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► Starting a Group
Starting a new student group
If you can’t find a group that matches your interests or you think that we’re currently not catering for a particular group of people, you could start your own student group.
The first thing to do is to look at all of the other groups available to see if there is a group that is related to your idea, as it may be that they could expand their objectives to incorporate what you’d like to do, which would have the benefit of accessing their existing members. If you’re not sure if your idea could work with the current group, ask anyway, as they’ll be able to give you more information about what they do and whether they think you could work together.
If you can’t find a similar group to work with, the next step is to download our Group start-up pack or pick up a hard copy from the Student Development office, it has a lot more information about the process of starting a student group, things you might want to think about and what’s involved with running a group.
The pack also includes a form for you to fill out to give us more information about the group, including your overall aims and objectives, how you might work with other groups and some specific examples of what activities you’d like to do. You’ll then need to get twenty people’s signatures to show that there is a demand for your group.
You then submit the form to the Student Development department, where a member of staff will look through it and let you know if they see any major issues. You’ll then be invited to meet with the Student Groups Committee within a few weeks, where you’ll talk about your idea and find out whether it’s been approved or not.
Before you get approved, you can hold events to get your prospective members together, but you shouldn’t be taking money from them at this point. It’s up to you whether you establish your committee before or after coming to meet with the Student Groups Committee, but if you haven’t elected a committee, you’d need to do so within a term of being approved, which should give you plenty of time to recruit members and encourage them to help you run the group.
If you have any questions about starting a group, please just come into the Student Development department and ask, or email studentgroups@guild.bham.ac.uk
