You must:

• Hold an election for new officers.
• Ensure elections are open to all student group members.
• Ensure that the President, Treasurer and Secretary of the student group are student members of Durham Students’ Union.
• All candidates are given the same opportunity to speak at the AGM.

When holding the election you should:

• Only allow members who are present at the AGM to vote in elections.
• We recommend that candidates are given no more than three minutes each to speak or AGMs can drag on for hours!
• Voting should be confidential. You should use a democratic voting system where everyone’s votes are equally weighted.
• Exec members should encourage members to stand as candidates in the election.

You must:

• Present the student group financial accounts for the year.
• If you are unsure how to present your accounts please contact us and we will help you. The finance office is able to provide statements of transactions to help you with this.

You should:

• Use this opportunity to ask members to vote on or suggest changes to the student group’s constitution or objectives. Your constitution will stipulate any further requirements of this.

You should:

• Your student group should always act in the interests of its members. Giving members the opportunity to discuss and agree the student group aims is a good way to ensure this is happening.

You should:

• Review the year’s activities as this ensures that student group members are informed about the activities of the student group. It will also be very useful for the new exec members to hear what members liked/ did not like during the previous year.

A good handover should include you:

• Passing on membership lists, mailing lists, passwords, Facebook admin etc. This may sound obvious but every year there are student group executive committees that fail to do this!
• Teaching the new exec members how to edit and maintain it the website.
• Reviewing the activities of the year including what worked well and what, if anything, did not.
• Taking the time to bring your new exec members into the Student Activities Centre in Dunelm House, show them how to access the financial services etc. and talk them through the behind the scenes activities and processes of your student group. You can make an appointment for them to catch up with the activities team by emailing ask@durhamsu.com.