VUWSA – Te Aka Tauira

Clubs and Societies Proposal

by students, for students

1 Introduction

OUR MISSION

A ‘by students, for students’ clubs and societies that enables students to lead and achieve their aspirations, making for a more vibrant and connected student community.

VUWSA’s Clubs and Societies Proposal is driven by the ability to provide better and more services to clubs with the same amount of funding that the University currently allocates to Clubs and Societies.

Our proposal will lead to less admin, more support, funding and resources available for clubs and societies. It will also create the ability for clubs to take leadership: to make decisions or pursue goals that are for the benefit of Clubs and Societies as a whole, in the spirit of ‘by students for students.’

We want our Clubs and Societies to have the best student experience that meets their diverse and common needs. Our mission is in alignment with the University’s goals of enhancing the student experience.

2 Contents

• Scope of the proposal
• Executive Summary
• Moving VUWSA Reception to the Clubhouse
• Online Clubs Portal (room-booking, affiliation, grants applications, record-keeping)
• Clubs Council
• Co-governance with Ngāi Tauira
• Clubs Sponsorship and Vicbooks Grant
• Clubs Social Media
• Clubs Resource Library
• Partnership with Sports Clubs
• The Financials
• Frequently Asked Questions

3 Scope of the proposal

IN SCOPE

• 2 x FTE roles and 1 x casual
• Operating, IT, Security and limited cleaning
• Gold awards
• Sponsorship funding (excluding sports grants)
• Vicbooks Grant (an additional $50,000 to begin with)
• Management of the Student Union Building spaces, including room-bookings for levy-funded spaces
• Support to look after non-sports clubs, affiliation, support and development

The clubs portal will exclude room-bookings for spaces and groups not covered by the Student Services Levy, however the VUWSA receptionist can support room-bookings for those spaces.

OUT OF SCOPE

Sponsorship funding for sports clubs at the request of the Director of Student and Campus Living that those clubs remain separate.

4 Executive Summary

VUWSA intends to reallocate its own services within the Student Association to mesh with the existing Clubs and Societies resources. This will result in better services and more funding for our clubs.

To reduce administration and allow for more dedicated staff support for clubs and societies, VUWSA plans to move the VUWSA reception into the clubs space and deploy an online clubs management portal.

An important distinction of the VUWSA proposal is that we are ‘by students for students.’ VUWSA Operations will provide the day-to-day support and management of Clubs and Societies and support the Clubs Council to govern Clubs and Societies.

Clubs Council/ VUWSA will co-govern clubs and societies with Ngāi Tauira so that Māori rōpū will affiliate with Ngāi Tauira rather than VUWSA to uphold Te Tiriti and the VUWSA x NT Memorandum of Understanding. Further details need to be worked through, but Ngāi Tauira will fundamentally have rangatiratanga over Māori rōpū resources, training, support etc.

There will be more funding and resources for clubs. Sponsorship funding will be ringfenced from one year to the next and VUWSA will increase it as a minimum in line with Student Service Levy funding increases.* We will also create a VicBooks Grant provided by the VUWSA Trust, separate to sponsorship funding, for aspirational projects of clubs and societies. A shared clubs resource library will also be created and grown as determined by clubs and societies.

To raise the profile of clubs and societies and encourage students to join them, we will create and manage a clubs social media presence, including a clubs and societies events calendar for students.

*We are not proposing any changes to the sponsorships process, unless clubs want to provide feedback in the future on this.

5 Moving VUWSA Reception to the Clubhouse

VUWSA plans to move its reception service from its current location to the clubs space. The VUWSA reception is an existing resource that is under-used at times and can provide Monday-Friday 9am-4pm support for clubs. The receptionist can support room-bookings for non-levy funded spaces and provide help-desk support for all clubs’ questions and administration. This will free up existing staffing requirements, thus free up funding. Most of this funding will be put back into grants for Clubs and Societies. Secondly, this will also free up the Clubs Manager to focus on dedicated support and development for Clubs and Societies.

6 Online Clubs Portal

IMPACT

A largely one-stop-shop portal means that many current administrative processes will be streamlined. The system will be easy to use and manage. This will minimise administrative burden and paperwork for clubs and societies, and the clubs manager. The clubs manager will be freed up to engage with clubs and societies and support their development better.

The online clubs management system and portal VUWSA is looking to deploy was developed over 7 years ago to manage and support Clubs and Societies at the Otago University Students’ Association. This system has two key advantages – it was designed from the ground up with the user experience in mind and has been fully tested by students at Otago University over many years. This means it is a mature, well-used system.

This system does come at a cost, but it is still more cost-effective than the current model where all clubs’ administration is undertaken by staff. We want to empower our people to focus on improving the student experience.

KEY FEATURES:

• Each club has a portal where they can store their minutes, financial information and membership details
• Each club can affiliate via the portal
• The clubs portal has a built-in grants section that allows clubs to apply for various grants for which they are eligible. Past statuses of grants (granted, declined, amount, any conditions etc) can also be seen by clubs in their own portal.
• Online room booking system that shows which levy-funded spaces are free and allows clubs to book spaces easily.
• The focus of this system is to minimise administration, however associated administration is necessary to manage all these resources (which can be done by the VUWSA reception and VUWSA operations).
• VUWSA will endeavour to make the system available to sports clubs at the request of the University.
• Free room-booking for memorial theatre/performance spaces, creating and supporting an environment for creativity and a lively campus with stage shows.

7 Clubs Council

An important distinction of the VUWSA proposal is that we believe clubs and societies should be run by students for students. During this proposal and if VUWSA was to manage clubs and societies, students will always be centrally involved in decision-making, as students will understand best their needs and aspirations. Our goal is to always improve the student experience.

Transparency is a fundamental value for our proposal. VUWSA operations will provide regular reporting and benchmarking to track the quality of the club experience and to help our students understand how the level of funding support compares with other similar Universities. This reporting will go to the Clubs Council and through a wider Clubs and Societies newsletter. We believe that when students can see where the clubs’ funds are going, they will be empowered to suggest proposed improvements.

The terms of reference of the Clubs Council will need to be revised to ensure it reflects the representation of Clubs and Societies and it includes decision-making and consultation processes. This should be very doable and will require an iterative process to determine the scope of decision-making, and how this interacts with co-governance with Ngāi Tauira.

The main benefit of ‘by students, for students’ is that groups like Clubs Council could have student-led goals for clubs and societies. For example, this includes goals like increasing the reach of clubs and societies with the student body, growing a resource library, more cross-club collaboration, or addressing commonly-faced issues like handover and continuity. The role of the Clubs and Activities Officer will continue to be a chair or co-chair of the Clubs Council and support clubs alongside the Clubs manager and VUWSA operations.

VUWSA operations will have to provide dedicated support to Clubs Council, akin to how they provide support to the VUWSA executive. VUWSA operations will ensure continuity in Clubs Council, provide accessible and digestable reporting and act as a sounding board for ideas.

8 Co-governance with Ngāi Tauira

VUWSA will co-govern Clubs and Societies alongside Ngāi Tauira to ensure that Māori rōpū (Ngā Rangahautira, Ngā Taura Umanga, Te Hōhaieti o Te Reo Māori) affiliate to Ngāi Tauira, and NT decide all affiliation for Māori rōpū. Ngāi Tauira maintains the rangatiratanga over Māori rōpū and decision-making over their resources, future clubs training and support, and VUWSA will continue to support this to uphold Te Tiriti and the VUWSA and Ngāi Tauira Memorandum of Understanding.

Co-governance with Ngāi Tauira could look like co-chairing Clubs Council, or Clubs Council reporting to Ngāi Tauira/ VUWSA, ensuring equitable voting and decision-making structures. It will require ongoing strengthening of the relationship between VUWSA and Ngāi Tauira so there is regular communication of anything clubs-related, and VUWSA is actively supporting the voice of Ngāi Tauira.

Ngāi Tauira is not a club or subsidiary of VUWSA, but the equal and autonomous partner of Te Aka Tauira. We will not have any decision-making that contradicts their rangatiratanga. VUWSA will continue working through the details with Ngāi Tauira on this, in terms of further implications and benefits for Māori rōpū.

9 Clubs Sponsorship and Vicbooks Grants

SPONSORSHIP GRANTS

• RINGFENCED
  If there is leftover sponsorship funding in the pool, those remaining funds will be retained and ring-fenced for next year’s sponsorship pool.
• ALIGNMENT WITH SSL INCREASES: VUWSA will increase the sponsorship pool as a minimum in line with the annual student service levy increases. For example if the student service levy increases by 1.5%, then sponsorship funding should also increase by 1.5% as a minimum.

VICBOOKS GRANT

• AN ADDITIONAL $50,000 GRANT: The Vicbooks Grant will be bulk-funded by the VUWSA Trust. It will be up to an additional and separate $50,000 annually to start with. After a one-year trial period, we will decide on a sustained operating model for the grant and any increases.
• CRITERIA: Specific criteria will be decided by the Clubs Council alongside VUWSA and Ngāi Tauira. However, the spirit of the grant is to enable clubs and societies to undertake special and aspirational projects, or pay for minor capital which will enrich the virbancy of campus and student community.

10 Clubs Social Media

Another change to the current University offerings is that VUWSA will provide centralised social media channels for Clubs and Societies, through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc to help Clubs and Societies grow a central social media presence. We will also create an online Clubs and Societies events calendar so that students can find out what is happening and better participate in student community. For an example, look at the University of Canterbury Student Association’s clubs’ calendar: https://ucsa.org.nz/whatson/

VUWSA’s Communications and Marketing Manager will assist the Clubs Manager and Clubs and Societies to make these channels useful and engaging ways to get information.

Clubs Resource Library

It is not clear to VUWSA what are the current physical resources available for clubs. However, VUWSA already provides some limited resources including some of the below which have not been funded by the Student Services Levy Pool.

Our free resource library would enable clubs to access:

• Urns for hot water
• Free and full Canva licences (we have not-for-profit status)
• Fold out tables
• BBQs
• Printing Support for Clubs for promotions e.g. A3/A4 full colour
• PA system

Having a resource library is a strategic goal for VUWSA as we believe that it allows clubs and societies to become more aspirational in their activities. We would like to grow the library via open forums with clubs and the Clubs Council.

11 Partnership with sports clubs

At the beginning of the year, the Director of Student and Campus Living discussed with us the possibility for sports clubs to stay with the Recreation Centre. We do not want to see a system of ‘them and us,’ and the focus should always be on how we can better support our students and their clubs and societies. We are happy to support sports clubs within our proposal or through a Memorandum of Understanding between VUWSA clubs and societies and the Recreation Centre.

Sports clubs and athletes have needs that are appropriately supported by the Recreation Centre, and we would not wish for them to lose this sport-specific support. Therefore, a Recreation Centre and VUWSA partnership approach to supporting sports clubs might best suit these clubs’ needs, as VUWSA is more than happy to discuss the use of VUWSA online portal for sports clubs. A Memorandum of Understanding could create a basis for a strong partnership that supports our clubs and societies.

12 The Financials

Our proposal is cost-neutral to the University. It would simply be a reallocation of the current clubs and societies funding to VUWSA and the additional $50,000 Vicbooks grant provided by the VUWSA Trust.

Club support	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
	Actual $	Actual $	Actual $	Actual $	Budget $	Comment
People	130,000	135,500	141,000	145,500	150,507	2x staff FTE, 1x casual
Operating and IT	16,909	13,076	16,863	14,413	18,369	PCs, office supplies, printing etc
Security and cleaning	1,413	1,531	468	2,181	1,073	Security, cleaning, keys, waste
Events and activities	6,016	2,965	745	7,825	7,000	Golds and club events
Sponsorship	160,000	96,857	152,996	148,420	160,000	All club and individual sponsorship
TOTAL EXPENSES	314,338	249,929	312,072	318,339	2023

From 2019 to 2023 there has been a 6.9% increase in the total expenses in relation to Clubs and Societies.

VUWSA expects that moving the VUWSA Reception to the clubs space and providing an online clubs management system will lead to people-costs saving. These savings will be reinvested primarily into clubs sponsorship and funding for clubs resources.

Subject to the success of the Vicbooks Grant, we are very open to increasing it.

13 Frequently Asked Questions