Big Union Meeting

Every year, four full-time Officers are elected by the student body and paid to work full-time to lead UCLan SU for a year. These Officers are a crucial part of the Union – they represent you and help improve your experiences at UCLan.

The Big Union Meeting is your chance to find out if Officers have implemented their manifestos and plans for change and to question their responses to reactive challenges this year. Have their intentions created results? Are there other changes you would like to have seen?

You can find lots of information about our current Officer team here

The Big Union Meeting is the perfect opportunity to get your voice heard directly and help set the objectives of the Students’ Union. You have the power to improve your university experience and vote on important Students’ Union decisions.

Any resolutions that pass will become active Students’ Union policy for 3 years.

The meeting will include presentations from Officers, Trustees and Union staff but we will also hear directly from students and votes will take place on motions.

Any student can submit an item for discussion at The Big Union Meeting. These items are formally called resolutions but think of them as your ideas and suggestions for the Students’ Union.

We will then share these resolutions from students in advance of The Big Union Meeting so other students have the chance to propose any changes / state that they disagree with them.

An example of this could be suggesting re-wording an action that states, “to make the Union plant based” with “ensure the Union’s commercial outlets offer plant based options on all menus.”

The idea here is to give the motions from students the best possible chance of a full and fair debate and discussion. So the wording matters!

Simply put, a resolution is a student idea submitted to the Students’ Union specifically for this meeting. A good resolution will include things like; why the student is submitting this to be discussed and debated on, what’s the purpose behind the idea aka what changes do they want to see and finally, provide guidance and ideas on how we can make the idea happen.

At the meeting, these actions will be displayed on a PowerPoint for each motion that is discussed.

The meeting is led by a Chair, who is also a student.

At the meeting, you will get to speak for a resolution if you introduced the idea. It’s nothing scary, it’s just talking to your fellow students about why your resolution would make a positive difference and convincing them it’ll work! Then the Chair will allow someone to speak against the motion if they don’t agree with it.

If you didn’t suggest the resolution, you will be able to ask any questions you have about the idea to its proposer, but mainly just to further clarify the idea – not to deliver an opposition speech against it. This is then rinsed and repeated until we need to hold a vote.

There might be a chance that the Chair thinks there needs to be another round of arguments. This is because sometimes an idea might be quite complex and it needs more time to be heard fairly.

Imagine if the Students’ Union suddenly decided it was against their practice to serve your favourite caramel Frappuccino or to close the building on Wednesdays when that is your day on Campus. It would feel pretty unfair, right?

You can have your say and change this decision through debate – which is designed as a chance to hear from everyone. This way, we can carry on being a Union for all students.

Even if a resolution that is a ‘good thing’ is proposed in the meeting, it may take Union’s time away from other valuable things. So, the debate is a great opportunity to establish current Students’ Union priorities.

We know some of you out there might love an official document. Fear not! The way this meeting is conducted is all laid out in our Articles and Byelaws.

Hopefully, this handy guide has answered some of your questions about The Big Union Meeting and what to expect on the day. But we know that it is a lot to digest. Which is why we have a lovely staff team to support you!

If you have any further questions or would like to find out some extra info that hasn’t been included, feel free to send an email to yourunion@uclan.ac.uk.