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Planning an Event 📋

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Any event you plan for your society will require input from a number of parties. Whether you're organising a single room booking, a regular society meeting or a larger one-off event, the information on this page has been created to help you and your coordinator to create a successful activity that runs smoothly.

Any committee member can take ownership of any part of the process, although we'd recommend nominating one person to be the pont of contact who submits the relevant forms.

 

Choosing a Location

The University has multiple campuses across the city - plus there are many external spaces around BIrmingham which may be suitable for your needs.

However each campus comes with its limitations. Some are beautiful listed buildings - but by their nature aren't as accessible and often don't have the same resources as some of our larger locations. Larger campuses may have more facilities, but are also used more regularly for teaching so it can be harder to get the rooms you're after.

We've pulled together this handy map, which will be updated regularly with any points of interest:
 

 

The Process

When you're planning your event you'll need to complete the relevant steps below as a minimum. For small events, such as society meetings, your coordaintor will come back to you to confirm the details. Where an event is larger and requires more planning, your coordinator will speak to you to bring all the elements together: 

  • To book a space for a single or regular session, an atrium stall or a one-off event you should fill in the space booking form on the society toolkit.
  • If you want to invite an external speaker, you should fill in the form on the toolkit once your room has been confirmed.
  • You will also need to submit a risk assessment as part of the process. Some scenarios will be covered by generic risk assessments, others will require additional detail to be added.
     
 
FAQs

An external speaker is defined as any individual who is not either a BCU student or a BCU/BCUSU staff member, who wishes to speak on a topic to your members.

Any ratified society is able to invite external speakers onto campus to interact with society members and we will consider requests in line with the principles of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023.

More detail can be found on our dedicated external speakers page.

Yes. Any event that's being undertaken needs to be risk assessed before it can take place.

Most standard classroom based activities will fall under the scope of our standard risk assessment. If your activity isn't covered, you will need to complete a new risk assessment and add it as part of the event form submission.

More information can be found on our dedicated risk assesments page.

My booking is for a one-off event requiring multiple rooms?

If your event requires multiple rooms (for example, two classrooms to accommodate a large number of members) then you should include the additional rooms in the preferred space section.


My booking is for a regular society meeting which repeats each week?

If you are requesting the same space, on the same day and time, across multiple weeks (for example a regular society meeting), please complete one form and select 'yes' when you're asked if your request is a multiple booking request. 

Multiple booking requests for different rooms, days or times will still require additional forms to be completed.

The documents below are useful for societies looking to host events. Click on the link to download the document.

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