one of the others but yours should be the preferred one that you try first. This is partly why it helps to have the same time each week. Contacts for all the HSTs can be found in Appendix 3. 5. Go and see the HST who usually will sign the cheques there and then with you there. Sometimes they are pretty busy and ask to look after the cheque book until the following morning. 6. Come back to the Union. If you have cheques over £1000, you now need to see the Union President who will counter-sign the cheque (i.e. you’ll have
Name of Club, Society or Project
Amount written in text followed by the word “only”
Payee
Amount written in text followed by the word “only”
Date cheque is written
Signature of Honorary Senior Treasurer
Signature of President or Operations Manager if ≥ £1000
Approving Claims cont... How to Write a Cheque
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Processing Claims cont...
Initials of HST signing the cheque
Cheque number
Cheque date
What to Write on a Claim Form
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Processing Claims cont... 2 signatures on one cheque). If the President isn’t in, then the other person who can do this the Union Operations Manager. 7. Tear out all of the signed cheques and deposit them in your Management Group pigeon hole where representatives of Clubs, Societies & Projects should pick them up from. 8. Make sure the Claim Forms are still in the correct order tucked in the cheque book, then give this pile back to the Clubs & Societies Finance Officer. 9. Please send an email to your Clubs, Societies or Projects to say that you have completed your cheque run and if they are expecting cheques they can come to pick it up. If there were any that you rejected you must email those groups with the reasoning so they can remedy the problems. This is the end of your involvement in the process.
Aziz Bilgrami Clubs & Societies Finance Officer E: clubs.finance@imperial.ac.uk T: 020 7594 1514, extension: 41514
10. The Clubs & Societies Finance Officer will process all of the Claim Forms within the next week, before you do this all again, making the deductions appear on the relevant Club, Society or Project transaction pages.
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Approving Budgets If a Club, Society or Project is hoping to put on an event or activity which incorporates expenditure and income they should be putting together a budget. If the total expenditure comes to over £20, then the Management Group Chair or Treasurer will have to approve the budget, and similarly if the expenditure comes to over £1000 then the Deputy President (Finance & Services) also needs to approve it. A budget template can be found online at imperialcollegeunion.org/forms. The template has space for fixed and variable income and expenditure. Examples of each of these are as follows: • Variable expenditure: Number of dinners. This will depend on how many people attend an event, and should be a cost per person. • Fixed expenditure: Venue hire or deposits. No matter how many people attend, the price of the venue won’t change, and deposits won’t always be refunded if the event doesn’t end up going ahead. • Variable income: Ticket sales. Each person coming will buy a ticket, so you have to make sure you charge enough that in a scenario where fewer than expected people attend, your fixed costs will still be covered. • Fixed income: A sponsorship deal. If a group does manage to secure a sponsorship deal, it is usually for a lump sum, rather than per person. Hopefully
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this will be able to reduce the cost for the attendees. The template form then puts together a graph of how many people need to attend to break even or make a profit, as well as the cost of the event per person. Clubs, Societies or Projects should not be running their events or activities with the intention of making a loss even if they are aware of this in advance. If the Union has provided money to subsidise an event through the group’s annual Grant allocation then this amount should be entered in the fixed income section, in the same way as sponsorship would. When looking over a budget that a Club, Society or Project has put together, make sure that all of the expenditure and income has been put in the correct sections. Feel free to question the group
and see if they’ve thought of everything - sometimes they forget to include things like setting up or cleaning up costs which take place before or after the event. Other things that you can look for is whether they have looked for competitive quotes for their areas of expenditure which can be a good way of keeping costs down. As a Management Group Chair or Treasurer, you can remind the group that the amounts that they have used to put together the budget should be the amount that they give to the other officers on the committee of what they can spend. For example if another committee person is in charge of decorations, they could be given a budget of £100 for decorations. That officer should then not exceed that value with their spending. Sometimes costs or values do change
though, and there are two ways of minimising the risk to the event or activity. The budget can include an expenditure line for a contingency amount to give some flexibility, which is an amount of money in the budget that can be dipped into if things do turn out to be more expensive. The downside of this is that this can lead to a false sense of security. Alternatively, groups can budget in a ‘worst case scenario’ way, for example, budgeting for the more expensive option, though seeking the less expensive option where possible. This can lead to prices being higher than necessary for attendees which can put some people off. If done successfully however, this method can result in a significant surplus if the flexibility is not used. Finally, it is important to remember that once a budget is completed, it doesn’t have to be set in stone. If things change as time progresses, then the budget can be updated to reflect this. If things are projected to be more costly than the initial estimate, then a Management Group Chair or Treasurer should take another look at the budget as you have effectively approved the expenditure up to the amount that was originally stated. If it looks lower than original estimate, then it is advisable though not essential. Assuming appropriate caution was taken in the early stages, this should only serve to give the group a more accurate picture of the financial outcome of the event. Management Group Manual Page 19 imperialcollegeunion.org/training
Approving Budgets cont... Common Things to Look out for Tours In some instances, Clubs, Societies & Projects who are organising major tours will appear on the transaction pages to have a very healthy SGI balance. You need to be careful that the money being collected as payments for the tour, which will appear under their tour activity code, isn’t masking their true SGI balance. Their general funds, under activity code 00 could be well into the red, being covered up by a large positive balance elsewhere when you look at all the totals. Deduct any money in a tour activity code from the SGI total to see if the group is overspent or not. If it is, don’t let them spend any more money! Events For every event Clubs, Societies or Projects within your Management Group run and within your authorisation limit, you should receive a budget. It’s up to you to scrutinize this budget and give it your approval. There are unforeseen circumstances which may occur like the event costing more than what was originally budgeted for, or not enough people turning up to the event to break even. Another thing to note is that sometimes a Club, Society or Project may wish to run an event at a loss, and break even by using some of their SGI. This is fine,
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but the amount by which the group has agreed to subsidise the event by should appear in the budget as a fixed income item. General Sometimes Club, Society or Project members will pay for something and try to claim it back later. You may be inclined to think that even if this would lead their group into a negative SGI situation, we would have to pay them back. This is true, however it needs to be noted that the Club, Society or Project Chair and Treasurer are responsible for paying this money back, as they would have approved the expenditure before it reaches you. In the worst case scenario the group’s Chair or Treasurer won’t qualify to graduate university until this is rectified.
Other Finance Things Purchase Order Processing
Payment by Credit Card
As well as approving expenditure for claims, Financial Responsibility extends to using approving purchase orders up to the same levels. Purchase orders are a formal agreement between the Union and a supplier to supply goods or services for an agreed fee, and a guarantee that the Union will pay the bill for these goods or services when the invoice arrives.
Financial Responsibility also entitles holders to approve payments by the Union’s Credit Card, up to the same limits. Paying for items by the Union’s Credit Card is encouraged to secure the best online deals; details of the process are given in the Finance Operations booklet.
Chairs and Treasurers of Management Groups have a responsibility to approve Purchase Orders for over £20, in the same way they have a responsibility to approve claims. The process for doing this however is very different. During 2011 the Union will be rolling out an extension to the eActivities online system for creating and approving purchase orders. Full details of this system can be found in the booklet entitled eActivities for Finance. The advantage of using Purchase Orders is that once the order is approved and the goods have been received a Club, Society or Project does not need to worry about arranging payment for the invoice – this will be taken care of automatically by the Clubs & Societies Finance Officer.
Almost certainly the amounts will be for more than £20, therefore the forms will need approving by a Management Group Chair or Treasurer. Once someone who wishes to use the Union’s Credit Card has completed the request form they must take this to the Union Head of Finance, who will process the payments. Credit card payments also require the approval of the Deputy President (Finance & Services), regardless of their value. Online Sales By default all Clubs, Societies & Projects should be taking payments online, not by cash or cheque. Taking payments online is quicker, safer and automatically generates receipts for the purchasers and reports for the Club, Society or Project Treasurer. Items can be added to the online shop on the Union’s website imperialcollegeunion.org, details are given in the Workbench booklet. Management Group Manual Page 21 imperialcollegeunion.org/training
Other Finance Things cont... Money from online sales is transferred to the accounts of the respective Clubs, Societies & Projects twice a week. If anyone believes money from online sales is missing, or has been sent to the wrong place they should email clubs. finance@imperial.ac.uk, or speak to the Clubs & Societies Finance Officer.
the invoice – the Union will not do this automatically. If after three months the invoice remains unpaid the Union will begin to chase the company for payment – when payment is received a charge of 10% of the value of the invoice will be levied to the Club, Society or Project. Issues, Comments & Complaints
Invoicing If a Club, Society or Project wishes to raise an invoice they must speak to the Clubs & Societies Finance Officer. The most common need to raise an invoice is for Sponsorship payments. To raise an invoice the Club, Society or Project will need to have an official purchase order or sponsorship contract from the organisation they intend to invoice. It is the responsibility of the Club, Society or Project to chase the company to pay
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You are likely to come across small issues and have comments about the whole system, and your part within it, during your time in office. Matters which could improve the efficiency or accuracy of the system should be raised with the Deputy President (Finance & Services) or the Clubs & Societies Finance Officer – whoever you feel is more appropriate. More serious matters, or if you wish to make a complaint, should be raised with the Union President.
Dormancy Definition: A “dormant” group is one that can be closed after a stipulated length of time, but has no reduced abilities eg. can still make room bookings, pay money into their accounts and receive payment. This online applies to Clubs & Societies, different processes are in place for Projects. As set out in the Clubs & Societies Policy, a Club or Society may be made dormant if they do not meet the following criteria: •D o not attend (or send apologies) to two consecutive Management Group meetings (unless otherwise stated in the Standing Orders of the respective Management Group). •D o not have the minimum of 20 members •H ave outstanding Naughty Officers i.e. people on the committee who have not paid to become members of the Club or Society after 01 November. A Club or Society is made dormant by being voted upon at a Management Group general meeting where a dormancy review is scheduled. These should be once a term and Clubs or Societies up for dormancy review should be notified at least a week in advance because it is in their interest to send a representative to the meeting to defend themselves.
Once a Club or Society is eligible to be made dormant, you should have a vote on whether to make them dormant, and then you can also choose to have another vote on whether this should be for one, two or three terms. You might propose one term if it hasn’t got a committee or members and didn’t turn up to Freshers’ Fair, or reasons like this. If you don’t specify the time, it will be assumed that the dormancy is for 12 months. If you make a Club or Society dormant you must tell the Student Activities Centre by emailing clubs@imperial.ac.uk so this information can be recorded on the systems. For Clubs & Societies made dormant, it is prudent to offer them the opportunity to sit down with the Management Group Chair and discuss any barriers to their success that could be mediated. If a Club or Society subsequently satisfies the criteria they failed to meet that made them dormant eg. getting 20 members, then they should notify their Management Group Chair who will notify the Student Activities Centre and they will have their dormant status removed. If a Club or Society doesn’t satisfy the criteria that made them dormant in the time that they were given, then they can be closed by voting in a Management Group General Meeting. Alternatively, a Management Group General Meeting can vote to extend the period of dormancy.
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Frozen Accounts A frozen account for a Club, Society or Project means that the group is unable to complete any financial transactions until it becomes unfrozen. Reasons that a Club, Society or Project can have frozen accounts: •N aughty officers: this is when a member of the committee hasn’t bought membership to the Club, Society or Project. As soon as they join, this flag will disappear. Club officers have until 01 of November to join their club before the club budget becomes frozen. • I ncomplete documentation or training. If the any committee member has not completed the appropriate training their accounts will be frozen until they have. Each Club, Society or Project must submit documentation throughout the year in line with Union policy. If
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the forms are not filled in on time a group’s accounts will be frozen until they are complete. There are three main deadlines. By the 01 August the Financial Responsibility and Contact Details forms are due and groups who have not completed them may not perform transactions. On 01 November the Risk Assessment, Instructor Registration and Affiliations forms are due, though some groups are exempt from Instructor Registration and many will just have to resubmit identical information to the previous year. On 23 March the Next Years Committee Details forms are due. Finally, in June groups are required to submit a profile entry for the following year. As soon as documentation is submitted a group’s accounts are unfrozen and normal financial transactions may occur. Do not approve expenditure for groups which are have frozen accounts.
Updating Mailing Lists
Online Resources
As a Management Group you should have a mailing list containing all the contacts for the various Clubs, Societies or Projects under your care. Most Management Groups have a couple of different lists, so make sure you are familiar with the passwords for these. You can access them by going to mailman.imperial.ac.uk and then searching for your particular one. Your predecessors will have given you the passwords for these lists, if you do not have the list password email mailman@ imperial.ac.uk.
There are two different online interfaces which the Union provides to help Clubs, Societies & Projects administer themselves. These are Workbench and eActivities.
You need to update the mailing lists at the beginning of the year, don’t forget to update these lists if you get a new Club, Society or Project during the course of the year, so that they too can stay in the loop. For new mailing lists contact the Deputy President (Finance & Services).
Workbench Workbench can be accessed by going to the Union website at imperialcollegeunion.org and logging in using the group’s log in details. From here there is an option called: ‘I am a member of’. By clicking on this, the only result it will produce is ‘Workbench’. Clicking on this takes groups to the main Workbench interface. On Workbench it is possible to: •P ut items in a group’s online shop.
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•S end emails to all members. •R egister activities that are taking place off campus. •D esign the group’s pages on the Union website. Add events to the Whats’ On Calendar
On eActivities it is possible to: •C heck on transaction pages •S ubmit documentation •C heck outstanding documentation requirements Carry out finance administration tasks
eActivities
eActivities contains various functions which are specifically designed for the officers of the Management Groups. The next section details what can be done in the Management Group Overview section of eActivities.
eActivities is accessed by navigating to http://eActivities.union.ic.ac.uk, where users can log in using their College login details. They will then be provided with the option of choosing which officer role they wish to use, ie: you could be both the Chair of one society and the Treasurer of another – you can manage both groups from eActivities.
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For information on the entirety of what is contained in these interfaces, separate booklets are available for each one called the Workbench booklet and eActivities for Administration booklet respectively. The finance elements of eActivities are covered in eActivities for Finance.
eActivities for Management Groups eActivities contains a section called Management Group Overview specifically for Officers of Management Groups. To access these pages, first login to eActivities by heading to eActivities.union.ic.ac.uk/. You should come to the page pictured below, where you will see a red box at the top of the screen labelled Log in.
Click on the red Log in box to enter the eActivities site
Click on the Log in box and a window will pop up requesting you to enter your College Username and Password.
Enter your College Username and Password
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eActivities for Management Groups cont... If you are an Officer of more than one Club, Society or Project within the Union, you may want to view the eActivities area of each group. This is easy to do on the eActivities site as all the groups you are a member of are tied to your College username. The first page you see when you log in to eActivities is pictured below. At the top of the screen is another red button labelled Change Role.
Click the Change Role button to switch between the groups you are a member of
Clicking on the Change Role button will make a drop down list appear, where you can choose which Club, Society or Project’s eActivities pages you wish to look at.
A small drop down list appears
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eActivities for Management Groups cont... Once you have selected which group you wish to administer, click on the Club & Society Admin button on the left hand submenu, then click Management Group Overview. Budgeting
The first page you are presented with is the Budget Submission page located within the Budgeting tab. Here it is possible to view how much subsidy has been allocated to each Club, Society or Project within each Management Group. This list won’t necesdsarily contain every group within your Management Group. If they did not submit a budget, then they will not appear here. Whilst it is best practice, do not forget these groups.
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eActivities for Management Groups cont...
The next tab is Membership Cost Adjusting. Here you can view each group’s membership target and also determine how much each club ought to be charging for membership based on the amount of subsidy they receive. When groups want to change their membership fee, check that the proposed fee is not below the minimum level. You should also tell the Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) so that the Union website can be updated.
The final tab under the Budgeting section is Budgeting Categories. This table shows the total amount of money requested by all of the groups within each Management Group and how much money has actually been allocated after the Management Group has met to discuss the budgeting.
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eActivities for Management Groups cont... Club Reports
Click the dates to read the group information from previous years
The Club Reports tab contains general information for Management Group committee members on all of their groups. Users can find out information such as the club’s website address, contact email address, how old the club is and much more, including whether the group has failed to submit any required documentation. This is a useful page for getting a lot of information about a group with a quick glance. It is also possible to view the same information from previous years.
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eActivities for Management Groups cont... Transactions
The Transactions tab contains a table detailing important financial information about each group. Here, you can see a group’s SGI and how much Union Grant they have as well as any other external grants the group may have received.
Tour Applications
Finally, the Tour Applications tab shows which groups have organised tours including how many members are due to travel, the dates of travel and the cost of the trip. This function is not applicable to Projects.
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Meetings As part of representing your Clubs, Societies & Projects, there are a number of meetings to attend in the Union and in some cases also in College. These are always a good way of staying up to date with what is going on in other Clubs & Societies, Projects and the Union, as well as being a platform for getting things done for the benefit of your groups. Meetings are a two way road: you can escalate a matter to the appropriate person at them if you feel you aren’t able to handle it or similarly you might be given information to disseminate. For these reasons you should always aim to send someone from your committee (preferably the Chair or Treasurer). If no one can attend, then do send apologies and make arrangements to be able to receive the information or action points that you’ve missed soon after the meeting. College Meetings Some Management Groups have College departments that complement what the activities their Clubs, Societies or Projects undertake. For example, the Arts & Entertainment Board have regular meetings with Arts Imperial, as they are complementary to one another. You should have been told by your predecessor if this applies to your Management Group, but if not then the Management Group Chair should receive
invitations to the meetings in their officer email account. Keep an eye out though as these may go to personal accounts. It’s very important to attend College meetings if you can, because representation on them is not a natural right. It comes across very badly if you, or a representative from your Management Group, consistently do not attend a College meeting as it is one of a few forums for College Staff to communicate directly with students and get feedback quickly. The Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) should also attend all of these meetings across all Management Groups so you won’t be alone. While you are instrumental in providing more detailed information about specific groups that may have raised problems or be of interest to the College, the Union appreciates that you have a degree to do at the same time. Therefore, if any action points come out of the meeting for the Union, these will normally be given to the Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) as they are employed full time. Union Meetings All Union meetings have a set membership of officers, who get voting rights as a consequence. However, being an open, democratic organisation any Full Member of the Union is welcome
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Meetings cont...
to attend any Union meeting as an observer, and sometimes others are invited to come to meetings, such as Club or Society officers when applying to the Clubs & Societies Board for Tours Funding. The meetings most relevant to you are: Union Council Central Union body that decides on policy for the Union, or essentially ‘what the Union believes’ as a whole. This meets monthly and has representatives from across the Union including all Sabbaticals, Faculty Unions and members of the Representation & Welfare Board, as well as Ordinary Members. This is chaired by the Council Chair (chair@imperial.ac.uk). Clubs & Societies Board (CSB) Only Management Group Chairs, and the Sabbatical Officers are members of
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this committee. It discusses anything pertaining to Clubs, Societies & Projects, so is arguably the most important for members of the committee to attend. It’s a good forum to share best practice or escalate issues that might be occurring across the Clubs, Societies & Projects spectrum. You also find out about up-coming deadlines or opportunities from it. There is a termly meeting of CSB specifically focussing on Tours applications and one of the meetings in the spring term is the budgeting meeting when all1 club budgets are set for the following year. This is chaired by the Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) (dpcs@imperial.ac.uk). All groups may also have the option of applying to the Representation & Welfare Board for funding towards Freshers’ induction activities and similar, as this is seen as a welfare role. Also, if a Club, Society or Project feel they want to do an event for the benefit of the whole student community then RWB has a
Meetings cont... pot of money for this, though the aims should fit into a campaign week or they should contact the relevant welfare officer. Representation & Welfare Board (RWB) The FU Presidents, FU Academic Affairs Officers, Welfare Officers, Portfolio holders, and the Sabbatical Officers are members of RWB. This committee, held approximately once a month, looks at anything concerning academic representation and welfare. RWB does have money that it can allocate to Union activities which are charitable (though not to give directly to another charity) or doing outreach, such as t-shirts or badges for volunteers. Applications for this money can come from any group or individual student, in the form of a paper to the committee. RWB is alternately chaired by the Deputy President (Welfare)
(dpwelfare@imperial.ac.uk) and the Deputy President (Education) (dpe@imperial.ac.uk). Executive Committee This is the paramount committee of resource allocation (and in particular money) sitting at the same level as Union Council. Two representatives are elected from the membership of CSB to sit on this committee, at the beginning of the year. It meets about once every three weeks, though if something urgent arises may be called to meet sooner. Other people on the committee are two representatives from the Representation & Welfare Board, the Faculty Union Presidents and the Sabbatical Officers. This is chaired by the Union President (president@imperial.ac.uk). New Clubs Committee (NCC) As the name suggests, this is the body that has the ability to set up new clubs. In a similar fashion to the Executive
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Meetings cont... committee, the officers that comprise it are elected in the first Clubs & Societies Board of the year. It is made up of one CSC/CU representative, one Faculty Union representative and another person from either. From these three people, a chair is chosen. The Committee meets usually once a month, or more often depending on the number of applications. The Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) arranges and attends these meetings, mostly in a secretarial capacity and does not get a vote in the proceedings, though their advice is often valuable. Other functions of the New Clubs Committee are deciding on which Management Group a new club would join, and allocating any start up grant to clubs which they have set up. It has a parallel committee, called the New Projects Committee.
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New Projects Committee (NPC) This body is able to start Projects under RAG or CAG. It is comprised of the RAG & CAG Chairs, and one other individual. The Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) also attends this meeting. One of the committee then chair the meetings. The Committee meets at least once per term, or more frequently if required. Other functions are deciding on whether Projects should fall under RAG or CAG and allocating any start up grants to Projects they do approve. Ents Committee This is a sub-committee of the Executive Committee. As a Management Group officer you are not eligible to stand to be a member as it could cause a conflict of interest. The role of this committee is to decide on which groups will be hosting events in Metric for the following term, and as such it meets at least once per term. It is comprised of three members elected in the Summer elections, and a first year student elected in the Autumn elections. The committee is chaired by the Deputy President (Finance & Services).
Management Group Meetings Overview As a Management Group, you should be holding regular Management Group meetings. Each Club, Society or Project in a Management Group is represented in these meetings and the meetings are a chance for all the groups to meet and discuss things relevant to the members. As a Management Group officer, these are also your opportunity to pass on important information from the Union, highlight upcoming deadlines and any policy changes and big events going on which may be of interest to your members. For this reason, it is good to send out the agenda in advance so that individual groups can consult their committees on any issues, or have time to think of any questions they may have. It is also the forum for groups to air any particular problems affecting them which need to
be addressed by the Union. Other things which regularly come up are: •B udget appeals (normally after the budgeting meeting in the Spring term) •A pproval of any changes in a Club or Society Constitution •C ontingency claims. The Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) may well also attend these meetings, so they can help answer any questions or raise matters with them directly. Frequency: Once a month. The Management Group Secretary will need to notify your Clubs, Societies & Projects of the date, time and location of the meeting at least two weeks in advance. Don’t forget to book a room. Who Attends: Every Club, Society or Project in the Management Group is required to send one representative. This is usually the Chair; however, other
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Management Group Meetings cont... Chairing the Meeting Committee members can attend in their place. More than one person from a Group can attend if they want to. Important: It is the Club, Society or Project, not the group’s officers who are members of the Management Group. Therefore, if more than one representative from a group attends, there will still be one vote per group. Any member of the Union can attend a Management Group meeting and observe. Tip: try to decide a provisional timetable of meetings for the following term and send this around at the beginning of the year. That way your Clubs, Societies or Projects have plenty of time to organise themselves.
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Generally the Chair of the Management Group is the chair for all meetings of that Management Group. Chairing meetings can be hard at first, but it’s a very useful skill in life so this is a great opportunity to get some practice. There are lots of things to bear in mind when chairing a meeting but here are a few useful pointers: 1. Speak up and speak clearly If your committee can’t hear or understand you, they are quickly going to loose concentration and respect for your authority. 2. Keep things moving. Quite often if a contentious point comes up, many people will want to give long or rambling points. Feel free to give people a time limit like one minute, or if they’ve been going on for a while ask them to stop and you can summarise concisely the salient points of what they’ve said before moving on to the next person or the vote. 3. Keep track of people wanting to speak. Make it clear that to speak, members need to raise their hand. Once you’ve seen a hand go up acknowledge that person and don’t forget to come around to them when it’s their turn. A helpful technique is to number people as their hand goes up which helps them to know when it will be their turn. 4. Do give people a chance to ask questions. Whatever you are discussing, it’s good if people feel they can get
clarification on the rules or surrounding facts. If no one present is able to answer the question, it’s ok to say that you don’t know but follow up, find out from the appropriate person who does know and get back to either the whole committee or the person who asked. 5. Don’t lose control of the meeting. If people are being distracting or unhelpful, use an appropriate means to make them stop or ask them to leave if it’s very bad. You have the right as chair to ask a member of the committee to leave with a vote of the meeting. If someone is not a member of the committee you do not have to take a vote. 6. Maintain your neutrality. As a chair of a meeting, it’s important that your members feel that you aren’t trying to sway decisions in any particular direction. If you do feel that there is a misunderstanding or need for information, make sure that you deliver this in a manner that sticks to the facts. Voting in a Meeting When making a decision as a Management Group, it is important for the chair to state the exact thing that they are voting on in a clear and concise manner. It’s also advisable to ask if anyone has any questions before proceeding, as you don’t want the committee to be confused about what it is voting on. Single Transferable Vote (STV) is
recognised as the most fair way of voting when there are more than two options. If it is a case of for or against a motion, then normally a show of hands or ballot papers will suffice, though members of the committee should always be given the third option of abstaining from voting. It is also possible to choose not to vote at all. The chair of a meeting does not get a vote, but in the event of a tie they get the deciding vote. Common Terms in Meetings Quorum This is the minimum number of people required to make a meeting, and it’s decisions, valid. The concept is that if
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Management Group Meetings cont... you have an attendance of below this number the committee is in fact not being representative and so can’t make decisions to reflect its membership. For Management Groups this is normally 50% of the membership. Importantly, each Club, Society or Project counts as one member, so it doesn’t matter how many people a group sends, each group still only has one vote. A proxy vote does not count towards quorum. Proxy Votes If a Club, Society or Project is not at all able to send a representative then they should send apologies. Ideally, they will also nominate another group or person to vote on their behalf and this is a proxy. Another group or person can only hold one proxy (i.e. they can have a maximum of two votes). For this to be official, the Club, Society or Project unable to attend should send their apologies and the name of their chosen proxy to the Management Group Secretary in advance, who should note this in the minutes. Common Agenda Items Dormancy Reviews The Union has an obligation to provide Clubs, Societies & Projects to serve the interests of the current student population. In some cases, the interests of the student population fluctuate leaving some groups with low or nonexistent memberships suggesting that
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our students are no longer interested enough in that activity to merit it being a Club, Society or Project. If the Club, Society or Project isn’t able to meet the basic requirements of being a Club, Society or Project, then the Union should not waste valuable time and resources on maintaining it. Having said this, it should be noted that every effort should be made to make the most of the existing groups that exist before making a new one, as it is similarly bad practice to start and close groups that we don’t believe will last that long due to the admin of getting everything ready.
For Faculty Unions looking after Departmental Societies, it is important to make frequent contact with those Principal Officers and find out what events they are putting on, and seeing budgets for these. Contingency Claims Contingency Claims can be defined as ‘an unexpected, and unbudgetable expenditure’ and should apply where the functioning of the Club, Society or Project would be compromised if the cost was not met. When reviewing a Contingency Claim paper in a general meeting, it’s important to remember that there are two potential votes. The first is whether the committee believe that the proposed expenditure is a valid contingency claim. This should be regardless of the amount of money that the claimant is asking for as well as how much the Management Group has as remaining in their Contingency Grant. If there are mixed feelings, it is also possible to vote on the amount being awarded, if it is within the means of the Management Group. In some cases it can be appropriate to award some, but not all of the money asked for. Alterations to Constitutions Constitutions often get lost or forgotten, but they are important to have to hand in case any disputes do come up. They are the backbone of a group, defining what
it is fundamentally there for and can be referred to in situations when officers are unsure of official protocol. They are also totally democratic, so members of a Club, Society or Project should be able to see it on request and suggest alterations to it if they think necessary. There are two main reasons that a Club, Society or Project would alter their constitution, both of which are cause for review by the entire Management Group at a general meeting. 1. Adding/taking away members of the Committee or aspects of their respective roles
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Management Group Meetings cont... 2. Changing the aims, objectives or description of their activities In the first case, the Management Group can share best practice. The Management Group also have a vested interest in what other groups in it are doing due to the fact that grant money from the Union is allocated as a Management Group. If a group creates new positions in their committee with poor job descriptions which are unlikely to be filled in following years, it is likely that this will end up being a ‘Naughty Officer’, which then means that their budget will be frozen. If a group’s budget stays frozen for a long time, the other Clubs, Societies or Projects in the Management Group may well have benefitted from that money had it been allocated to a different group. Having said this, reviewing the positions and roles of a committee and making sure that they are well defined and efficiently distributed should be encouraged. If a Club, Society or Project is altering their aims, objectives or activities it is important for the Management Group to oversee this to ensure that they are not being changed to overlap with the objectives or activities of an existing group as this is a fundamental point in the Clubs & Societies Policy, in order
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to eliminate duplication. As such, it is important as a Management Group Officer to be broadly aware of what each of your groups do, though more information could be sought as and when necessary. Appealing Decisions of a Management Group General Meeting Every full member of the Union has the right to appeal any decision made in a Union meeting. They can do this by writing a paper to the Committee which sits above the one that made the decision: Trustee Board | Executive Committee | Clubs & Societies Board | Management Group | Club, Society or Project For help writing an appeal paper, it is best to ask the Chair of the Committee the appeal paper will be presented at the meeting. Seek the advice of the Governance & Administration Coordinator to ensure that the wording of the decisions being requested is correct.
Documentation Deadlines Due to the vast number of Clubs, Societies & Projects, it becomes necessary to document what each of them are doing since there are too many things to keep track of and remember. Most pieces of documentation are now done online through the Union’s eActivities, which allows groups to just update information from previous years. As a Management Group officer, your job is to notify your groups in advance and enforce these paperwork deadlines. To submit most documentation, unless other instructions are given, the Club, Society or Project should go to eActivities.union.ic.ac.uk and log in using their personal account- not their Club, Society or Project account. The database will then recognise which group they are an officer of. Why & When
Document
Deadline
Financial Responsibility
Signed by the Chair and the Treasurer having done the requisite training and validation quizzes and state that they will adhere to the Union’s Financial regulations. This needs to be done before an individual can spend any money on behalf of a Club, Society or Project. By signing it, it holds an officer responsible for the year’s accounts for the following seven years.
01/08/2011
Contact Details
Contact details of the current committee.
01/08/2011
Naughty Officers
All group officers must be members of their group by this date. This is because all groups are democratic – officers are not exempt from buying membership. This also is true of groups that do not charge membership as officers still must join.
01/11/2011
Risk Assessment
Evaluates group activities for potential risks and outlines prevention measures to avoid them. When helping groups to write this, its good to think about this in terms of identifying risks, how to minimise them and how they would be dealt with if they did occur so that they would already have a plan in the case of an emergency.
01/11/2011
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Documentation Deadlines cont... Document
Deadline
Instructor Registration
Provides details of any instructors used by a group so that the Union can know who is coming on campus on a regular basis.
01/11/2011
Affiliations
Indicates external organisations to which a group is affiliated. An affiliation should be something that is the same for all affiliates (as opposed to sponsorship), and provides some sort of benefit or accreditation such as specialist insurance. The Union must report all affiliations by Law.
01/11/2011
Inventory
List of all items owned by the group whose combined worth is ÂŁ200 or more. Importantly if a group wants to make a contingency claim for an item of their equipment, then it should be on their inventory with its value prior to making the claim.
23/03/2012
Next Year Committee Details
Filled out after the AGM to indicate the contact details of the committee for next academic year.
23/03/2012
Handbook/ Profile Entry
One longer and one shorter promotional abstract about a group’s activities for the Handbook in the next academic year.
01/06/2012
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Policies It’s good to be aware of the policies that concern Clubs, Societies & Projects as these are effectively the rule book on which you base your decisions. The only document that supersedes these policies is the Union Constitution. As long as you stick to the policies, it makes your life a lot easier if someone wants to appeal your decision in an official context, or if they would like clarification on an issue. In these situations, you are there to uphold and explain the policies. If there is something that you come across that you think should be changed for the benefit of all Clubs, Societies & Projects, then the Clubs & Societies Board is the best place to bring this up in the first instance. Clubs & Societies Policy This is the policy governing Clubs, Societies & Projects. It includes the processes for setting up a Club, Society or Project, making Clubs or Societies dormant and how to close them if they are struggling to fulfil the necessary criteria. It also contains what Clubs & Societies are entitled to from the Union, various rules and regulations on how they should function and how they can be disciplined (though more information can be found in the Union’s Disciplinary Policy) if they break the rules. It’s worth being very familiar with this policy.
Tours Policy This policy comes into practice for Tours meetings of CSB which is held once per term. Important points in this are that all applications from Clubs or Societies are submitted through online. Ensure that you have seen it first and have checked it over. In this case, you are looking to make sure it meets all the basic criteria of the Tours policy so it’s good to know what those are. Though this won’t guarantee its success in the meeting, it will mean that you are familiar with its contents. Publicity Policy The publicity policy states the rules with regards to putting up posters around campus. It goes into detail about the size of posters, language, adhesives to put the poster up with and importantly the locations that they are permitted; tigether with rules for other advertising media. As a senior Union officer, you should be familiar with these rules so that if you see a poster that contravenes these rules (particularly if the offending poster is from one of your Clubs, Societies or Projects) you can take it down and/ or forward the details to the Deputy President (Clubs & Societies). Similarly, if a poster is out of date on a poster board, then feel free to take these down as well. It really helps to have
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Documentation Deadlines cont... many people making sure that all groups are doing this correctly.
students. The Colours Policy takes effect at the end of the academic year when considering students for Union Colours.
Others There are two other policies that are effective over fairly short time frames, but that do involve Clubs, Societies & Projects. The Trading at Freshers’ Fair Policy says that there is to be no trading at Freshers’ Fair, either Club, Society or Project merchandise or from commercial stall holders, in order to protect our
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The sabbatical officers, Faculty Union and GSA Presidents, three other members of CSB and three other members of RWB are members of the Colours Committee, so if you do attend, you should read this policy as it gives the criteria for each level of award. The Equal Opportunities Policy applies
Documentation Deadlines cont... to everything that the Union does, so it’s worth reminding your Clubs, Societies & Projects of this. If a group does have someone wishing to be a member that requires some adaptations to your activities, such as a disability, then please contact the Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) in the first instance.
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Appendix 1 – Useful Contacts Sabbatical Officers The Sabbatical Officers can be contacted by email or by coming up to the Union Offices on the first floor of the Union Building, Beit Quadrangle, during office hours. The Felix Editor's office is in the West Basement of Beit Quad.
Scott Heath President president@imperial.ac.uk
Michael Foster, Deputy President (Finance & Services) dpfs@imperial.ac.uk
Jason Parmar, Deputy President (Education) dpeducation@imperial.ac.uk
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Nicolas Massie, Deputy President (Welfare) dpwelfare@imperial.ac.uk
Monya Zard, Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) dpcs@imperial.ac.uk
Matt Colvin, Felix Editor felix@imperial.ac.uk
Union Finance Office
Mayuri Patel Head of Finance mayuri.patel@imperial.ac.uk Ext 58069
Aziz Bilgrami Clubs & Societies Finance Officer clubs.finance@imperial.ac.uk 020 7594 8069 Ext 41514
The Union’s Finance Team is led by the Head of Finance. General enquires can be directed to the Finance Office which is located on the second floor of the Union Building. The Head of Finance is available to deal with more complex financial matters as well as any significant queries. Aziz is the main point of contact for Clubs, Societies & Projects with technical finance queries.
Sports Contacts
Hannah Blandford Sports Partnership Administrator h.blandford@imperial.ac.uk Office: 020 7594 3479
Hannah is the main point of contact regarding fixtures and booking facilities for fixtures and practice. Results of all competitions in all BUCS events will need to be sent to Hannah.
Anthony Hennelly a.hennelly@imperial.ac.uk Sports Development Officer Phone: 020 7594 1164
Anthony liaises with Clubs & Societies and Management Groups to allocate funding from Sport Imperial for sports teams. This can include funding for kit, affiliation, travel, instructors and ground hire.
ULU Leagues Co-ordinator leagues@ulu.lon.ac.uk ULU Sports Administrator Phone: 020 7664 2009
All League results must be sent here and this is your main point of contact for any queries to do with the London Leagues & Knockouts.
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Appendix 1 cont... Union Contacts
Student Activities Centre (SAC) activities.centre@imperial.ac.uk Ext 48066 Fax: 020 7594 8066
The Student Activities Centre team can assist with any queries about the day-today running of Clubs, Societies and projects including room bookings, key lists and collection of minibus keys.
Olle Akesson Student Activities Coordinator clubops@imperial.ac.uk Ext 43496
Olle’s role is being responsible for supporting the activities of Clubs, Societies & Projects and for looking after the Union’s minibus fleet.
Chris Gibbs Functions Coordinator beitconference@imperial.ac.uk Ext 58060
Get in touch with Rich if you need stewards or catering at an event being run in the Union. He is also the person to contact about using equipment such as projectors, screens, or obtaining sound or light equipment, a late licence or DJ for events at the Union.
Rob Osborne Sales & Marketing Coordainator unioncoms@imperial.ac.uk Ext 45307
Rob is responsible for looking after the Union’s communications output. He is in charge of the promotion of all the Union’s services and events. Speak to him if you need help with communication plans for your events or are planning to liase with external printers for publicity materials.
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Alex Mckee Central Services Manager a.mckee@imperial.ac.uk Ext. 48091
Alex can deal with any issues relating to the Union’s buildings, and can also advise on publicity strategy. Alex also deals with the Union’s website.
Malcolm MacPherson Entertainments & Promotions Manager m.macpherson@imperial.ac.uk Ext 48060
Malcolm organises ents at the Union. Get in touch with him if your Club or Society is interested in hosting a big event in the Union.
Ally Cott Systems Coordinator webhelp@imperial.ac.uk Ext 46412
Ally is in charge of eActivities, as well as supporting the other systems which the Union uses.
Union System Administrator union.sysadmin@imperial.ac.uk
The system administrators look after the running of the Union webserver that hosts all the Club & Society websites. Get in touch with them if you need any help with websites hosted on that server.
Phil Power Membership Services Manager philip.power@imperial.ac.uk Ext 48125
Phil is the person to contact if you have any queries about insurance or Health & Safety.
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imperialcollegeunion.org/training
Constituent Unions
Management Group Manual Page 52
CSCs
Clubs & Societies Board
Faculty Unions
Representation & Welfare Board
Executive Committee
RAG & CAG
Halls Committee
Graduate Students’ Association
Health & Safety Committee
Council
Colours Committee
Trustee Board
Elections Committee
Mediation Board
Disciplinary Committee
Court
Appendix 2 – Union Structure
Appendix 3 – Honorary Senior Treasurers Union Honorary Senior Treasurers
Name
Address & Extension
Mr Malcolm Aldridge
m.aldridge@imperial.ac.uk
Room 314, Finance Division, Sherfield Building. Ext: 48683
Dr Simon Archer
s.archer@imperial.ac.uk
Room 211, Natural Sciences, Bio-chemistry. Ext: 45368
Dr Shaun Crofton
s.crofton@imperial.ac.uk
Room 552, Dept of Mechanical Eng. Ext: 47085
Mr Colin Kerr
c.j.kerr@imperial.ac.uk
Room 440A, Skempton Building. Ext: 46044
Dr Richard J Murphy
r.murphy@imperial.ac.uk
Division of Biology, SAF Building, Room 511, SAFB. Ext: 45389
Club Honorary Senior Treasurers
Name
Address & Extension
Dr Simon Archer
s.archer@imperial.ac.uk
Room 211, Natural Sciences, Bio-chemistry. Ext: 45368
Prof Robert Schroter
r.schroter@imperial.ac.uk
Dept. of BioEng, Room 4.15, Royal School of Mines. Ext: 45175
Mr Malcolm Aldridge
m.aldridge@imperial.ac.uk.
Room 314, Finance Division, Sherfield Building. Ext: 48683
Dr Richard J Murphy
r.murphy@imperial.ac.uk
Division of Biology, SAF Building, Room 511, SAFB. Ext: 45389
Mr Colin Kerr (ACC)
c.j.kerr@imperial.ac.uk
Room 440A, Skempton Building. Ext: 46044
Dr Christos Papavassiliou (A&E)
c.papavas@imperial.ac.uk
Room 915, Dept of EEE. Ext: 46325
Dr Shaun Crofton (CGU)
s.crofton@imperial.ac.uk
Room 552, Dept of Mechanical Eng Ext: 47085
Mr Matthew Smith (Media)
mpsmith@imperial.ac.uk
Room 553, Dept of Mechanical Ext: 47008
Dr Peter Clark (ICSMSU)
p.clark@imperial.ac.uk
SAF Building Room 375. Ext: 43163
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Appendix 3 cont... Name
Address & Extension
Prof David Stuckey (OSC)
d.stuckey@imperial.ac.uk
Room 205 ACE Extension. Ext: 45591
Dr Andrew Walton (RCSU)
a.walton@imperial.ac.uk
Room 539 Huxley Building. Ext: 48514
Dr Lorraine Craig (RCC)
l.craig@imperial.ac.uk
Room 1.32, Dept of Earth Sci. Ext: 46436
Mr Barry Coles (RSM/ GSA/RAG/CAG)
b.coles@imperial.ac.uk
Room 2.56, RSM Building. Ext: 46381
Prof Dr John Cosgrove (SCC)
j.cosgrove@imperial.ac.uk
Room 3.33, Royal School of Mines. Ext: 46466
Silwood Honorary Senior Treasurer
Name
Address & Extension
Dr Simon Leather
s.leather@imperial.ac.uk
Division of Biology. Room E23, Lees Building, Silwood Park. Ext: 42316
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Appendix 4 – Transaction Codes This is comprehensive list of the codes that you may use on various items of documentation such as income forms, claim forms, purchase orders, etc. Income Codes Code Name 430 Donations 550 Sponsorship 580 Ticket Income 590 Travel 450 Goods and Services Expenditure Codes Code Name 600 Acts 605 Affiliation Fees 640 Consumables 725 Copyright & Royalties 650 Cultural Activities 655 Decorations 680 Entrance Fee Competition 675 Entrance Fee Conference 685 Equip purchase (not cap) 690 Equipment Hire 705 Goods for Resale 710 Ground Hire 730 Hospitality 735 Instructors 820 Printing Costs 825 Publicity 860 Stationery 870 Subscriptions 895 Travel Expenditure
Event Codes Code Name Description 00 General Day-to-day transactions. 21-29 Tour For example, Winter Tour. 51-69 Event For example, Freshers Ball. Funding Codes Code Name
Description
0
Grant
Union money allocated by your Management Group
1
Self-Generated Income
Club money generated through trips, goods and services, etc
2
Harlington Trust
Money from the Harlington Grants Committee
3
IC Trust
Money from the IC Trust
4
Faculty Grant
Income from a College Faculty
Consolidation Codes Code Name Description 0 External Outside College and the Union 1 College Outside the Union, within College 2 Internal Within in the Union VAT Codes – Expenditure Code Name P1 Standard rated P0 Zero rated PE Exempt PN Outside Scope VAT Codes – Income Code Name S1 Standard rated S0 Zero rated SE Exempt SN Outside Scope Management Group Manual Page 55 imperialcollegeunion.org/training
Imperial College Union Beit Quadrangle Prince Consort Road London SW7 2BB
Tel: 020 7594 8060 Fax: 020 7594 8065 Email: union@imperial.ac.uk Twitter: @icunion imperialcollegeunion.org