We'll be putting useful information and resources here to help you get the most our of the UCL Charity Consultancy Week.
Send us your photos!
On Monday, you may have spotted our colleague James with his camera, or even been coaxed into being filmed. James is making a short film about the Consultancy Challenge.
We’d really like some photos of you all to include in the film – some of your working sessions or your visits to your community partner’s premises. Could you email John Braime at [email protected] some photos to help us tell the story of the Consultancy Challenge?
Schedule
Friday morning - Presenting back to your partner
In the morning, you should have arranged to present your findings back to your community partner. This could either be at their premises, at UCL or possibly via Zoom/Teams etc. If you need rooms at UCL, you can book these at Consultancy Challenge rooms.xlsx
If you’re planning to do this presentation back on campus, please let us know – it would be good to capture some video footage of that too!
Friday 1 pm – Reflecting on your Consultancy Challenge Experience
After you’ve presented back to your community partner, you’ll need to be back at UCL for 1pm, where Calum Leckie from UCL Careers will be running the session about reflecting on your consultancy experience in Chadwick Building G08. Access this via the UCL Main Quad. See on UCL Map.
Friday 2.15 pm – Plenary presentations
From 2.15pm on Friday the teams will be presenting back to our panel of judges. The team that is judged to have delivered the best project will win £1000 for their partner charity – see guidance below.
We’ll be in the G06 Sir Ambrose Fleming Lecture Theatre, UCL Roberts Building, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE – it’s the Engineering Building opposite Waterstones. Find it on Google Maps. Note that this is a different venue to Monday!
The plenary session should finish around 4.15pm, and we’ll have a short drinks reception afterwards until 5pm.
Each team will have 10 minutes to present the results of the week. The presentation should cover
- What they were asked to do.
- Their findings.
- Any issues, challenges, or unexpected findings along the way.
- How the client will use their findings.
The panel will judge in four areas, with equal weighting given to each:
- Impact on the client - What new things will the client be able to do as a result of the team’s work? And what is the likely impact upon their beneficiaries?
- Impact on the volunteers - What have the team learned – about themselves and about the wider world – during the course of the week? How has the week changed them?
- Team work - We’re expecting every project to have its own challenges – how did the team work together to overcome them? More generally, how did they organise their workload for maximum effectiveness.
- The presentation - How well have the team presented their results? Have they given a realistic assessment of their impact, or have they over-sold it?
Time Off
We’ve asked all volunteers to be available for the whole week of the Challenge. However, if you are feeling unwell, please don’t come to any in-person activities.
Equally, we appreciate that urgent personal situations might come up during the week.
In either case, please let your team members, your community partner and your Consultancy Assistant know if you’re unable to attend for any part of the week (even if it’s just an hour for an appointment).
Travel Expenses
Please make sure you claim back your travel expenses. Here’s how:
- Login to your TFL Contactless Account
- Get a screenshot showing the relevant travel details
- A debit/credit card statement only showing the amount spent is not sufficient
- Complete the attached form “Consultancy Challenge Travel claim form for (insert your name).xlsx”
- Include your name in the file title
- Send the screenshot and the form to [email protected]
- We’ll put your claim in for processing. You’ll be paid via your bank account. This can take up to two weeks.
- Note that we can only reimburse money into your own UK bank account.
You’ll probably find it easiest to do this all at end of the week – we will send a reminder then.
Empathy Action – for travel to Tunbridge Wells, either send a photograph of your train tickets or a screen shot from whichever booking website you used to purchase them.
Lunch Expenses
You can claim back up to £5 lunch expenses for Tuesday – Friday (we’ll provide lunch on Monday!)
Simply take a photo of your receipts and send them in to [email protected] along with the lunch reclaim form, which we'll send during the week. Again, please include your name in the title.
Working Together
For the Consultancy Challenge, you’ll be working within a team of 6 – 8 student volunteers. You’ll be from different backgrounds and bring different skills, experiences and ways of working.
Once you’ve been given your brief, it’ll be up to you – as a team – to decide how to tackle it. We won’t be pre-allocating any particular roles – you’ll need to decide amongst yourselves how best to divide up the work. Your partner will be there to guide you, and your Consultancy Assistant is here to help too.
Most UCL students have experience of this sort of group working through participation in academic projects, and we’ve found this approach has worked well with our Social Hackathon programme. Of course, group work can bring its own challenges – if you’d like any support, please contact your Consultancy Assistant.
Preparation
This is entirely optional - but you might like to familiarise yourself with some of the relevant courses on LinkedIn Learning – as UCL students, you have free access to this using your UCL login.
Laptops
You’ll need access to a laptop or tablet for the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. If you don’t have a suitable device, please let us know as soon as possible.
Help!
We're here to help - just contact your Consultancy Assistant or get in touch with the Volunteering Service.