[All-societies] Recent grant funding issues - IMPORTANT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

[Treasurer]

Dear Society Committee,

Please consider the below (sorry its a big read) when thinking of putting on
an event...

Explanation for recent grant funding issues -

 The SU does not and cannot justifiably fund social events for your society.
Why? (1) Because there is no guarantee of who will attend, and your risk
assessments won't cover non-society members, so you have no insurance for
them. (2) Consumables: there is no guarantee for us of knowing if
non-society members will eat or drink at your social, so we don't want to be
open to abuse in this way, because grant money is meant to be spent on your
student membership only. (3) If every society knew that they could have a
party on us, they probably would. Then the £15, 000 would be squandered. (4)
Most importantly, very often the case is that the social has absolutely no
cultural or educational benefit to the society membership. (5) We loan
certain societies money for their socials e.g. the History Society for their
Callaghan Ball because it is an established event that has a good proven
track record of making a profit, so they can pay us back. Therefore we are
not giving them anything. If they fail to pay us back then they are left in
debt to us and they have to dig themselves out of that debt. (6) Societies
can use the money they have in their private accounts to  fund socials
because it is their money raised by themselves, however, the majority of the
membership need to agree on what the money is being spent on.

There has been a recent rash of charity events - the SU or its societies
cannot LEGALLY fund charitable events. Why? (1) Every Student Union in the
country is a charity, and charities are not allowed to give to other
charities. (2) The D.F.E.E. has published guidelines about this. Under the
section on clubs and societies (page 4, paragraph 13) it states: 'Neither a
Students Union nor its clubs and societies can make donations to external
organisations, particularly political parties or causes.'  (3) RAG societies
are a national exception and are specially licensed. (4) Raising money and
giving it to charity is an admirable notion, however, societies need to
prove to the SU that they can help themselves. Essentially SU societies are
meant to run themselves and although the SU is here to support societies,
we're not here to bail them out of trouble or give hand-outs when they have
proven not to help themselves. Therefore the funds you raise should be kept
and spent on your membership e.g. have a social or help fund an educational
event.

Examples of when funding is given:
(1) Catholic Society educational talks DVD's
(2) Drama and Dance for the hire of the Taliesin theatre for their
performances.
(3) Visual Arts for their performing equipment.
(4) Cheerleading for uniforms and competitions.
(5) History for their tour of castles in North Wales
(6) The Welsh Society for their Inter-Collegiate Eisteddfod.
(7) Xtreme Radio for their studio re-vamp.
(8) Drinking Wine for their wine tasting sessions.
You can receive funding for travel expenses, guest speakers, conferences,
affiliation fees, equipment, film/video hire/purchase, printing, postage,
venue hire, accommodation and entry fees. There may be some I've missed out,
so please feel free to ask if you have an idea.

Please find the above helpful. I've probably missed something out that
you'll remind me of later, so please let me know.

Best of luck,

Owen


Tel: 01792 295469
Fax: 01792 206029

treasurer at swansea-union.co.uk

www.swansea-union.co.uk