CULS 2012-2013 President’s Report
Executive Committee
President: Jacynth Bassett (Murray Edwards)
Vice-President: Megan Young (Pembroke)
Treasurer: Charles Olisanekwu (St Catherine’s)
Secretary: Louise O’Hara (Downing)
Committee
Membership: Jamshed Bilimoria (Trinity)
Per Incuriam: Laura Williams (Pembroke)
Foreign Affairs: Charlotte Kelly (Trinity) and Danny Corteville (King’s)
Master of Moots: Oberon Kwok (Downing)
Mistress of Moots: Claire Rogers (Jesus)
Sponsorship: Michael Foster (Downing)
Law Ball President: Frances McDonnell (Christ’s)
Careers: Molly Cox (Downing)
Socials: Shayhan Patel-Master (St John’s), Jessica Goldring (Murray Edwards) and Alex Chidgey (Homerton)
Speakers: Gretel Scott (Downing)
Graphic Designer: Eliska Haskovcova (Magdalene)
Web Developer: Andrew Aistrup (Christ’s)
Assistant Treasurer: Bethany Parker (Murray Edwards)
We decided to introduce the new position of Assistant Treasurer this year to support the Treasurer given the now additional task of making the VAT return every three months.
Subcommittees:
Mooting, Law Ball, Careers, Speakers, Per Incuriam
This year we introduced the careers subcommittee in response to membership demand to increase the Society’s offerings with regards to careers events and information. Additionally, we introduced the role of Speakers Vice-secretary to support the Speakers Secretary in response to previous speakers secretaries feeling it was a role that was too burdensome for one person.
General Remarks by the President
As CULS is one of the largest student societies not only in Cambridge but also in the country, my aim this year has been to restructure the society to reflect this. In order to maintain the high standard expected by members and to increase CULS’s offerings to its members, I have increased centralisation and approached the society more as a business in order to develop new and stronger relationships with sponsors. The Senior Treasurer and Committee supported this stance, and I believe this has been successful, as indicated by increased sponsorship this year (see below) and the high quality offerings we have delivered.
Additionally, over the past few years the Society has garnered a reputation for excellent socials, with its more academic aspects being overshadowed to a degree. In response to this, I have attempted to restore the balance by increasing offerings in relation to careers, speakers and Per Incuriam, to name a few.
In general, I believe this year has seen CULS become more relevant and up-to-date, whilst maintaining its strong reputation, and it has offered a diverse variety of events and activities to members so as to cater to the demands of many more members than before.
1. Treasurer
CULS became registered for VAT on 2nd July 2012.
On 31st December 2012, Dr Neil Jones resigned from his position as Senior Treasurer. Dr Jonathan Morgan has succeeded him, and the Law Faculty has supported this.
As part of our ‘Treasurer’s Treats’, we have continued to negotiate with local Cambridge businesses to provide members with the best possible discounts. This year we have provided members discounts at 6 different establishments.
2. Membership
To take into account the fact that we are now registered for VAT, we increased membership fees to initially £20 for annual membership and £25 for life. These fees remained as such until 16th October to encourage new members, in particular freshers, to join at an early stage. Following this date they increased to £25 for annual membership, and £30 for life.
This year saw the introduction of the online membership sign up via our website. In addition, it is still possible to become a member at the Freshers’ Fair or via cheque sent to the Membership Secretary. Introduction of online membership has resulted in a 40% increase in new members this year.
3. Website/social media
Our Web Developer completely redesigned the website. It is now more professional and offers more features to members. This has been met by all round positive response from both members and sponsors.
New features include:
- online calendar which is updated in real time and is downloadable to members’ mobiles and computers
- twitter feed
- Term card and Per Incuriam download and archive
- online stash store
- updated sponsors profile page
- search function
The new website also saw the launch of our new logo.
The new website has seen a significant increase in traffic: we receive on average 100,000 unique page hits a month, and this has sometimes reached 200,000.
Additionally, we launched the new public Facebook page over Easter 2012 and the CULS twitter account.
4. Sponsorship
This year, sponsorship monies have increased by approximately 25% compared to last year. Additionally we have fostered new sponsorship relationships with 8 new firms and organisations.
One of our aims with sponsorship this year has been to develop relationships with smaller firms and chambers to increase membership awareness of them. With this in mind, we introduced a new sponsorship package tailored to suit these firms and chambers whereby they would receive publicity in exchange for a small sponsorship rate. We received positive feedback from a number of firms regarding this sponsorship package and, whilst some of them were unable to take it up this year due to their budgets, they expressed keen interest in the package for next year. Therefore we hope our successors will continue this initiative.
5. Careers
In line with our aim to improve the careers aspect of the society, we held more career related events. Last year there were 3 careers events in Michaelmas Term and 3 in Lent Term. This year, in Easter Term we held 1 career event, in Michaelmas Term we organised and/or publicised 11, and in Lent Term we organized and/or publicised 4 (6 were scheduled but 2 had to be rearranged due to unforeseen circumstances).
Additionally, we re-introduced a sponsorship rate for publicising a careers event on a sponsors’ behalf. For a small careers administration fee per event, a sponsor’s career event received extensive publicity through a variety of different mediums. Additionally, where required by the firm, we helped to organise the event.
This year saw our first Negotiation Competition – a competition similar to mooting, but for aspiring solicitors to practice negotiation skills. The prize was a vacation scheme at a Law Firm. The judges were highly impressed by the level of entries, so much so that an additional vacation scheme placement was offered.
To help freshers on their arrival at Cambridge, the careers team also produced an introductory guide to careers which was included in the freshers packs. This provided information on the meaning of different terms, where they could find out additional information, and advice on how to plan ahead with regards to career options.
6. Socials
This year we hosted 1 social in Easter Term (due to poor turn out in previous years, we decided to cancel President’s Drinks this year in order to focus on the end of year Garden Party), 6 socials in Michaelmas Term (including our annual charity Winter Comfort Quiz which raised £9,641 for the Winter Comfort Charity) and 2 socials in Lent term. 3 socials were new, and 2 were new twists on already existing themes. All but one social sold out, with 3 selling out in less than 10 minutes.
Normal ticket prices were £5 for members and £10 for non-members.
In previous years ticket prices were £5 for members and £8 for non-members. The increase was to take into account that we are now liable to pay VAT. We decided to increase non-members tickets to the extent that members’ tickets would not have to be increased.
One of our new events was free and exclusive for members to see how well it was received. All places were taken up.
At the end of Michaelmas Term the Executive Committee unanimously decided to promote two of the socials sub committee members to the Committee as joint socials secretary along side the current socials secretary. This was because they were already working as a team and the Exective felt it important for this to be reflected in their positions to boost morale and to ensure productivity.
7. Law Ball
Due to a fire at Chilford Hall, we were forced to move venue this year to the beautiful Anstey Hall. This year’s budget was increased by 26% but the number of attendees remained the same, at 220, to maintain the high quality per head.
The headline act was Ms Dynamite, supported by Truly Medley Deeply.
Ticket sale was run in the same way as the year before: raffle tickets are given out to mark each person’s place in the queue, with the sale itself starting at the time scheduled. Unfortunately, individuals now arrive several hours in advance to ensure they get a ticket, meaning that those who arrive even 2 hours before the sale may miss out. Therefore a new ticketing system will be considered by the new committee.
8. Speakers
Sponsorship for the speakers series increased by approximately 43%. We hosted 6 speakers events this year, and invited different speakers to appeal to different interests and areas of study. We identified the particular subjects which each speaker event would compliment when publicising it, so as to help members know which events they would most benefit from attending.
Speakers were:
Philippe Sands QC
Luke Scanlon
Paul Bowen QC
Sir Richard Dearlove
Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick
Fellows Tort Debate with Mr N McBride, Dr A Steel, Dr J O’Sullivan and Dr J Morgan
All events were well attended and the Fellows Tort Debate was the first of its kind to be hosted by CULS in 5 years. We should like to offer our thanks to the Fellows who kindly gave up their own time to attend the debate.
9. Foreign Affairs
This year we led two exchanges: one with Madrid, and the other with Leiden. CULS has relationships with Madrid, Leiden and Paris Universities. We decided to visit Leiden this year rather than Paris merely to provide members with an opportunity to visit another country and learn about its jurisdiction. We hope to continue our strong relationship with all three universities for a long time into the future.
Both trips were a great success and we are looking forward to receiving students from Madrid and Leiden this Easter.
10. Mooting
One-off events we held in Michaelmas Term:
- a judges’ workshop
- a mooting workshop
- a freshers’ speed moot
- a second and third years’ speed mood
- a non-law mooting workshop
- Cambridge University-Warwick University Moot (new for this year)
One-off events we held in Lent Term:
- mooting workshop
- non-law speed moot
- Varsity moot
Internal mooting competitions we held:
- Fledgling’s Moot
- Cuppers Moot
- De Smith Moot
National Mooting competitions we entered this year:
- ESU
- OUP-BPP
- ICLR
- UKLSA
- UKELA
- Francis Taylor Building Moot
International Mooting:
- In Summer 2012 our team were runners up in the International Space Law Moot at the final hosted in Hong Kong
- This year we entered a team into the Price Media Law Moot
11. Per Incuriam
Per Incuriam has maintained its reputation as a high class legal magazine containing articles by students and professionals on pertinent legal issues, and continues to be popular with both members and non-members. We produce 500-600 copies a term, and all are taken up.
We pay members if we publish an article written by them in the magazine. In previous years how much we paid was discretionary. However, in the interest of fairness, this year we set a standard payment for all published articles, and a slightly higher one for published first-class essays.
Lent Term has seen the introduction of a Per Incuriam Subscription service whereby members could have the magazine delivered directly to their pigeonhole for free. This was for two reasons:
a. To guarantee frequent readers of Per Incuriam their own copy of that term’s magazine
b. To monitor the distribution rate of the magazine in order to keep publication costs as low as possible
Members responded to this offer positively and we hope that the service will continue to grow over the next few years.
We also held a Per Incuriam essay competition over Christmas, where we set a choice of 3 topics for members to write about and a leading law firm selected the winning entry. The prize was £100 and a trip to the law firm. Whilst we did not receive many entries for this competition, we were pleased with the standard of entries.
Other changes and developments
- CULS sports
o Male 5-aside football team and female netball team introduced
§ CULS has been open to considering teams of the same sport but different sex or different sport if there is membership demand
- Term Card
o It is now delivered directly to the pigeon holes of every member
- Constitution
o Following a unanimous vote by the Committee at a meeting on 1st October 2012, changes were made to the Constitution in accordance with the constitutional requirements.
o The Constitution was altered to reflect the need for flexibility when hosting events and to cover potential economic/monetary circumstances.
o Additionally it moved forward elections by a week and introduced the Executive Committee-Elect. The Executive Committee-Elect now shadow the outgoing Executive until official handover at Annual Dinner to ensure the smoothest possible handover.
- Stash
o New stash design for 2013 to incorporate the new logo
o Sale of clearance stash at reduced prices
o Creation of a stash inventory
- Newsletter
o A weekly e-newsletter is now sent out every Sunday evening to notify members of important information and details on events for the upcoming week
o The newsletter is viewable online for those who cannot see it in their mail client
- Committee socials
o This year we have limited committee expenditures by setting smaller budgets for committee socials
o We removed subcommittee socials and instead held a joint committee and subcommittee social on 4th March 2013 to increase cohesiveness.
Jacynth Bassett
CULS President 2012-2013
Murray Edwards College