website: peopleandplanet.org/unis/gg/usingyoursu

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    • Key Campaign Skills

      • Strategic Campaigning
      • Actions
      • Using Your SU

        • Getting them on board
        • SU sample motion
        • Society constitution
      • Lobbying
      • Using the Media
      • Campaign Communication
      • Creative skills
      • Fundraising

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Using Your SU: Introduction

Students’ Unions can be really useful to work with - they have access to far more resources and people than your group could have on its own.

Resources

What Students’ Unions offer societies, and what you need to qualify for them, varies a lot. However, a few things that SUs often offer are:

• Cheap/free facilities for meetings, computing, printing, photocopying, faxes.
• Grants
• Minibus hire
• Training in running a society, media work, budgeting etc.
• Promotion via your Freshers Fair, societies handbook and their website.

To access some of these resources you might have to register as a society, or pass a motion to ask for it. To register, you need a constitution, which isn’t as scary as it sounds. Have a look on your SU website, ask them for a template or use ours.

Endorsement and active campaigning

Getting your SU behind a campaign can really give it a boost. Your SU can:

• Pass policy supporting your campaign. There is more information on how to do this on the getting them on board page. As well as nominal support, it could mean you get financial resources, support in kind, or you can mandate even previously unsupportive Union officers to support you.

• Write letters of support. A letter from (or at least signed by) your SU President carries the weight of however many thousands of students are at your University.

• Lobby the University. Most SU Presidents have regular meetings with your Vice Chancellor (VC), whilst other SU Sabbaticals (full-time officers) might have contact with other staff members. This special relationship means that Sabbaticals are in a great position to persuade University staff, particularly the VC, to take action. If you want to lobby the University, get them to go with you or on your behalf.

• Get more active. If you can get you Union Sabbaticals enthusiastic about your campaign, they can do even more. This could mean:

  • Helping you get an article in the student (or even local) newspaper, with quotes.

  • Putting resources into organising a local protest.

  • Featuring the campaign in their publications and on their website.

  • Holding information and action stalls.

Practical stuff

If your campaign is university-centred (e.g. Fairtrade or Go Green) your Union is probably in a position to take action itself. Not only will this help you to get your message to students, but by getting its own house in order, the Union is setting an example to the university and students. For example by:

• Stocking Fairtrade in its shops and cafés.
• Transferring its bank account to a bank with an ethical policy, like the Co-operative Bank.
• Using Green Electricity and recycled paper.
• Passing an ethical sponsorship policy.

You can use opposition or debate within your Union as publicity - then your campaign will be publicised through the Union’s own channels!