committee roles

Committees Explained

On this page, you will find: Your Roles | What's required? | Training Information

Your roles

Every club and society is different so your roles will vary. But in general, this is what each person should get up to:

President:

You’re in charge! As the leader of your student group, you’ll coordinate and manage all your activities and make sure your committee members are happy. Your role involves:

Ensuring that the club or society follows its constitution aims
Developing the club or society as the members want it to
Chairing committee and general meetings for your club or society
Taking overall responsibility for your members at your meetings and events
Attending meetings when required by the Union

Vice-President:

Your job is to help the President on an operational level – while they lead the development of the club or society, you make sure things are operating as they should. Your role involves:

Making sure your committee members know what they’re doing
Keeping the Union up to date with who’s on your committee and helping us coordinate your elections
Liaising with external bodies where needed, such as the University, Sportspark or National Governing Bodies
Helping the President with anything they’re up to and stepping in to lead when they’re not available

Treasurer:

Treasurers handle your club or society’s money, producing and maintaining your financial records. Your role involves:

Creating a budget for the year, so that you don’t overspend
Liaising with external bodies when you purchase something and helping the Union organise payment
Seeking external sponsorship for your club or society where needed
Leading on fundraising ideas
Keeping an eye on your ledger (what’s going in and out of your society account)
Apply for grant funding with your committee, maybe from the Union, if required.
Keeping up to date with our finance information

Secretary:

As secretary, you are responsible for the administration needs of your club or society. Your role involves:

Maintaining your page on the website, making sure it’s up to date and you’re using it to communicate with your members
Booking rooms for your events
Updating your members & what’s going on in your club or society
Taking minutes at your committee meetings and AGM
Organising and maintaining storage for your equipment and resources
Updating your social media
Circulating your handover document at the end of the year and filling it in with your committee

Health & Safety Officer:

There is a lot of responsibility attached to being Health and Safety Officer, as you are accountable for risk assessing every event and ensuring that the Union is aware of all events you’re putting on. Your role involves:

Filling out risk assessments for all your activities
Liaising with Union and University staff to ensure your activities and events are well planned and safe
Recording details of any accidents or injuries that take place at your events
Making sure any food at your events is safely prepared, cooked, stored, transported and served
Be aware of food hygiene and first aid training while you’re in this role

Union Council Rep:

It is down to the Union Council Rep to represent the interests of your club or society’s members and help shape uea(su) policy. Your role involves:

Being aware of Union Council dates and ensuring you attend whenever you can
Voting on motions at Union Council in a way which represents your members’ views
Reporting back to the committee and your members on issues discussed at Union Council and any changes in policy that might affect you
Being an approachable point of contact for your members on matters of Union policy
Putting forward motions to Union Council whenever needed

Equality & Diversity Officer:

Every student must have an equal opportunity to participate in activities, and although this seems obvious, it's sometimes hard to be inclusive of everyone when we’re all so different. It's not always easy to know if you are excluding people or even how you might be excluding them. That’s why an Equality & Diversity Officer is such a useful position. Your role involves:

Making sure you’re using a range of ways to communicate to your members e.g. e-mail, Facebook, newsletters, posters etc, to try to reach as many of them as possible
Ensuring that you put on some alcohol-free events and that there are always options for members who don’t want to drink
Ensuring meetings and activities are arranged for different times and days, to include people with different timetables and commitments, e.g. students with caring responsibilities

You might have some other roles to suit your own club or society; for example, you could have a Social Secretary, Trip Secretary, Publicity Officer, Kit Officer or an Academic Rep to name a few. You can have whichever committee positions work best for you!

What's required?

It’s important to consider what is required from every committee member in order to have the best year possible.

REMEMBER:

Communication
You will receive a fortnightly newsletter from the Opportunities team with important information to help you run your club or society, so keep an eye out for these and let the rest of your members know if there’s anything that affects them. Make sure you’re keeping in touch with your members in the ways that work for you all – whether that’s emails, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, or – best of all – a combination!
Delegation/sharing the workload
Your studies should always come first, so try to support each other when you’re facing different deadlines and commitments. It’s important you understand the responsibilities of each committee member so that you can help each other out.
Remember it should be fun!
You’re a group of students with common aims and interests, looking to experience more outside of your studies. If you start feeling stressed, remember your committee should be there to support you and, similarly, make sure you offer help if you notice any of your committee struggling. Being on committee should be fun, so if you’re not enjoying it please do speak to your fellow committee members or [email protected]

Training Information

We run specific training sessions for many of these committee positions so that you get a chance to learn more about your role and ask us questions. Check out our Training calendar to see when the next session is.

We have an ever-growing bank of training resources and the NUS website is also very helpful.

REMEMBER:

You must have at least 5 individual people on your committee
The compulsory positions are President, Treasurer, Secretary
Within your commitee, we also require you to include the following committee positions:

1. These can be shared with other roles
(e.g. you could have a Secretary who is also health and safety officer and a President who is also the Union Council Rep, Treasurer who is also Equality and Diversity officer etc) or; Health and safety, Union Council and Equality and Diversity

2. These 3 roles can make up the remaining 2 positions of your compulsory committee
(i.e. President, Treasurer, Secretary, Health and safety, Union Council and Equality and Diversity)

One of your 5 committee members must be a first-year
If your President is male, we recommend you acquire a Vice President who must self- define as a woman or non-binary
Nobody can be President of more than one group at a time and you cannot hold more than three committee positions across all groups in the same year

Hopefully, your committee will all become close friends, but we know that you may not always agree on things and that it can be hard to juggle “personal” and “professional” relationships when you’re in a committee of people who may also be friends, coursemates or housemates.

Remember that the Opportunities team are here to support you when you face issues as a committee. If you are having difficulties, do not hesitate to contact us - we are happy to get discussions going or mediate issues. If you want any advice or assistance, feel free to contact us at [email protected]