St Mary’s College Society AGM and elections for President, Treasurer and Committee Members
Saturday 15th May 11:00 on Zoom.
Sign up: Please register at https://durhamuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMvd-ysrDsjHdXO9qf1mKMp419ywVEEykv_ to receive the Zoom meeting details. If you would like to stand in the election for Committee, President or Treasurer then please email Andy Hopkins at smc.society@durham.ac.uk for further information.
What is SMCS?
The St Mary’s College Society is the alumni association for all graduates of St Mary’s College.
What do we currently do?
- Organise an annual alumni reunion weekend
- Produce an annual alumni newsletter each summer plus a Christmas supplement
- Provide funds to support current students (currently the Book Fund and contributions to travel and postgraduate conference bursaries)
- Organise an Annual Lecture with a high-profile guest speaker
- Work with the College to provide a focus point for alumni
What could we be doing?
The restrictions of the last year have also shown many opportunities to work in a different way. Future work might include:
- Increased networking support to set up local reunions
- Regular programme of virtual events for alumni
- Increasing links between alumni and current students
- Increasing the breadth of alumni that engage with the society and college
How can we do this?
To ensure we are offering the alumni services that all of our graduates want to see, we need two things: ideas and volunteers!
Ideas: We’d love to hear your ideas of what would engage you with the wider alumni community. Come along to the virtual AGM and there will be an opportunity to break out into smaller discussion groups to share your thoughts, or email in your suggestions to the society email account. sms.society@durham.ac.uk
Volunteers: Join our committee! We have several committee positions up for election, including the Officer posts of President and Treasurer.
Pre-Covid, the committee met twice a year at College. We have been meeting online during the current pandemic, and there is scope to continue meeting this way should it allow more alumni to meaningfully engage. We are very open to working in new ways if that allows us to be more inclusive of a greater majority of alumni, so please don’t let distance be a barrier.
All committee members have the option of taking on specific areas of work, such as sitting on a bursary committee or leading on developing a local reunion in their area. Our named roles of Treasurer and President have specific duties.
Elections
Please see our Constitution for details of the roles of Committee Member, President and Treasurer http://www.stmaryscollegesociety.co.uk/constitution/.
To nominate yourself for a position, please email smc.society@durham.ac.uk by Friday 14th May. You will need to state a proposer and seconder who are also members of St Mary’s College Society. Please indicate whether you are standing for President, Treasurer or an ordinary committee position. We can put you in touch with outgoing postholders if you would like to find out more before standing.
Candidates will be asked to briefly introduce themselves to the AGM. In the case of contested elections, you will be asked to share a little about who you are, why you wish to stand and what you hope to achieve in the role – maximum of five minutes. We will then use the polling facility on Zoom to vote – this allows all present to vote anonymously. If you stand for a contested officer position but are unsuccessful, you will then be able to stand in the ordinary committee member elections if you so wish.
We look forward to seeing you at the AGM!
