Despite everything that’s going on in the world right now, it’s AGM season at uni as usual! AGM stands for Annual General Meeting, and is a meeting in which a society or club elects next year’s committee. We’re lucky to have the technology available to us to allow us to continue with this tradition of electing a new committee just before the Easter break. Whether you’ve been interested in joining a committee for a while or you don’t even know what a committee is, I hope this blog post encourages some of you to go for a position on your chosen committee this year!
I’ve been involved in committees since my first year of uni, but they aren’t as scary as they look and being on a committee really stands out on your CV! With the History Society, I’ve been a General Committee Member, President, Treasurer, and next year I’m going back to being a General Committee Member. With DUWFC, I was Communications Officer this year and I’m going for the role of Treasurer for next year. So you can see I’ve been involved in two different committees in some very different roles!
If you’d like to be on a committee, it should be of a society or club that you’re really passionate about or just love being a member of. If you don’t have a society or club that you love, then you should find one in the Freshers’ Fair in September! Once you’re a member of a society, it’s normally super easy to nominate yourself for a role. When a meeting date is announced and the current committee are asking for interest, all you usually need to do is give them a message to register your interest! Make sure you can make the meeting or, if you can’t, make sure it’s okay for you to write a speech for someone else to read out at the meeting.
After you’ve registered your interest, you should think about writing a brief speech to explain to other members why you’re the best person for the role you’re going for and what you would aim to do or change if you got voted into the role. It doesn’t have to be really long, just a minute or two! It’s quite easy to write, especially if you have some ideas in mind already. Just focus on what traits you think you have that would help you in the role, and what you could perhaps change about the club or society to make it even better if you got voted in.
If you get voted in, congratulations! But now you really have to show your commitment. If you get elected into a role in a society or club, you should try your best to commit a good chunk of your time to this role in your daily or weekly routine. It doesn’t have to take over your life, and of course your studies are far more important, but you have been chosen to do a job and you should try your best to give it your all! Attend any training sessions there might be to do with your role and really try to get to know both the people on your committee and any contacts you might need that would help you in your role.
If you’re going for any roles in the coming weeks, good luck! And if you’ve already been voted into a committee position for the 2020/21 academic year, congratulations! Enjoy your time being a key member of your society or club.