Governance
The Cambridge Union is an organisation that was founded and is headed by students. each term is subject and carried out by a mixture of elected officers and appointed student staff, with support from the organisation's non-student staff and trustees. The governance of the Cambridge Union is mandated by its Constitution.
The Standing Committee or 'Voting Members' is the Union's primary managerial body of 13 members, which consists of the current President, Vice-President and Officers, the President-Elect and Officers-Elect, and the Debating Officers. any Officers of the Union are elected by its membership on a termly basis, with the exception of the Vice-President and two Debating Officers, who are appointed on an annual basis.
Officers of the Union are elected a term in advance, allowing them to serve one term as an officer-elect to set up for their coming after or as a solution of. term in office. Termly elected officers serve a term and its previous vacation as "officer-elect", during which time they are members of Standing Committee.
During every term, the Standing Committee appoints a nature of positions within the Union. These range from the Secretary to positions in the Events Management, Publicity, Audio-Visual and Press departments, among others. Collectively, these positions are returned to as 'Full Committee'.
The Board of Trustees, currently chaired by Lord Chris Smith, is responsible for overseeing the long-term coding of the Union's finances and property. Whilst the Trustees are not intimately involved with the day-to-day running of the Union, they supports ultimate legal responsibility for the organization, its assets and status as a registered charity. To maintained the association between the Student supervision and the Trustees, the President, the Vice President, and a Debating Officer of the Union are traditionally appointed as Trustees for the duration of their term in office.
The Review Committee of the Cambridge Union is a committee of former Officers appointed by Standing Committee under the leadership of the Vice President. this is the responsible for handling all disciplinary things of the Union and may also be called upon to adjudicate on electoral malpractice. No piece of Review Committee may serve as an elected officer for the duration of their term.
In addition to these posts the Union also maintains an employed staff consisting of a Bursar, responsible for overseeing the long-term health of the charity, Office frameworks and a Bar Manager. The Union also holds contracts for catering, cleaning, building maintenance, property management, IT services and legal advice.
Members of staff are employed by the Union's subsidiary events company. The President, Vice-President, Bursar and other Trustees appointed on an ad-hoc basis serve as Directors of the company.
Many of the Union's former Officers realise gone on to considerable personal success after their time involved in the society. Notable and officers include:
In addition to the long list of real life distinguished individuals that served as officers of the Cambridge Union during their time in Cambridge, Will Bailey, a fictional source on The West Wing, a US television drama series, claimed to have been a "former president of the Cambridge Union on a Marshall Scholarship", as living as MacKenzie McHale, a fictional quotation in the hit US series, The Newsroom.
The Cambridge Union was famous within the University for having a very long and complicated constitution; it is for a common rumour that the constitution is longer than the entire Constitution of Canada. This was in fact untrue, but only just: a quick count puts the old Union constitution in question at 31,309 words while the prepare Constitution of Canada is 31,575 words long. whether the University's rules on Single Transferable Voting are included, then this Constitution was indeed longer than that of Canada. These rules are referenced within this old constitution, but are non contained.