Royal Society of Medicine Student Section

Terms of Office for

Royal Society Of Medicine Student Section

COUNCIL MEMBERSHIP

(formerly ‘university representative’)

eligibility criteria

• You must hold a valid membership with the Royal Society of Medicine
• You must be a student currently enrolled at a Medical, Dental or Veterinary School within the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland
• You must not be entering your final year of study in Autumn 2016

The primary role of the student representative is to raise awareness of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) and the Student Section within their University, Medical, Dental or Veterinary School, with a view to increase membership from their institution as well as attendance at RSM and Student Section meetings.

It is a professional role that will allow for excellent prospects for networking with like-minded students and professionals from around the country as well as democratically representing your University at an international institution.

As the Student Section strengthens its position amidst the many other RSM Sections and grows in size and activity, if you have an idea for a meeting, we can help you set this up, either to be held at the RSM or your University.

The Student Section Council holds meetings five times a year, once being the Annual General Meeting (AGM) usually in April/May. In taking up a role in the Council and representing your University, Medical, Dental or Veterinary School, you will fulfil the following duties:

• All Council Members are expected to portray the RSM in a positive light and to promote it.

• To increase student awareness of the RSM and Student Section by advertising meetings of interest to students using posters, e-mail, Facebook, flyers, word of mouth and any other means available at individual universities.

• To develop new meeting/event ideas for the Student Council to consider. This includes events that can be held at the RSM or local events that could be jointly run by your University and the RSM.

• To co-ordinate between other Council Members at your Medical, Dental or Veterinary Schools so that all students at all campuses or colleges are covered. You are encouraged to meet at least once between each RSM meeting to ensure that the advertising is working and that each Council Member knows what their assigned duties are.

• To work with the Core Council Members of the Student Section in developing out-of-house meetings (external to the RSM building), which may be held at your University, as well as other requested activity from the Core Council (such as acting as a liaison at your University, or sitting on the panel to interview new applicants).

• To provide relevant dates of Fresher’s and Clinical Fairs, and inform the RSM of other existing and/or new opportunities to promote the RSM at your University.

• To attempt to provide an up-to-date list of societies and clubs, with their contact details, at representative’s own Universities, allowing the RSM to target event promotion to specific groups within Universities as appropriate.

• You should attend at least two Council meetings of the Student Section over the course of the academic year (01 October – 30 September) in addition to the AGM (three in total). Apologies should be sent to the co-ordinator if a Council Member is unable to attend a meeting.

• You are expected to contribute, in an official capacity,to at least one Student Section event each year (eg. volunteer to help organise, run or chair an event – see below)

• You are expected to attend at least two RSM events per year.

If offered a free place at a meeting in order to help out, the student is expected to honour this commitment by attending, introducing themselves to the co-ordinator, helping out as directed, promoting the RSM to students attending the meeting, greeting and thanking the speakers if needed, collecting the feedback sheets, reading through these and providing a summary of the feedback and the event to the next committee meeting, with suggestions for improvement.

Other information

Full travel expenses for at least one representative from each university will be paid.

Each University should provide at least one representative to each committee meeting – the expense provision ensures that each representative from outside of London will be reimbursed their travel costs sufficient to attend all three (two ordinary meetings plus the AGM) of their required minimum committee meetings per year.

The Annual General Meeting allows for all Council Members that year to meet and discuss the current year’s business as well as the forthcoming year’s activity. To this end, the Section allows for travel expenses (and if necessary, accommodation) to be paid for this meeting so that all Council Members will have an opportunity to attend the AGM, especially reps outside of London where it is accepted it is harder for them to attend ordinary committee meetings.