How to run your Annual General Meeting (AGM)

Every year, you'll need to hold an Annual General Meeting (AGM), where you report back on what you've done in the past year and elect next year's Committee.

The advice on this page is designed for Clubs and Societies who use the SUSU Model Constitution - by default, you probably use this Constitution. If you don't have a copy of your Constitution, please check your Club or Society Groups Hub under 'Uploaded documents'. If you cannot find your constitution, you will need to adopt the model one at your next meeting.

When do we have to do this?

You must hold an AGM every year. SUSU sets the deadline for AGMs each year - this is usually after the Easter holiday. This year's deadline is Monday 29th May 2023.

You can have your AGM at any time before this - many groups choose to hold them before Easter, so the new Committee have the Easter holiday to start planning for the year ahead.

You’ll need to give ten days’ notice of the AGM to all your members. This notice needs to say that elections are happening and tell people what the positions are and how to nominate themselves.

It also needs to say the time, date and place of the AGM.

What happens at the AGM?

The President will lead the AGM (or if they aren’t there, you can elect someone else to do it).

The Committee members can report on what they’ve been up to over the past year, and the Treasurer must report on the Club or Society's finances and this will need to be uploaded on the Club or Society's Groups Hub page in advance of the AGM deadline too.

To help with reporting on the Club or Society's finances we have prepared a template overview. If you have any questions about how best to complete this, please contact suactivities@soton.ac.uk and the Union's Coordinators will be happy to help.

Someone, usually the Secretary/Vice-President, will need to keep a record of that is decided at the meeting. This should be sent to everyone after the meeting so they can see what happened.

How do we elect the Committee?

The Committee are chosen by an election, and any student who is a Full Member of your Club or Society can stand in the election. Staff/Non-student/alumni that are associate members of SUSU  may attend the AGM and raise points at the chair's discretion, but may not vote or run for any role*. 

For each position, you also have to have a candidate called “Re-Open Nominations” (RON), which is a way for students to say they don’t want any of the actual candidates to be elected. If Re-Open Nominations gets elected, you run the election again.

Voting

The election should be run by a secret ballot, where members have a piece of paper (a ballot paper) for each position and choose one candidate from a list. The ballot paper mustn’t include anything that could identify the person who is voting.

You can print off ballot papers in advance of the meeting if you like, or you can just pass round pieces of paper at the meeting and members can write down the name of the candidate they want to be elected.  If you wish to vote by show of hands (i.e. heads down, hands up) you will need an independent person (not a member of your Club or Society) present to undertake any count.

Every student who is a full member of your group can vote (but if you have any non-student members, they can’t vote). You can only vote if you’re present at the meeting – you can’t ask someone else to vote on your behalf. The Chair only votes if there is a tie.

Every student member can vote in every election, even if they’re running for a position.

Counting

The ballot papers should be counted in front of the candidates by the Chair of the meeting (or other Committee members who aren’t running) – there is no reason for this to happen in secret. If someone is running in the election, they can’t be involved in running it or counting the results.

The system used is called First Past the Post, so whichever candidate gets the largest number of votes is the winner.

Running Your AGM Online

To give anyone isolating or unable to attend your AGM you may want to include an online voting option. As a best practice, we would encourage you to set up your online voting form using Microsoft forms.  This will allow you to ensure that only your members can vote in your elections and members can vote anonymously. The admin of this form will need to be independent (e.g. not running for a position). 

You could still run a ‘virtual’ vote where members raise their hands to vote for a candidate. You will need an independent person (not a member of your Club or Society) present to undertake this type of count.

If you are concerned you do not have an independent person to count the votes please email us for advice at suactivities@soton.ac.uk

Recruitment 

You may be worried this year about recruiting members to run for committee positions & creating a buzz around your elections.  Here are some top tips for how you could do this:

• Encourage candidates to run fun, creative, and innovative campaigns (think reaching out via memes, rap videos, comedy sketches).
• Plan a fun AGM. You need to vote and report on the year, but you can still play games and get people excited for next year.
• Approach other Clubs & Socs- cross-promote each other’s AGMs and roles
• Reach out personally and encourage people to run.
• Offer opportunities for 1:1’s with the current committee so people can find out more about the role.
• Email all your members via Groups Hub to make sure they know when your AGM is.
• Promote your roles via social media.

What's next?

Once you’ve elected your new committee, they can take office immediately or at an appropriate point in the future (i.e. after the final event/activity of this academic year). The Committee must update their committee information on the Student Groups Hub provided by the Students’ Union at www.susu.org , ideally within one week of the AGM itself, but prior to the deadline above.

The outgoing Committee must transfer all relevant information and documentation to the new Committee, or to the President, as soon as reasonably possible. You can find out more about how to run a succesful handover here.

The Students' Union will contact all Clubs and Societies after the AGM deadline and invite knew Presidents/Captains/Lead roles to a meeting with a core member of Students' Union staff. This meeting will cover some of the key parts of Club and Society handover and help ensure that the new Committee have access to everything they need.

All new commitees will have access to training to support them in their roles. 

If you have any questions about running your AGM or elections, please email suactivities@soton.ac.uk.