Personal Experiences,Study, Learning Blog of Abu Rashid aka Harun

Generally the following things are required to set up a students’ society or club

Optimum no of core organizers:

For a project work, a couple format which means two students tagged together is good.Then to do a same kind of job, the optimum no of group members  is five, not three. Then if required the of group members may go up in odd values. However more than 9, in some cases more than 19 it would be difficult to maintain the group cohesion. The highest no would be the Dunbar no, that is 150.

Since in a students Society or club there are three core tasks, so the optimum no of core organizers is three. They are: Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer.

Chairperson: looks after each and every thing, atleast being informed of everything

Secretary: calling meetings, writing minute of the meeting, written and other modes of communicatin with different persons and organisation, transfer information to society or club members or committee members through email. He/She may also look after outside information dissemination like newsletter, press release, facebook, website etc. However, other persons may be involved for such specific things though the Secretary should still oversee all such outside mass or inbound communication.

Treasurer: looks after financial things, keep records of all transactions, submit relevant financial documents to different authorities. For financial transaction, rule of two(2) may be adhered all the times. Rule of two means Payments and receivables, all should have two signatures.All should have two copies, one for the office and the other for client

Core organizers roles(name of the position) and responsibilities(the tasks entailed) are described in a concise manner here:

http://www.qubsu.org/ClubsSocieties/Support/CommitteeRoles/

Election  or selection

During the initial stage of formation society or club, its better not to go directly to election. Keep open the leadership for a while . Look for natural inclination of interested folks. Then select a leader through consensus and the leader will select other core organizers. After a year or so, formal election may be held or positions may be filled by consensus by active members. There again, active members may just select the leader and then the leader will decide who will be work along with him. That is other core positions will not be initially selected by the active members, the leader will decide upon consultation later.

Decision making for the society or club: autocratic, democratic or consensus

It is best if the decision could be taken on consensus. However in generally it is like mix of all three; however in essence it is autocratic as the leader at the end decides whether he/she will go with his own view, go along with majority or go along consensus. As a tip, it is better not to introduce democratic decision as it causes rift and groupins; better go for consensus mode. In the consensus mode, some may still come along to the decision but they may decided not to give veto. In the consensus mode, if a single active member give veto, the decision is not passed.

Sample documents and templaes for the formation of students society and club

Sheffield  Hallam University has a good collection such itmes that could be found here:

https://www.hallamstudentsunion.com/get_involved/societies/societycommitteeresources/