Check out why our students love what they do and why they get involved with us!

Friendship and networking

The most important part of the student experience journey, as told to us by students, is that they want to make friends. Here in UCC Societies, that’s our number one priority. Joining a society will help you meet like minded people and build friendships for life, as well have great experiences with new people.Thanks to our vast range of societies, there is something for every student – first year, final year, mature and postgrad alike! There are over 15,000 members within UCC Societies.

Societies also help you to get in contact with people you may not have had the oppertunity to touch base with before – from theatre wizzes who love maths, to medical students who love singing in choirs, exposure to many different people from walks of life through societies will help you network and find new friends.

Digital Badge

Our ‘Effective Societies Committee Member’ Digital Badge has been officially approved! And we are looking forward to offering it to our 1500+ committee members in the coming academic year.

Our committee members will forever leave UCC as well-rounded graduates laden with real-life transferable skills. Going forward every committee member be eligible to apply for the badge if they attend at least 10 of our training sessions.

Training will be given by the Societies Guild Executive unless stipulated otherwise:

• Chairperson’s Training – 7 hours Mandatory
• SafeTALK Training (Suicide Prevention)
• Manual Handling Training
• Website Training – 1 hour
• Accessibility Training – 1 hour
• Finance Training – 1 hour Mandatory
• Secretarial Training – 1 hour
• PRO Training– 1 hour
• Events Training (General) – 1 hour
• ‘Ball Organisation 101’– 1 hour
• Awards Training– 1 hour
• Sponsorship Training– 1 hour
• LinkedIn Training– 1 hour
• Mindfulness Training– 1 hour
• ‘Developing your Membership’ – 1 hour
• Stress Management Training – 1 hour
• Irish Sign Language Training – 10 Hours (delivered by the Irish Deaf Society)
• Grievance Training ‘solving disputes effectively’ – 2 hours (delivered by external HR company) Mandatory
• Health and Safety Training -3 hours. (delivered by Health and Safety Officer for Student Activities) Mandatory
• First Aid Training-3 hours. (delivered by Health and Safety Officer for Student Activities)

Skills

Learn skills you can't get in a classroom and make the most of our committee focused training!

Societies are multifaced and are kept going by the brilliant ideas of our students. Sometimes, they need a little help, and this is where we come in.
The Societies Guild offers comprehensive training sessions in many areas to aid students running the societies as efficently as possible. These trainings are offered to committee members who have have been elected to help run their chosen society for the year by their peers.

Our trainings encompass a host of essential skills for running a society, such as:

• Leadership development
• Financal Management and Sponsorship procurement
• Secretarial and Administration
• Event Management
• Public Relations training/ Media and Photoshop
• Conflict Resolution

Sessions take place all year round with paticular focus at the start of each semester (Sept and Jan). Sessions are efficient and have question and answers afterwards- we will not be keeping you all evening, but we will make sure your questions are answered!

Session times will vary between 15 minutes and 45 minutes. We also offer virtual sessions via Zoom, and in person sessions on campus.

Please contact your society representitive to gain more information on upcoming training dates and schedules.

Last year, we had over 30 trainings both online and in person for our committee members throughout the year, including the introduction of Health and Safety Training, Conflict Resolution and Website Training, an increase of 58%.