Being on Student Council may involve some organisational activities such as planning meetings and consulting with others abut their opinions.

How do you know if your Student Council or other representative group has been successful?

One problem with success is that what you have achieved needs to be measured against your vision - or the goals you set up for yourself. In talking to students who have been involved in various groups, the following patterns have emerged. The details will differ from group to group but many elements are similar. So, how do student groups work?

An effective Student Council uses three main ways of getting things done :

• They do things themselves - they organise activities (often of a social or fundraising nature), they are important to the group itself.
• They ask others to do things. This means they need to discuss an issue, decide what needs to be done, decide what should happen, then approach the appropriate person to get things underway. Knowing who to approach to get things happening is often half the work done.
• They share decisions - student representatives take part in broader decision-making bodies which receive student proposals and then share in making decisions especially on larger, more complex issues.

While the Student Council itself often can not always bring about change, it can be effective in pushing for change in certain areas and promoting areas where it thinks action needs to be taken. The secret to bringing about change often lies in being organised and knowing who to see about effecting change.