What is a Constitution?

A constitution is a governing document that sets out fundamental principles or established precedents. In the context of the Students' Guild and societies, it is a document that sets out how an individual group is run and governed by its members. 

A constitution should, at least, detail the Group's name, aims, objectives and committee positions. 

More information regarding Society Constitutions can be found in the Student Activities Regulations, points 13-17. 

Where can I find my society's Constitution?

A society's constitution can be found on its society page. If you go to the society selection page here and select a society, you can find their constitution under "files" in the navigation bar. 

The Activities team also keep a copy on file. Therefore, if you are unable to locate a society's constitution in the file area, you can email activities@exeterguild.com to request a copy. 

Reviewing a Constitution:

The Activities Team recommend societies review their constitutions at least annually to ensure the aims, objectives and committee structures set out in the document still meet the needs of the group. If, on review, the Group believes its constitution needs amending, it can do so using the process below labelled "Amending a Constitution".

How do we amend our group's constitution?

A constitution may be amended by a simple majority vote of the Student Group's committee (over half of those who vote), conducted via some kind of online poll. Changes a society can make include:

• Adding/removing committee roles.
• Amending responsibilities of committee positions (Some roles have compulsory responsibilities that can not be changed).
• Changing the society's name.
• Changing/amending the society's aims or objectives.

If a society wants to make changes to a Group's name, aims or objectives, they should consult their members on the changes as well as confirm these changes with the Guild to ensure no other groups with the same or very similar names, aims, or objectives exist. 

Members of a society can reverse changes if they gather a secure petition of at least 25% or 40 of the Group's members, whichever is fewer. 

Once a change has been ratified, please can you send the updated constitution and evidence of the vote to activities@exeterguild.com.

Constitution Template

The current constitution template for societies and groups can be found here. 

When creating a constitution, if you are a new society group, please ensure you remove the instructions at the top of the document and then submit it to the Activities Team via activities@exeterguild.com for approval. Once the document has been approved, it will be uploaded to your society webpage.

Changing your Society Name 

We understand that sometimes you’ll want to change your society name; we can do that for you. Email activities@exeterguild.com stating your name, committee position, society, what your present email address is, what you’d like to change it to and why.

A change will be approved if we believe it still reflects the nature of the society, is clearly associated with the purpose and aims of your group, does not decrease the ability of new members to search for your society, and the administrative process is justified.

Changing the name of a society is an administratively heavy process that requires input from a number of teams within the Guild, including our Finance, Digital and IT Teams, to ensure your name change is reflected across all your various accounts held with us. As a result, our team reserves the right to decline a request for a group to change its name if it does not meet the requirements set out above.