Register a club
Register your club for the year or find out what you need to start up a new one
Registered clubs have access to a range of support from University Clubs including:
- club funding
- bookable spaces on any of the three campuses
- club training and development programs
- alignment with the Wellington Plus Award (WPA) and Wellington International Leadership Programme (WILP)
- access to key events and activities on university campuses.
Information on re-registering your existing club is at the bottom of this page.
Starting a new club
If your interests aren’t covered by a current club, it's easy to start a new one.
Come in and see the team in the Clubhouse at SU401 to discuss your ideas, or send us an email at university-clubs@vuw.ac.nz and we’ll be in touch.
New club checklist
To make sure there’s a need for your club and to ensure its success, consider the following before you meet with the Clubs team:
- What is the purpose of the club?
- Is the club necessary?
- Do similar clubs already exist on campus? If so, are they active and relevant?
- What will be the clubs appeal to attract members?
- Who are the potential members?
- What services will be provided to members and will they be considered worthwhile?
- What is the level of initial and continual support needed for the club to function?
- What will be the club’s contribution be to the student and wider Wellington community?
- How will you advertise the first “informal” meeting?
- Is your club student-led and will the majority of members be current students at the University?
- All clubs must be registered to Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington to gain access to services, funding, and events support.
Establish your club
Once you have met with the Clubs team and agreed your club can be established, follow these steps. When all the steps are completed, you can officially register your club through the Clubs team.
Email address
Create a generic email address for the club, for example vuwclubname@gmail.com.
Membership
Gather at least ten Victoria University of Wellington student members. You can do this by asking friends and classmates, holding information stalls, or hosting an event or activity. Ask permission from your lecturer to announce a meeting before or after lectures.
Host an informal meeting
Invite members to attend a meeting to:
- set goals and objectives
- determine the club constitution
- discuss possible committee positions and candidates
- brainstorm a possible event plan for the year
- discuss potential club expenses as well as revenue opportunities.
Then decide as a group whether the club should go ahead and form a student club at the University.
Host your Annual General Meeting (AGM) or Inaugural General Meeting (IGM)
At this meeting you’ll:
- approve your club’s constitution
- hold elections for Executive and committee positions
- set a membership fee
- discuss the proposed plan of events and proposed budget forecast for the upcoming year
- encourage feedback from club members.
Remember to follow your constitution when calling and hosting a General Meeting, for example the minimum notice you need to give your members and the minimum number of members that need to be present to reach a quorum.
Set up your committee/s
It’s important that registered University Clubs are a student committee-led organisation. This is when a committee of elected individuals manages the club on behalf of its broader membership.
Members of the committee are elected at a General Meeting. The committee will consist of at least 3 people in Executive positions -the president or chair, the secretary and the treasurer. These are the officers of the club.
In practice, however, the committee is likely to be bigger, with additional people involved in the management of the organisation, which might include portfolios or positions for fundraising, event organisation, and club promotion.
The committee may also include deputy positions for the named officers.
Register your new club
Once you have ten student members, a constitution, an email address, IGM or AGM minutes, you are ready to register your club. The Clubs team will send you a link to an online form to complete this final step.
Open a student club bank account
Once you receive a letter from the clubs' manager confirming your registration status, make an appointment and take the letter to the Bank you are opening an account with. Ordinarily, the president and treasurer are signatories to this account, but it’s a good idea to nominate another committee member to be a third signatory.
When your account is set up, advise the University Clubs Support team of the bank account details.
Decide whether you will incorporate
Most clubs at the University are not incorporated. This provides a lot of flexibility and is usually suited when you are starting out. You can also form an "incorporated society"; this is a formal registered organisation. There are some advantages to this, but you will also need to follow the rules for incorporated societies. You can find out more about incorporated societies on the Incorporated Societies Register (part of the New Zealand Companies Office) and the Community Law Toolkit.
The University has a template that could be a good started point for a non-incorporated club. The template has instructions about the information to include. If you are planning on incorporating, the Incorporated Societies Register has a Constitution Builder Tool.
Registration for existing clubs
Existing clubs must re-register each year.
An automatic re-registration email with a link to the online registration form will be sent to clubs when it is time to re-register.
If your club fails to register, you’ll no longer receive the benefits of being a registered club.
To register your club, complete the online registration form as soon as possible following your AGM. Before you begin, be aware that you’ll need to:
- Ensure you have read and understood the University Clubs Handbook.
- Ensure you have two committee members to sign off your registration at the end (One should be the president).
- Check that you are happy with the current Clubs Directory information for your club.
- Ensure you understand your club’s legal and financial structure e.g. are you an unincorporated group or an incorporated society.
- Ensure you have ready:
- the contact details of updated executive members (email, phone, student ID)
- membership type list (students, staff, alumni, public members).
- your club’s GST number, if it’s GST registered
- Be aware that you need to complete the form all in one go. You can’t save and come back to it so you need to have all of the above information ready to go.
Once you have completed the online form we recommend you upload the following supporting documentation to your club SharePoint folder:
- Annual General Meeting minutes
- updated constitution (if it has changed from previous years)
- a full list of club members (student’s names and ID numbers).
A letter confirming your club's registration will be sent once the process is complete.