Become a School Contact

Interested in getting more involved in the branch? Learn about the role of a School Contact, and how to become one.

What is a departmental contact?

A local School Contact is someone who is prepared to be the face of our union in their immediate work area and raise our union’s visibility in the workplace.

What do departmental contacts do?

School Contacts distribute UON UCU literature among their colleagues, talk to their colleagues about what the union is doing, and feed back to the UON UCU Committee about what’s happening locally.

Departmental contacts will also work with the Branch Secretary to keep local membership details up to date.

Examples of specific tasks School Contact do include:

  • Putting up UCU posters on their office door or in agreed places in their work area.
  • Distributing leaflets
  • Passing on local branch messages to members.
  • Encouraging members to participate in local ballots, local elections and in UCU’s national ballots and elections.
  • Passing on UCU branch emails to all their colleagues, whether they are members or not, suggesting that they read them and encouraging them to join, especially using the online joining link.
  • Passing on important national UCU emails to their colleagues, encouraging them to read them and to consider joining.
  • Encouraging members to contact them if there are problems in your work area that the branch needs to know about.
  • Identifying non-members in your immediate work area and talking to the Academic Officer and Recruitment, Organising and Campaigning Officer about the best way of recruiting them.

A School Contact does not undertake casework or negotiation duties, unless they are keen to become more involved with the branch and are subsequently elected to the committee.

Who is my School Contact?

A full list of School Contacts is available at:

Your Committee and Contacts

How do I become a departmental contact?

If you are interested in becoming a School Contact please email northantsucu@gmail.com

Resources for departmental contact

If you are a current UON UCU School Contact, you can access some useful resources below:

Recruitment tips and materials:

Other resources: