Committee Elections

Now is the time you should start planning to elect your new committee for 25/26. All City St George’s Students’ Union student groups (e.g clubs, societies and community projects) are led by elected committee members. Committee members are elected annually through committee elections.

Most new committees are elected either through an AGM (in person or online) or through another online election. Committee elections should take place in March and April. You must submit your new committee details to the students’ union by 31^st May 2025.

New committee details should be submitted using this form. You should attatch this template to the form.

On this page you will information on:

• Timeline
• Key things to remember
• Committee Roles
• Promoting elections to your members
• Annual General Meeting
  • Holding an AGM in person
  • Holding an AGM online
• Holding an Online Election via Survey Platform
• Letting us know your new committee are
• Conduct and Complaints

Committee Elections Timeline:

3rd March- Information published on committee elections!

March-May- Committee elections take place.

31^st May- Deadline for all student groups to have submitted their election results.

You can find the full committee handover and training timeline here.

Does this timeline not work for your student group? Come and chat to the team and we can discuss any adjustments that may be required.
 

Key things to remember:

• Only members of your student group can run to be a committee or vote in committee elections. You should ensure that everyone has purchased a membership before you open nominations/ hold your AGM. You can find out how view a list of all your registered members here.
• All student groups need to have at least 3 committee members (including a President/Chair and Finance Officer/Treasurer). Any student group that doesn’t have these core roles will be considered inactive for 25/26.
• All members of your student group are eligible to stand in your election. Interview processes are not permitted for committee elections.
  For every position, members must be given the opportunity to vote via “Reopen nominations.”
• You must promote your Committee Election to all your members. The easiest way to do this is by sending an email to all your members.
• You should not use your student group social media channels (e.g WhatsApp, Instagram, X, TikTok) to promote individual candidates in your election. We’d encourage you to use your channels to promote the AGM and online election. You could also use social media to encourage your members to stand in the committee elections.

Committee Roles

Each committee must have a President and Finance Officer and either a Communications Officer (Clerkenwell and Moorgate) or Welfare Officer (Tooting). You can also adjust the standard roles, for example, some societies prefer their communications officer and social media officer to be two different roles. This is completely fine; you just need to let us know so that we can ensure all committee members are logged in our system and receiving the correct admin access.

Below is a brief description of what each role entails, but please make it your own and don’t feel restricted. Please also keep in mind that all committee members can get involved and share responsibilities so, for example, it does not always have to be the Communications Officer sending emails to members, other committee members can too.

Details on committee roles can be found below:

President / Editor/ Chair

The Student Group President leads and oversees all activity. They are responsible for ensuring that the committee and the Student Group is running smoothly, and that Students’ Union rules and regulations are being followed properly. The President is responsible for:

• Leading the direction of the student group.
• Ensuring that rules and regulations are being followed.
• Delegate tasks with other committee members.
• Ensuring that the student group takes part in key events throughout the year, e.g. committee training, Welcome fair.
• Chair any Annual General Meetings (AGM).

Finance Officer/Treasurer

The Finance Officer is primarily responsible for managing the student group budget and submitting any funding applications that your student group wishes to submit. They are responsible for ensuring that the Students’ Union’s financial rules and regulations are being followed.

The Finance Officer is responsible for:

• Learning and following the Students’ Union’s financial rules (please drop us an email if there’s ever anything you’re unsure of!).
• Keeping track of income and expenditure.
• Submitting any applications for the Students’ Union’s Development Fund Grant (more on this in the finance section).
• Authorising any expense claims (except your own – these must be reviewed by the President)
• Oversee any charitable fundraising, donations and sponsorships

 

Promoting Committee Elections to your members

You must download your membership list from the Union website. Simply log in to the website using your City St George’s login, go to the admin section, click on the ‘Members’ tab and then click on ‘Export in Excel’.

You can then cut and paste your members’ email addresses into an email. Remember to ‘bcc.’ all email addresses so you adhere to GDPR and do not share members’ details with others without their permission.

The email should be sent from your official club/society City St George’s email address (which you should have linked to your City St George’s email account). Don’t forget to remind all visiting and associate members that they cannot nominate themselves or vote. (The far right-hand column on your membership list on the website shows you who is an associate/visiting member.)

You should promote your elections/opening of nominations on any social media platform you have, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., and on your club/society website, if you have one. However, do remember this is not a substitute for the all-member email, only a supplement. An official all-member email is the only way to guarantee all members have been contacted.

Don’t forget to give everyone regular reminders of when nominations and voting open and close, as each of the dates listed above approach.

 

Annual General Meeting (AGM)

An annual general meeting is an annual meeting that brings together your current committee and your members. Typically, AGMs are where a new committee is elected. You can either hold this in person or online. You should provide your members 2 weeks’ notice of your AGM. The Student Group President will be responsible for chairing the meeting, but other committee members should help with the planning and delivery of the meeting where needed.

You should record the number of votes cast for each position. The Union does not require you to submit this, but you should be able to present this in case there’s a complaint in relation to your election. If you’re unable to share this upon request, then the Union may require you to run your committee election again. You can use the templates below.

The Union has put together a range of resources below to support you to run a smooth AGM. You can find these below.

Guidance on Holding an AGM in person

Guidance on Holding an AGM online

 

AGM Attendance Record

 

AGM Minutes Template

 

Hosting an Online Election via Survey Platform

You can also arrange your committee election to take place via a survey platform. This is useful when you’re unable to get enough of your members in a room or on a call to complete an AGM. Please make sure you follow the guidance carefully.

You can find step by step guidance on how to Hold an online election via a survey platform here.

 

Letting us know who your new committee are:

All student groups are required to inform the Union of their new committee members. You should notify the Union of your new committee by completing this form.

The form will ask you to submit the following:

• Your name, position and student group
• The names, student numbers, emails and roles of the newly elected committee members. You can record them using this template.
• Evidence of your election which could include a list of attendees at the AGM. You can find a template here.

Student groups should submit this form once with all the newly elected committee details.

 

Conduct and complaints

We want the elections to be enjoyable for all candidates, students and staff so if you are worried that a rule has been broken by another person, just let us know. Complaints can be submitted through the complaints form.  Complaints will normally be heard within two working days.

More information on conduct and complaints can be found here.