It’s an old chestnut. An ongoing debate in some institutions. And something that occupies far too much time for people who work in student activity departments.
You could be fooled into thinking that what is a sports club and what is a society is the single most important question in activities today. But it’s actually a bluff, a smokescreen. You can come up with lots of contradictory ways of defining who fits in what bracket but at the end of the day we all know what it’s really about. It’s what it’s always about – money.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but I would make the sweeping generalisation that in the majority of unions there are separate pots of funding for sports clubs and societies. And that furthermore the sports club pot is bigger. The reason that people want to be classified as sports clubs is because they’ll have a chance to access more cash. The reason people want to keep certain groups as societies is so that they don’t dilute the pot and mean that their club will end up getting less money.
Throw an AU structure into the equation and you’ve got an added complication.
The issue for me that often Sports club or society is the wrong question or at least, the wrong way of looking at the situation. The decisions over definitions are made to make life easier for staff and sabbaticals, not necessarily to make life better for the students taking part in those groups.
So, what should we actually be talking about? Well, it’s probably many different things.
Firstly, there needs to be an assessment of what groups actually need in terms of support (both cash and staffing) – not what they can currently access. If you have an expensive group, it’s expensive regardless of whether you would call it a club or society. Necessity should be your steer, not any name bias or feeling about the importance of one versus the other.
Secondly, combine your funding pots. Not only that – make societies have a say on sports club funding and vice versa. Most of the major misunderstandings that come out around funding are because one side doesn’t understand the others position. £4000 might look like a lot of money to give a group (and it is) but when it’s only actually 10% of their yearly turnover it’s a different picture.
Thirdly, get people to be realistic. Do you really need £4000? Sure it would be great to have a big sack of cash to spend on whatever you want, but do you actually need that to run the group? If you can run quite happily on £250 then that’s actually all that you need. By the same token, if a group is taking tons of grant cash and should be putting in more money of their own, make that happen. Remind people that Union grants are only a subsidy on their activities and not the main source of funding.
Fourthly, resign yourself to the fact that not everything will fall nice and easily into one category. At Leeds we had ten different categories for groups and there was still times when a group was one thing one day and something else the next: General Interest society Pool entering BUCS competitions being a good example. How can you change the system that you have in place so that it has the flexibility to deal with reality – not how you would like things to be.
And finally, remember that the majority of students don’t care as they’ll call it what they want anyway. The important thing is that no matter what they call it, they have a fun time doing it and get the most they can out of it.
Hopefully, not burdened by the politics of naming.
Tags: amsu
May 28, 2009 at 2:47 pm |
Nice blog Andy!
I agree that clubs and societies are a home of loads of holy cows that should be taken to the abattoir.
And another thing
Only having one club for one activity. On e the face of it this is sensible but it can lead to abstruse definitions of role e.g. Hill walking ( long walks) V mountaineering V Fell walking and running, is one I remember from days gone by. Actually slightly different people and in some cases the same people just wanted to organise themselves differently and have a different culture. No problem in my view.
How about sport? Why not have three or four football clubs? Only one would be in BUCS but the others might have distinct and valuable roles. At Loughborough, at least, one of the issues is the interests of the first and maybe second team will always dominate the club. A second club might do better for the keen recreational –player without detracting from the elite.