Reaffiliation

Each year, student groups affiliated to Bristol SU must re-affiliate. This process is run through our Committee Portal.

Re-affiliation is key to ensuring that student groups maintain access to various services that the SU provides including:

How does it work?

Presidents, Club Captains and Volunteer Coordinators

Once a group has held their Annual General Meeting (AGM) and successors have been elected, the outgoing President, Club Captain or Volunteer Coordinator should access the Committee Portal to notify us of their successor. This will start the reaffiliation process.

The incoming President, Club Captain or Volunteer Coordinator is then automatically sent an email asking them to complete a number of tasks including:

A short questionnaire about their group
Submit your AGM minutes as evidence of democratically-held elections
Provide the role and Student ID of all the newly elected committee members
Confirm the responsibilities that each role has e.g. which role handles room bookings in your group
Submit an up to date constitution
Submit an up to date risk assessment
Provide an equipment list giving details of all equipment worth over £500 (including value and purchase date)
Submit a budget (optional)
Submit a strategic plan (optional)

We recommend outgoing Presidents notify us of their successor as soon as possible to ensure incoming committees have plenty of time to complete the rest of the reaffiliation tasks before the July 4th deadline. They cannot begin until the outgoing President, Club Captain or Coordinator have assigned them.

Treasurers

The process for treasurers can be a little confusing and there is some necessary back-and-forth with document approval. Each module in the Committee Portal talks you through it, but for reference:

Don’t let your outgoing treasurer disappear before they’ve completed sign-off! This happens often with groups and can be a cause of frustration for incoming committees trying to complete the reaffiliation process.

Student Group Classification

Groups are asked to tell Bristol SU what ‘type’ of group they are during reaffiliation – a sports club, a society or a volunteering project. For some this is obvious, for others it can be less so.

Our definition of a Sports Club is a group meeting any of the below criteria:

Group participation in BUCS
Group affiliated to a recognised national sporting body
Primary activity is a martial art

OR meets all of the below:

Primary activity expresses or improves physical fitness
Group self-identifies as a sport (and not a dance / performing art)
Primary activity is done competitively against external groups

A Volunteering Project will be listed on our website here. Everyone else is a society.

The below table illustrates expectations for each group:

	Sports Club	Society	Volunteer Project
Mandatory Committee Positions	Club Captain Treasurer Secretary Equality Officer	President Treasurer Secretary Equality Officer	Project Coordinator Treasurer
Committee Recruitment	Election	Election	Selection by outgoing committee
Minimum Membership Number	30	30	4
% of Membership as Full members of the Union	75%	75%	75%
Representative Full Time Officer	Sport & Student Development	Union Affairs	Union Affairs
Representative Network	Sports Network	Societies Network	Volunteering and Fundraising Network

Your Constitution

Your group's constitution sets out how you plan to operate, and what your members can expect from your committee. If you wish to make amendments to your constitution these should be done at your AGM with at least two thirds of those present voting in favour of the change. Minor changes such as removal of old policy or references to old systems can be made without consultation at AGM.

You can download your groups previous constitution in the ‘old files’ tab within the Committee Portal

Template constitutions can be found below:

Byelaw 9 constitution changes

A motion was recently passed at Bristol SU AMM to ‘Update Bye-Law Section 9 (student groups) to increase clarity, reduce bureaucracy, and ensure all groups remain truly student led’

Key changes to note include (more detail/suggested wording below):

An increase to three-quarters of members must be full union members
All core committee roles must now be full union members
Only full members may vote in committee elections
The roles of President / Club Captain , Secretary, Treasurer and Equality Officer must not be combined with each other and should be suitably named i.e. an Equality Officer should have 'equality' in their role title
Multi-year memberships are to be phased out with no new multi-year memberships permitted

This means all student groups must update their constitution during the 2022/23 reaffiliation period and will not be allowed to reaffiliate until this is complete.

We strongly recommend groups:

Use the above template constitutions (these include all the Byelaw 9 changes)
Check their aims are unique / specific to their group (if you have any doubts/question about this, please get in touch – bristolsu-development@bristol.ac.uk)
Check that their list of committee roles is accurate and up-to-date (as many groups will have had Covid-related changes to their committee structure)

These are mandatory changes required for reaffiliation, so groups don’t have to ask their members to vote them, however they are welcome to do so if they wish.

If you would prefer not to use our templates, we have guidance on what wording you need to change in your constitution here:

Societies

	Old Constitution	New Constitution
3e, 5c, 6a, 6b, 9a, 10b	References to Societies' Network	References to Union
1b	The Society shall be affiliated to the University of Bristol Students' Union.	The Society shall be affiliated to the University of Bristol Students' Union and represented by the Societies' Network.
3c	Not less than two-thirds of the Society members shall be full members of the Union.	Not less than three-quarters of the Society members shall be full members of the Union.
4b	All categories of membership shall have equal rights of voting, attending meetings etc.	Only full members may vote in Committee elections.
4c	-	All categories of membership shall have equal rights of attending meetings etc.
5b	The President of the Committee shall be a full member of the Union.	The President, Secretary, Treasurer and Equality Officer of the Committee shall be full members of the Union.
5f	Groups can have the responsibilities of Equality Officer combined with another role e.g. Secretary and Equality Officer	The roles of Club Captain, Secretary, Treasurer and Equality Officer must not be combined with each other and should be suitably named i.e. an Equality Officer should have 'equality' in their role title
6c	The Bristol SU Union Affairs Officer, Sport and Student Development Officer and Director of Finance and Administration shall jointly be empowered to issue financial instructions on behalf of the Society if: (i) the Society folds with outstanding financial affairs, or (ii) change of mandate forms are not completed, and the previous Committee are out of reasonable contact, or (iii) financial irregularities are found.	The Bristol SU Union Affairs Officer, Sport and Student Development Officer and Director of Finance shall jointly be empowered to issue financial instructions on behalf of the Society if: (i) the affiliated student group ceases to be affiliated (ii) there are concerns that the funds are being managed in breach of the provision set out in the Byelaws (iii) the group ceases to exist or there are breaches of any minimum standards set out in Union policy

Sports Clubs

	Old Constitution	New Constitution
1a, 1b, 2, 3a, 3c, 3d, 5a, 5c, 6a, 6b, 6c, 7b, 7d, 8a, 9a	References to Society	References to Sports Club
3e, 5c 6a, 6b, 9a, 10b	References to Societies' Network	References to Union
5b, 8b	References to President	References to Club Captain
1b	The Sports Club shall be affiliated to the University of Bristol Students' Union.	The Sports Club shall be affiliated to the University of Bristol Students' Union and represented by the Sports Network.
3c	Not less than two-thirds of the Sports Club members shall be full members of the Union.	Not less than three-quarters of the Sports Club members shall be full members of the Union.
4b	All categories of membership shall have equal rights of voting, attending meetings etc.	Only full members may vote in Committee elections.
4c	-	All categories of membership shall have equal rights of attending meetings etc.
5b	The President of the Committee shall be a full member of the Union.	The Club Captain, Secretary, Treasurer and Equality Officer of the Committee shall be full members of the Union.
5f	Groups can have the responsibilities of Equality Officer combined with another role e.g. Secretary and Equality Officer	The roles of Club Captain, Secretary, Treasurer and Equality Officer must not be combined with each other and should be suitably named i.e. an Equality Officer should have 'equality' in their role title
6c	The Bristol SU Union Affairs Officer, Sport and Student Development Officer and Director of Finance and Administration shall jointly be empowered to issue financial instructions on behalf of the Society if: (i) the Society folds with outstanding financial affairs, or (ii) change of mandate forms are not completed, and the previous Committee are out of reasonable contact, or (iii) financial irregularities are found.	The Bristol SU Union Affairs Officer, Sport and Student Development Officer and Director of Finance shall jointly be empowered to issue financial instructions on behalf of the Sports Club if: (i) the affiliated student group ceases to be affiliated (ii) there are concerns that the funds are being managed in breach of the provision set out in the Byelaws (iii) the group ceases to exist or there are breaches of any minimum standards set out in Union policy

Volunteering Projects

	Old Constitution	New Constitution
5c, 6a, 6c, 7d, 9a	References to Society	References to Project
5c, 6a, 9a, 10b	Refences to Volunteering and Fundraising Network	References to Union
1b	The Project shall be affiliated to the University of Bristol Students' Union.	The Project shall be affiliated to the University of Bristol Students' Union and represented by the Volunteering and Fundraising Network.
3	-	Not less than three-quarters of the Society members shall be full members of the Union.
6c	The Bristol SU Union Affairs Officer, Sport and Student Development Officer and Director of Finance and Administration shall jointly be empowered to issue financial instructions on behalf of the Society if: (i) the Society folds with outstanding financial affairs, or (ii) change of mandate forms are not completed, and the previous Committee are out of reasonable contact, or (iii) financial irregularities are found.	The Bristol SU Union Affairs Officer, Sport and Student Development Officer and Director of Finance shall jointly be empowered to issue financial instructions on behalf of the Society if: (i) the affiliated student group ceases to be affiliated (ii) there are concerns that the funds are being managed in breach of the provision set out in the Byelaws (iii) the group ceases to exist or there are breaches of any minimum standards set out in Union policy

If you have any questions about the reaffiliation process, please do get in touch with the Student Services team – bristolsu@bristol.ac.uk

Frequently asked questions

Why can't I add this person to my committee?

Usually this is because the person being named is either not a member of the group, or has only become a member very recently. The portal can take a couple of days to catch up with new memberships so give it a few days and try again.

My module is still red even though I've submitted documents

Checking and approving documents is a manual process undertaken by staff in the Student Opportunities team. With over 350 student groups, we do get the occasional backlog and they can sometimes take up to two weeks to approve. Please be patient and we’ll get to your submissions ASAP.

I can't complete the 'your committee module'

Please do not use the personal university email of the committee member in the “role email” box. This is reserved for any generic group email you might have. If you put their email in here and not in the “user email” box, the module will remain incomplete.

I can't access a module in the portal

Some modules within the Portal can only be completed by a particular committee member. For example, only an Incoming Treasurer may upload a document in the ‘Annual Budget’ module. Ensure you are logged in correctly.

Student Groups

Reaffiliation

How does it work?

Presidents, Club Captains and Volunteer Coordinators

Treasurers

Student Group Classification

Your Constitution

Byelaw 9 constitution changes

Frequently asked questions

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Student Groups

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Volunteering

Advice & Support

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Student Groups

Reaffiliation

How does it work?

Presidents, Club Captains and Volunteer Coordinators

Treasurers

Student Group Classification

Your Constitution

Byelaw 9 constitution changes

Frequently asked questions

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