I’ve been working with university clubs since I started my engineering degree at UVIC in 2017.
In that time, I’ve been a part of 5 clubs, been a leader in 2, and seen many student clubs thrive and fail.
I thought I would share some of my experiences here for those looking to do the same

What to expect

I’m going to be honest with you, it’s a lot of work. It’s not easy to juggle the demands of schoolwork and the demands of school. You won’t do it perfectly. None of us do.
However, if you stick with it, you’ll learn valuable skills that you can use for the rest of your career. You’ll make friends that you’ll keep for the rest of your academic career, and hopefully your life.
It will be worth it.

Ownership Mentality

Maybe you’ve found yourself a member of a club that’s been running for 30 years, maybe you and 2 friends have decided to start a club. Either way, you need a strong ownership mentality.
You need to be able to say “This part of my club isn’t working, and I’m going to fix it.” If you can’t say that, you will not do a good job. If you don’t do this, problems fester. You consult too many people, time gets wasted, nothing gets done, you suffer from analysis paralysis. In my experience, the second-best solution for a club is a much better solution than spending too much time and effort trying to find the best solution.

The hardest part

In my experience, the hardest part of running a university club isn’t managing the people - they’re lovely. The hardest part is managing the constant turnover. A student, perhaps yourself, hoping to manage the club will be dumped in with very little experience, hang out for a year or two, and then graduate.
This poses a unique challenge, but it can be managed.

New members are everything

Since all your senior members are graduating in a few years, you MUST focus on gathering new members. You must make the club as approachable as possible.
You must do beginner workshops, create a friendly welcoming environment, and make sure not to overwhelm any first-year members. Any club that can’t attract and keep new members is dead 5 years.

Manage knowledge effectively

Document Everything

Your next generation of club leaders will have 0-2 years experience in the club before they’re in your position and leading the club.
Leave something nice for them.
Leave documents on everything the club needs to do to run. Keep them updated, and keep them clean. Anything that you’re not sure how to do, you should write down when you figure it out.
Things to write down include:

• How to apply for funding
• How to get sponsors
• How to run a clubs meeting
• How to run whatever events you run

Get these documents proofread by someone not in the club to make sure they’re good. Keep all the documents in the same place (google drive works wonders). Keep that place organized.
Documents that aren’t clean and aren’t findable aren’t doing your club any good.

Have good meetings

Chances are that your club has meetings to plan events, funding, budgets, activities, or whatever else you’re meeting for. Make sure that everyone feels welcome at these meetings, and make sure everyone leaves with all the knowledge. Take good meeting minutes(notes), because details like “Who was responsible for that” will be forgotten the second the meeting is adjourned.

Train as many students as possible

You can’t be secretive about anything in the club. Teach many people how to do the finances, teach people how to run meetings, teach people how to teach people.
Your goal is to make sure that as many people know how to participate in and run your club as possible.
Aim for twice as many as you think the club would need, and you might barely meet the needs.

Managing Money

Funding is the lifeblood of most clubs, especially clubs that have high upkeep costs, such as project-based clubs. Thus, you should treat funding and sponsorship as just as important to your club as whatever your club actually does. If your club makes formula race cars to race with other universities, your club needs to spend as much time looking for funding and sponsorship as they do testing the vehicle before the race.

Final Thoughts

Managing anything isn’t easy, but the world needs good leaders. I hope I helped point some young leaders in the right direction.