WCC-UK |

Policies and Procedures

The Women’s Classical Committee have a number of policies in place to help us run smoothly. This page has our events policy and our expenses policy, for easy reference.

If you are interested in running a WCC UK event, you may also be interested in So You’re Organising A WCC UK Event: An Event Organiser’s Starter Pack.

Events Policy

Setting up an event

1. The Women’s Classical Committee UK (WCC UK) encourages members of the steering committee and liaisons to organise events under the WCC UK umbrella, with organising subgroups made up of members and others who may be able to support particular activities.

2. Events must be formally proposed to the steering committee, either at a meeting or electronically, and approved by a majority of steering committee members.

3. When an event is proposed, the steering committee will appoint a triad of members to be responsible for it. All events associated with the WCC UK’s name must involve a triad, even if there is a wider group involved in the organising process. Each triad must include at least one steering committee member or liaison. A PhD student or early career colleague may also shadow a triad in order to gain some experience of event organisation; anyone interested in this opportunity should contact the Administrator in the first instance.

4. The co-chairs of the WCC UK steering committee must consider each proposed event and event venue in light of the WCC UK’s published aims. If there are any questions or concerns about a particular proposed event or venue, these must be resolved before the event is approved. The WCC UK has no current policy against organising events at particular institutions or locations.

Costs

5. Event organisers should think carefully about potential costs, particularly those incurred by speakers in terms of childcare, accommodation, travel and subsistence. They should consider budgetary limitations when inviting speakers, to ensure that the WCC UK does not make commitments it cannot meet. In particular, it is unlikely that we will be able to support the international travel costs of bringing in speakers from overseas.

6. Event organisers should make themselves familiar with the WCC UK expenses policy, which is available on the website.

7. Event organisers must liaise with the Treasurer to establish a budget and keep within it.

8. Event organisers must liaise with the Treasurer to discuss contributions from existing WCC UK funds, money to be allocated to the proposed event from funds already raised, and prospects for raising further money for the event from new sources. We aim to raise money to support recurring events from national organisations (such as the Classical Association and other learned societies) through an annual application. We also aim to raise some money to support events, and support in kind, from local organisations and the hosts of the event.

9. Registration fees for events should offer a rate for members; a rate for non-members; and a rate for non-members who wish to join the WCC UK. This last will typically be the membership subscription, adjusted if necessary to reflect the costs of using payment processing services such as Eventbrite.

10. We aim to provide free admission for paid-up members to our events and to charge a fee to cover the catering and other essential event costs to non-members. For most graduate students, Early Career Researchers and other under-employed or unwaged attendees, joining the WCC UK will be cheaper than paying the event fee.

11. External or paid trainers or facilitators will only be brought in when the needs of a planned event cannot be filled by the resources of the WCC UK, and such use of WCC UK funds requires approval of the Treasurer. In such cases organisers will make a good faith effort to obtain multiple competitive quotes before entering into an agreement with another body.

Practicalities

12. Event organisers must take into account the WCC UK’s child-friendly policy. This states:

The Women’s Classical Committee is committed to making our events as inclusive as possible, and recognizes that the financial and practical challenges of childcare often impede people from participating in workshops and conferences. Anyone who needs to bring a dependent child or children with them in order to participate in one of our events is usually welcome to do so, but we ask you to inform of us this in advance so that we can take them into account in our event planning and risk assessment. The safety and well-being of any children brought to our events remain at all times the responsibility of the parent or carer. While we do our best to ensure that rest and changing facilities are available for those who may need them, this will depend on the individual venue we are using. Again, please contact us in advance to discuss your needs, and we will do our best to accommodate them.

13. The child-friendly policy should be included on any publicity material, adapted as appropriate to the event.

14. Publicity material should also include any appropriate accessibility information about the venue. Organisers should consider accessibility in the planning for their event to ensure that WCC UK events are maximally accessible to all members of the community, bearing in mind that attendees may experience challenges to full participation or other forms of marginalisation in relation to one or more characteristics, including but not limited to those protected by anti-discrimination legislation. The WCC UK recognises that actions taken to increase accessibility for one group may decrease accessibility for another.

15. Calls for papers, publicity material and similar documents should be clear about whether the events will be recorded; whether events and event participants will be photographed; whether it will be possible to attend by Skype; and whether the event involves an expectation of confidentiality.

16. The WCC UK expects event organisers to follow our guidance on how to increase diversity.

17. When reminding registered attendees about events, a note should be included about how many people are on the event waiting list, with a request to let the organisers know about non-attendance promptly so places can be reallocated.

18. Event organisers should ensure that membership forms are available at the event, and that non-members are actively encouraged to join.

Wrap-up

19. Within two months of the event, all event organisers must submit a short written report on an event to the steering committee. It should contain a summary of the event, a short description of the event, any lessons learned, and any outcomes or proposed further actions.

Approved by the WCC UK at the General Business Meeting of the AGM, 20th April 2017. Minor edits made following the September 2017 and February 2018 Steering Committee meetings.

Expenses Policy

We are extremely grateful to any speakers who are able to claim expenses from their own department rather than from us, although we are committed to reimbursing reasonable expense claims when this is not possible. This enables us to make our events more accessible to student and early career attendees by putting more of our event funding into bursaries for student and early career attendees.

Where speakers are not in post and do not have access to other funding we will aim to reimburse reasonable expenses in line with our travel policy.

Our normal expectation is that speakers will travel by public transport, using second/standard class tickets, and avail themselves of advance booking fares/reduced cost tickets/any railcards etc that are available to them.

We will not refund expenses incurred for taxis or private transport, with the following exceptions, in which case we will pay expenses at the rates paid by CUCD:

We will not usually cover the costs of overnight accommodation (and will try to organise events so that it is not required).

We will aim to set a travel budget for each event we organise. If the right speaker for an event will need to travel at a distance, or require funding for other special arrangements, we will work towards funding this.

We will always aim to offer graduate/ECR travel bursaries for our events. This includes travel to committee meetings so that ECR members can participate fully in organisation.

Event charges

We aim to provide free admission to paid-up members to our events and to charge a fee to cover the catering and other essential event costs to non-members. For most graduate students, ECRs and other under-employed or unwaged attendees, joining the WCC will be a cheaper option than paying an event fee.

This policy was agreed by the steering committee at its September 2016 meeting and confirmed by the WCC UK membership at the April 2017 AGM and general business meeting.