► Starting A Society

Your first step should be to contact the Vice President of Student Activities on vpsa@dusa.co.uk

Your interest will be noted and the documents required to affiliate will be emailed.

You should then begin to collect the 20 signatures needed for affiliation. These students don’t need to join the society or even agree with its premise, but simply to support its right to exist as an option for Dundee students. 

You’ll have to draw up a Constitution for your Society. Whilst this may sound daunting, we can provide you with a basic model than can be tailored to suit your Society’s particular needs.

Setting up a bank account for your Society is also a necessity to ensure propriety in your finances; again, DUSA | The Union can help guide you through this. 

Now comes the slightly tougher part. Before affiliating, you’ll have to hold an AGM (Annual General Meeting) of your society to elect office-bearers. Whilst the roles of President, Secretary and Treasurer are compulsory positions, you can create other positions within your Society as needed, for example, a Trip Organiser for competitive societies. DUSA | The Union can provide space for this AGM in one of our meeting rooms, making the task of directing and organising this meeting that little bit easier.  We've provided a description of the compulsory roles below, as well as guide to additional committee members.

Office Bearers

President

The President is the figurehead of any society and to all intents and purposes will work as a public face for their society. The role of the President is to lead their society, for this reason it is important that any prospective Presidents must have the time to commit themselves to making sure the society is running in-line with the DUSA constitution and bye laws. 

Secretary

The role of the secretary is to effectively run their society! They have to take care of writing and distributing minutes and will usually be the point of contact for external correspondence and ensuring that DUSA are kept in the loop with society plans. Some societies may opt to elect ‘reps’ to help in carrying out the function of the secretary, for example these reps may include webmasters to take care of emails or maintaining their website etc.

Treasurer

The Treasurer is in charge of all the financial affairs of their society and will be held responsible for any financial misconduct. While financial expertise is not compulsory for a Treasurer a level of financial competence is definitely a pre-requisite.

Additional Member

All societies have to appoint at least one other member. Some societies choose to elect Webmasters to take care of maintaining the website, other societies may choose to appoint a Deputy President in order to chair and organise meetings in the absence of any other committee members and some will choose to elect a fundraising committee to help fill the coffers: different societies have different needs so the choice is yours.

room booking

If you'd like to book a room for meetings please contact Vice President of Student Activities (VPSA) on vpsa@dusa.co.uk

constitution

Each society abides by its own constitution, which sets out how it functions, office bearers, elections and the by-laws to which it must pertain.

Below is a sample constitution which should give you an idea as to how societies operate.

what do you need to affiliate?

Armed with the minutes of your AGM, your Constitution and your 20 signatures, you can then take on the gauntlet of an SRC meeting, where you explain the purpose of the Society and answer any questions the representatives may have. It should be noted that a Society which has discriminatory policies or practices (eg barring students from joining or standing for a position based on an arbitrary characteristic) cannot be affiliated. 

Recruiting Members

Freshers/Refreshers Fair

Ensure you have a stall at Freshers Fair and Refreshers' Fair. These represent by far your best chance to attract new members and bringing back old ones.

Tip for success

Try and think of something different to attract people to your stall. There’s nothing less appealing than an empty desk with a solitary piece of paper on it when you have Domino’s Pizza, the Army and the Role-Playing Society all larking about. Some societies hold mini-competitions, others give away free sweets, some even allow you to sample the society’s activity first-hand to see if it’s for you. Whatever idea you come up with, run it by the VPSA first to make sure that it matches Health and Safety regulations and that you won’t be treading on anyone’s toes.

Be loud and enthusiastic. If you saw two societies tables, one with expressive smiling volunteers and one with two borderline comatose individuals slumped behind it, which is more likely to attract you? Exactly. One of our societies’ main functions is to build strong and vivacious links within our student community; you have to be able to demonstrate that your society can deliver just that for new recruits.

And finally, be open, honest and friendly. Don’t belittle other societies, talk amongst yourselves or pressurise people into giving you their contact details; be polite, have a bit of banter and hope for the best.