Sports clubs at DMU will receive more funding after changes made by De Montfort Students’ Union.
Sports clubs at De Montfort University (DMU) will receive more funding after changes made by De Montfort Students’ Union (DSU).
Following a ground-breaking policy first proposed by Vice President (VP) Student Activities Derrick Mensah and passed by students at Activities Council earlier this year, DMU’s sports clubs will now receive £10 of funding per member – directly into their DSU self-funding account.
Sports clubs – from American Football to Volleyball and everything in between – are supported in partnership by DSU and DMUsport.
Derrick said: “Essentially, we realised that some groups weren’t getting as much from the existing funding structure due to some students joining more than one club.
“So, I looked into this with the Activities team and DMUsport, and we came up with this solution to propose to our members at Council.
“We’re essentially making it fairer to allow sports clubs to have more representative funding and enable them to offer more for their members.”
All sports clubs at DMU will now recieve £10 per member directly into their self-funding account, on top of funding recieved from DMUsport.
Under the old system, students joining a sports club would pay a one-off £40 fee. 75% of this was used by DMUsport to cover central costs for that student’s participation in sport, such as entries, equipment and travel costs. The remaining 25% was then distributed to a students’ ‘primary club’, or split across the multiple clubs joined.
Now, students will pay a one-off £30 fee to DMUsport for the year to cover everything listed above, and then a fee of £10 to DSU for each club joined.
Each sports club will receive this £10 per member immediately, at the point of purchase. The change came into effect on Monday 2 July this year, and so has been in place for new members joining sports clubs at #FreshFest18.
“We’ve run the numbers, and the vast majority of students will be paying exactly the same amount [as before], but hopefully seeing a real improvement in the ability of their club to widen participation,” Derrick explained.
“We’ve also endeavoured to talk to students throughout this process to create a more thorough structure that allows clubs to get more representative funding.
“Sports club committees should notice more cash in the bank, and members should notice the benefits of clubs having greater funds to spend on the things that they need to widen participation.”
Sports clubs – as all student groups at DSU – will continue to be able to bid for additional funds from the students’ union’s Development Fund, where applications are considered by the Activities Panel.
The change to sports club funding comes ahead of a wide-ranging membership review that DSU will conduct alongside DMUsport to create a set of robust systems to allow sports clubs and societies alike to do more for their members.
You can find out more about the sports club on offer at DSU here.
Derrick engaged with sports clubs earlier to ensure students had a say on the new funding model.
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