Starting a New Student Group has never been easier! It's a great way to make the most of your time at the University of Leicester and find a group of likeminded individuals that share your interests and hobbies.
We can only take on a max of 15 applications at one time. This does mean that sometimes we may have to cut the deadline short to allow for our staff and the council to review the applications based off of their capacity.
We currently have extremely limited availability for room bookings on campus. If you are looking to start up a performance or sports based society, please expect that you will need to find external spaces.
Please see the timetable below for deadlines:
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DEADLINE TO APPLY
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HEAR BACK FROM US BY
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21st October 2024
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25th October 2024
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18th November 2024
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22nd November 2024
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9th December 2024
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13th December 2024
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27th January 2025
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31st January 2025
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24th Febraury 2025
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28th Febraury 2025
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19th May 2025
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23rd May 2025
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But what's the process? To get started, you need to fill in the New Student Group application form. You will be asked the following:
- The name of your group
- Brief description of your group
- Student Group Category
- Your planned activities
- Your committee members
- We require there to be at least 3 committee members in the roles of President, Treasurer and Wellbeing & Inclusion Ambassador. Please Note: You can only hold one core position (President, Treasurer and Wellbeing & Inclusion) on committee.
- You will also upload a copy of your constitution which outlines information like any extra roles you would like and the aims of your group! You can download this here.
- After completing your constitutions, you can visit this link to answer and submit the new affilliation form: Click here to make a submission!
At the University of Leicester Students' Union we operate on a rolling intake with applications approved at the Societies Council meeting every month. If you have any questions make sure to get in touch with the team at unionactivities@le.ac.uk.
What criteria does my New Student Group need to meet?
There are a number of different ways to help your Student Group get approved, but make sure to consider the following when coming up with your ideas:
- Unique: Make sure that your Student Group stands out from others that exist here. Groups that are too similar to others will not be approved.
- Community: Think about whether your Student Group idea will create a sense of community within its members, what can you do to ensure that it will work as a group
- Workload: Running a Student Group is a fantastic way to build your CV but it can take up a lot of time. Make sure that you can balance it alongside your other commitments and that you have at least 2 other people that are happy to dedicate their time to be on committee.
When will I get a response?
Once you have submitted your form, it will be sent to staff to review before being checked and confirmed by students on Societies Council. Submissions that arrive atleast a week before the next meeting will be reviewed then unless there is a high influx of submissions. If you have not heard back from us after a month, please get in touch so we can look into this for you.
Please understand that the weeks that we respond, it could be any day between the Monday and Friday of that week.
Don't have enough people to start a group yet?
If you have an idea for a group but don't have students to start it with yet, share your idea to meet likeminded students! We have a page where you, and others, can suggest new groups, or clubs, and find others who are interested. If your idea is popular we can help you promote it or students may comment on your idea to get involved. It's a great way to meet students you wouldn't normally and spread your idea across course as well as campuses.
Click here for the page to submit your idea!
Why not Restart a Society?
Below is lists of all of the Student Groups that don't have a committee anymore, but are more likely to be approved during the Start a Society process and may have some pre-existing resources (e.g. funding/equipment).
This means that students can take these societies and restart them if it is something they are interested in!
If you have any questions about restarting a society, make sure to get in touch with the Union Activities team at unionactivities@le.ac.uk.