Royal Holloway Students' Union

Society Awards: Sat 9 May, SU Venue 

Nominations Open & Tickets Onsale: Monday 23 March

Nominations Close: Sunday 12 April 23:59

Tickets Offsale: Monday 20 April

How to submit your nominations:

Head to the SU website to buy your tickets and submit your nominations

All nominations must be submitted via the form available on the Society website and before the deadline. Nominations will not be accepted in any other form. 

The criteria is also available on the website to download.

The panel who decides the winners consists of VP Societies & Sport, the Student Opportunities Manager, the Societies Coordinator, and one representative from the SSO Executive. Then for the fundraising & impact award, a representative from Royal Holloway Volunteering will sit on the panel and for Sarah Parker Remond the VP Wellbeing & Diversity. 

So what awards are up for grabs?  

Individual awards

• Freshman – 5 Freshman awards are given to students in their first year at Royal Holloway that have shown a lot of commitment to the Society. So someone who has come in and in their first few months have already become an instrumental part of the Society and will likely be a key part in the Society’s future. 

• Crests – 15 crests are awarded to individual members of societies who have served their societies above and beyond the call of duty. Whether they’re on the committee or not. It’s about how they’ve helped the running of the society, their involvement in events and other activities, how they’ve worked with other members and just generally made a big impact on the society in their whole time being involved.  
• Vice President’s Cup – This is awarded to someone who has not only made an impact on their own society, but others as well. They’ve shown dedication to Student Opportunities throughout their time here, whether that be through being involved in a number of groups, collaborating with other groups, being on the SSO executive, working with the sabbs on campaigns etc. 

Group awards:

• Fundraising & Impact – is awarded to a group who has undertaken significant fundraising, volunteering and/or campaigning work so far this year. This may be through fundraising through national or local charities, campaigning or tackling issues to improve the lives of members and students around them, or through volunteering work your members may have done in the local community. Statistics are important for this one especially, so make sure to include no. of hours volunteered, amount fundraised etc. 

• Sarah Parker Remond Inclusion and Accessibility Award – This award goes to a group that has gone to great lengths to make their society as inclusive and as accessible as possible, maybe through adapting your activity, lowering costs or introducing membership instalments. The group should’ve also done work to educate members and others on the importance of inclusivity and accessibility. This could include being involved in campaigns from sabbatical officers or running talks for members to attend.

• Best New Society - Awarded to a group that has gone above and beyond the expected growth of a new society. Through this, they will have successfully established themselves as a group with a significant impact on student life at Royal Holloway, and on the Students’ Union. Think about how the group has impacted student life at Royal Holloway, i.e. through regular meetings/socials, and by engaging students from a wide range of demographics.

• Most Improved – This is for a group who has made significant efforts to develop their group this year – maybe increasing membership base, putting on more events, maintaining good finances, being more active on social media etc. 

• Small Group, Big Impact - This recognises the commitment, impact and achievement of the smaller groups we have on campus. Eligible to groups with 40 or less members, the winner of this award will need to demonstrate how they have made a big impact on their members and the wider Royal Holloway community. This can include examples of good governance, committee and member wellbeing, any successful events, fundraising and volunteering and any initiatives around EDI, accessibility, and sustainability.

• Sustainability Award - This award will be to recognise a student group that have actively worked towards becoming more environmentally sustainable, going above and beyond to leave a lasting positive impact on the environment. This can be through specific events, initiatives or projects, sourcing more sustainable products, engaging in schemes or spreading awareness on campus that highlights sustainability or a specific environmental issue or concern.

• Society of the Year – this award goes to a club that has excelled in all of these areas! One who has been clearly outstanding in every aspect! 

How to submit a good nomination?

Do...
 

• provide details – we want to know as much information as possible and it’s needed for us to fully understand how your club meets the criteria. Without the detail, it’s unlikely you would be able to win the award. 

• Be clear & concise . We want all of the detail, but we don’t want unnecessary details, as we have 100s of nominations to

 read through so get to the point, and explain them well!

• Formatting – this makes your nominations much easier to read! Break them up into sections, use a criteria point as a heading and use bullet points 

• Refer to the criteria – this is what we’re looking for in a nomination so the more you refer to this in your nomination the better! Use the criteria as your guide for submitting a nomination. 

• Work together as a committee – especially for the group awards – whilst anyone can submit a nomination, it makes sense to discuss your nominations first in order to capture as much information as possible.

• For group awards, decide what you are nominating for and send in one nomination per award that you wish to enter. We will only accept one entry per group award so please come together as a group to submit your group award entries.

• Stats! Include statistics to back up your nominations, Think about how you meet the criteria and provide any statistics / data to support your nominations e.g. how much money you’ve fundraised, how many members you have and the number of attendees at an event.

• For Individual awards anyone can nominate – share the information with your members as they can also submit a nomination for your club! They might want to nominate a member of the group that has made the biggest impact on them, so let them know all of the relevant information. 

• nominate yourself – you don't need to rely on others to put a nomination for you!

• Lastly, submit your winners music for all group awards! If you win, this is what will be playing when you collect your award.

Don’t...

• Assume we know everything about your group or the individual – because we don’t! So include all the information we need, provide the relevant details and act as if the person reading the nomination has absolutely no clue who you are!

• Don’t write one sentence and expect to win an award – that will not be enough! You need to refer to all of the criteria to win.

• Don’t include irrelevant information – it will make it much more difficult to decipher the relevant info in your nomination!