1. Societies Badges Training

2. Standards Standards are awards that societies earn for being amazing!
They can earn either bronze, silver or gold standard.
Standards give societies some benefits such as a symbol on the website and Freshers’ Fair goodies – as well as bragging rights of course!

3. Badges In order to earn standards, societies have to apply for badges.
Each badge is worth a certain amount of points, and each standard requires you earn a certain number of points.
Black, yellow and bronze badges = 100 points
Silver badges = 200 points
Gold badges = 400 points
Bronze standard = 1000 points
Silver standard = 2000 points
Gold standard = 4000 points

4. Badges
There are 3 compulsory black badges, 4 optional yellow badges, and 11 bronze/silver/gold badges.
This gives you an overall possibility of 5200 points – so there are plenty of opportunities to get points!!
Some badges you already do without thinking, like Social Media – so make sure you submit these badges ASAP!

5. How do I apply for badges?
Visit essex.su/societies/awards and fill out the typeform. You can submit individual events even if they don’t add up to a badge yet, as we record it in our spreadsheet as a pending badge. It’s better to submit early, a) so you don’t forget and b) so if the badge is rejected, you have time to redo it.

6. Black badges
Black badges are compulsory – you can’t get a standard if you don’t meet these criteria.
(You may see that some societies have reached enough points for a standard already – but they won’t be officially awarded a standard until they have achieved the black badges.)
GM: Attend all Societies Guild General meetings or submit apologies
Budget: Spend 50% of term 1 membership income by end of term 2
Elections: Get your members to engage with the first round of elections

7. Black badges
You don’t apply for black badges – we keep records of these throughout the year. So you don’t need to worry about them (except for ensuring you fulfil them!)

8. Yellow badges
Yellow badges are optional one-offs worth 100 points each.
Social Media: demonstrate an active presence on at least one social media platform
Exec Volunteering: all execs of your society to create their volunteering profile and log 10 hours
Rebel: collaborate with Rebel (our student media)

9. Mentoring badge
The mentoring badge is currently being reviewed, and as such you can’t apply for it just yet. We’ll let you know when the new criteria has been decided.

10. Bronze, Silver and Gold badges
Bronze, silver and gold badges make up the majority of your standards.
Each badge is optional, but you’ll need a few of them!
Read the criteria carefully - you can find them at essex.su/societies/awards/standards
Now we’ll go through the basic criteria and cover some common mistakes.

11. Fundraising
The fundraising badge is purely based on how much money you have raised, so make sure you put the exact number in your application.
Bronze - £125; Silver - £250; Gold - £500

12. Volunteering
You can either volunteer through vTeam or organise your own opportunities
If you are participating in an Essex Event it isn’t volunteering i.e. having a stall at Winter Fayre
Bronze – 2 opportunities; Silver – 4 opportunities; Gold – 6 opportunities

13. Essex Event
You must participate in an event hosted within the university community (i.e. by the SU or University)
If you organise an event, it doesn’t count as an Essex Event – even if you organise it for an event or campaign
For example, RAG Week has specific events that are organised by VP Activities – if you organise your own event for RAG, it’s not an Essex Event
Participation is the most important thing here – you don’t organise the event at all
Bronze – 2; Silver – 4; Gold - 6

14. Leadership
You must hold exec meetings and upload the minutes to your essexstudent.com page.
You must fulfil the criteria across 2 terms
Bronze – 2 per term; Silver – 4 per term; Gold – per term

15. Collaboration
Demonstrate you have collaborated with another society. Each occasion must be with a different society.
Bronze – 1; Silver – 2; Gold - 3

16. Events
You must hold a certain number of events for your members. As the criteria states that the events must be held for your members, this means that events that are open to everyone don’t count for the Events badge.
Each event has to be categorised; please state the exact category on the application.
Bronze - 4 events in 2 categories; Silver- 8 events in 3 categories; Gold – 12 events in 4 categories

17. Engagement
This badge is about engaging non-members with your society, so they must be open events intended to engage new people.
This makes the Engagement badge mutually exclusive with the Events badge.
Bronze – 1; Silver – 2; Gold - 3

18. Amazing Degree
Events for this badge must adhere to specific course content, unless they are generally intended to help all students (i.e. essay writing skills) or are de-stress sessions.
So if you’re holding a workshop on playwriting, for example, it needs to be run with the idea of helping students who are studying a playwriting module in mind.
Bronze – 1; Silver - 2; Gold - 3

19. Amazing Job
These events need to help people get an amazing job post-graduation.
This can be skills workshops, organising networking events, CV workshops etc.
The E&CC have worked with societies in the past!
Bronze – 1; Silver – 2; Gold - 3

20. Liberation/Student Groups
These badges are about engaging with the liberation and section networks.
Having trouble? Contact the networks directly!
Bronze – 1; Silver - 2; Gold - 3

21. What makes a good application?
Bullet point list of events, clearly stated
Clearly meets all criteria and nothing but the criteria
No jargon - I’m unfortunately not a member of all your societies!

22. Submit your applications clearly and accurately!
We’ve been getting an average of 50 applications a week!
So – submit screenshots of your minutes for the Leadership badge, or send a list of events with the categories clearly labelled for the Events badge etc.
Always refer to the criteria as this is the only thing I am working from.

23. Can I apply for multiple badges per event?
Only if they very clearly fit into two categories
If it’s a stretch, it won’t get accepted

24. Can I apply for badges ahead of time?
No – you must submit your events after they have happened, in case anything changes.

25. When do I have to apply for badges by?
The final deadline for summer/autumn term events is Friday 15th December at 5pm.