Many alumni maintain contact with each other through regional Clubs and Associations in the UK and overseas.

Details of these clubs and their activities are published each year in the Alumnus Chronicle. If there is not a club in your area and you would like to establish one, then the following guidelines will provide you with a basic framework to do this. Please remember that Clubs vary greatly in terms of their formality, size, frequency with which they meet, etc.

If there is not a club in your area, Alumni Relations will be delighted to advise you on how you can go about setting up one of your own. We can help you by contacting alumni in your area or by posting a message in our St Andrews in the News e-newsletter, on our Facebook page and in our Twitter feed to gauge what level of interest there might be. We can also put you in touch with other alumni club volunteers who can share their experiences.

How to set up a regional Club or Association

1. Getting started

Contact the Alumni Relations Office. Using our alumni database, we will be able to let you know how many alumni there are in your area. This will enable you to set the geographic parameters of your club. While you may want your club to be as inclusive as possible, you must consider how far members will travel to attend meetings and events.

2. The inaugural meeting

Plan your inaugural meeting or event (e.g. an informal drinks reception, or arrange to meet up in a bar). The Alumni Relations Office will help you to contact alumni in your area in order to gauge what level of interest there might be in alumni activities and in forming a club. Hopefullly there will be sufficient interest to plan further events, in which case you may wish to identify a small number of people to help you to plan and organise events for the future.

Some Clubs opt to have formal committees and appoint a number of officers e.g. a Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, an Events Officer and a Publicity Officer (brief descriptions of these roles are outlined below). The benefit of a committee is that the administrative burden of running the club does not rest on one person.

3. Your first committee meeting

For those who opt to have a committee, the first committee meeting might discuss the aims and objectives of the Club and possibly draw up a constitution. 

When planning social events and meetings, the age, interests and geographic location of your prospective members should be taken into account. Try to make your schedule of events as imaginative and as broadly appealing as you can in order to attract the widest possible membership.

Set the level of subscription for membership (if appropriate). The subscription should cover costs such as advertising for events, administration (postage and stationery costs) plus a small surplus for covering miscellaneous expenses, for example deposits for room hire.  While some committees prefer to build these costs into the charges for individual events, others find that an annual subscription makes the administration and planning of events much easier. Subscriptions should be logged in one or more bank account(s) set up in the name of the club or association, cheques to be signed and countersigned by the Chair, Treasurer and/or Secretary.

4. Keep us informed

The Alumni Relations Office is always delighted to hear news from alumni clubs. Please send us your news by 1 February each year to be included in the Club News pages of the Alumnus Chronicle. This is an excellent way to promote your Club and attract new members/recent graduates.

Key roles of committee members

Chairperson

• Overall responsibility for the smooth running and development of the club.
• Chairs meetings
• Maintains regular contact with the Alumni Relations Office.
• Co-responsible for finance - see Treasurer.

Secretary

• Maintains the minutes of the committee meetings.
• Informs members of the committee meetings - supplies agenda.
• Manages general correspondence.
• Maintains a database of members.

Treasurer

• Primary responsibility for finance.
• Organises subscriptions
• Day-to-day management of accounts.
• Pays bills

Events Officer

• Organises events: books venues, liaises with Alumni Relations Office regarding speakers (where appropriate), co-ordinates catering etc.

Publicity Officer

• Produces a newsletter/regular events listing.
• Responsible for publicity of the Club's events with the Events Officer.

Guidelines for writing a club constitution

Many alumni maintain contact with each other through regional associations and international alumni groups. Details of these clubs and their activities are published each year in Alumnus Chronicle. If you can find no details of a club in your area and would like to establish one, then the following guidelines will provide you with a basic framework to do this.

How to set up a Regional Club or Association

1. Name of the Club or Association

The name of the club should be laid out and should reflect the nature of the club i.e. whether the club represents a geographic grouping of alumni, or whether it represents alumni with a hobby or special interest in common.

2. Aim(s) of the Club

These set out the club's reasons for existing and should be used to give direction to activities planned by the club. Aims may include the facilitation of social gatherings of St Andrews graduates within a specific geographic area, the creation of new friendships between club members, representation and promotion of the University of St Andrews or recruitment of new students to the University.

3. Membership

Criteria for membership of the club should be stipulated. The principal criteria for membership will usually be either geographic location or involvement with a special interest group. However, all or some of the following may also be included:

• Graduates of the University.
• Non-graduating former students of the University (e.g. Junior year abroad students Friends of the University, former members of staff, partners or spouses).
• Other persons who may be approved by the Committee.

4. Subscription

The Club committee should already have set the level of annual subscription and this should be stated in the constitution. A brief indication of those expenses which subscriptions will be used to cover should also be included.

5. Events

You may choose to offer an indication of the type and frequency of events that the club will co-ordinate. Alternatively, you could simply indicate here who will be responsible for deciding the club's schedule of events.

6. Annual General Meeting

The time, place and purpose of the AGM should be laid out. These do not have to be specifics, but should at least indicate how these arrangements will be made and by whom.

7. The Committee

At your club's initial meeting a committee should have been appointed. The constitution should indicate which posts will make up the committee, and should offer a brief description of the responsibilities assigned to each post.

8. The Constitution

Indicate under which circumstances, and by what procedures, the constitution of the club may be amended.

9. An Extraordinary Annual General Meeting

Indicate under which circumstances, and by what procedures, such a meeting may be called.

10. Dissolution

This point should indicate who, in the event of the club being dissolved, would be the recipient of any funds remaining in the club's account(s).

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