Student Activities

Social Guidelines

In recent years, the drinking culture within many activity groups has been highlighted more and more by the media. As a safety issue, social activities are fast becoming more of a risk than the actual activity itself. There are also the serious health implications caused by excessive drinking. If we are serious about promoting safe activities and a healthy lifestyle for all of our members, we need to provide some solid guidelines that explain what we expect from our members and what the consequences are of not staying within these guidelines.

LUU expect that groups will want to run social events throughout the year and that many of these social events will involve alcohol. We understand that the majority of members of our groups will be 18 years old or over and can therefore legal consume alcohol should they wish to. We do not wish to stop people from doing so.

However, what we do expect is that the organisers of these social activities will act responsibly and consider the feelings and condition of the members they take on these social events. To this effect, we expect that:

• Members of activities will not apply peer pressure upon other individuals in social situations (or otherwise).


• Members of activities will not carry out initiation ceremonies - these are defined as any event in which members (often new members) are expected to perform any activity as a means of gaining credibility, status or entry within the group and involve peer pressure to get members to consume excessive alcohol or be coerced into any behaviour which may be deemed humiliating.


• Members of activities will not organise socials where checklists of alcoholic drinks are required to be consumed at various pubs. Especially where these lists contain enough alcohol drinks to take individuals over the government's recommended guidelines for alcohol consumption.

We expect existing members of groups to show maturity and act as ambassadors for their activity, welcoming new members in a way which encourages their involvement. Current social activities are an active barrier to participation and we would ask groups to consider this when planning their activities for the year.

If we receive complaints from anyone about the behaviour of certain groups that contravenes any of the statements we have laid out above, individuals and clubs should expect that disciplinary action will be taken against them in-line with the punishments laid down in the Disciplinary Guidelines for Clubs and Societies.

We consider breaking these guidelines a serious issue and as a result of a disciplinary hearing the punishments will start from a minimum penalty of:

• £250 fine - this will be imposed on the group for failing to run its social events with reasonable care.
• Three game ban if you are a member of a sports team.
• Three week activity ban if you are a member of another group.
• Furthermore, if you are a committee member of a group you can expect to be stripped of your position.
• Ailure to uphold these bans by other members of the group will lead to the group itself being punished with a £300 fine.

We are incredibly serious about ensuring that our groups provide a safe and welcoming environment for their members. We want to ensure that groups are recognised for their achievements within their activity and not because of their reputation outside of their activity and we expect that committee members feel the same way.

We will be publishing more information, ideas for safe socials and guidance documents on this webpage over the next three months.

You can find more information from the following links: