Grad Groups FAQs

Where on Campus can I hold an event?

Graduate Groups are able to hold an event anywhere on campus that you can get a booking!

Many spaces within Monash are free to book here.

Student Enquiry form for a booking can be found here.

The MGA also has a number of spaces available for Groups to use. Our graduate spaces are available to book on the Clayton and Caulfield campuses under 'Your Campus' on this website.

If you are looking to utilise any MGA Graduate Lounge spaces and our other facilities, please contact the MGA at mga-gradgroups@monash.edu.

Most cafes on campus will do catering at various price points. You can also look into external catering should you wish. External caterers who simply drop of their food will not need to complete any additional requirements. However, if you need the external caterers to provide wait staff, they will need to complete contractor inductions with Monash Building and Properties. Please reach out to the MGA Graduate Groups team for further information.

Please keep in mind for larger events to cater for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and halal options. Alternatively, for small scale events, you can simply buy your own food and non-alcoholic drinks. Please keep in mind Food Handling safety. The City of Melbourne provides a free certificate which you can obtain here.

Please note that you will not be able to provide alcohol unless you are at a licensed venue or buying through a licensed personnel who will be serving alcohol to you. If you are serving alcohol please keep in mind Monash’s alcohol risk management procedure: “in addition to serving food with drinks, having non-alcoholic drink options and RSA trained staff, the procedure requires that event organisers ensure that no more than four (4) standard drinks of alcohol are available per person per day over the course of an event.”

Monash University has made it a requirement for groups to have submitted an Event Risk Management Plan through their Safety and Risk Assessment Hub (S.A.R.A.H.) before holding an event.

This is a pretty extensive process so we’ve created a SARAH Cheat Sheet for you to follow under Grad Group Resources. Make sure to submit one two weeks before your event just in case you need to resubmit.

The easiest way to promote an event is through your social media or by emailing your members. If you have a social media platform, that is also a great way to promote your event. Please keep in mind the Monash Media and Social Media Procedure for any publication however.

Canva is a great tool to be able to create promotional templates. Accounts are free to make, and if you wish to add the MGA logo to your promotional materials, just let us know!

We can set up a Trybooking link for you to sell tickets online. In order to do that, email the MGA Graduate Groups team with the following details:

• Event Title
• Location
• Event Date
• Start and End Times
• Event Description
• Ticket Tiers and Prices
• Ticket Numbers (eg. 50 general admission, 50 members tickets)
• Ticket Sale Dates
• Whether you’d like to absorb the Trybooking fee or pass that on to students
• Any discount code you’d like to use

Groups can borrow a variety of items including, but not limited to:

• PA system;
• Microphones;
• board games;
• picnic mats; and
• EFTPOS Machine etc.

If you would like to borrow one of these, make sure to fill out the Equipment Hire Google Form found here and submit it in to the MGA Graduate Groups team well in advance to ensure you have the booking.

Day trips and overnight trips may be limited if they are considered off-campus. Note that events taking place at MMC and AMREP are considered on-campus events for the purpose of compliance with policies.

Please contact your MGA Graduate Groups team for further information.

From time to time, the MGA donates merchandise items for student-led events, seminars and conferences.

Due to the high level of demand, the MGA can’t accommodate all requests, but if you put in your request at least 6 weeks in advance, we will endeavour to cater to your event. Donations are limited to one per graduate student group per year.

Sounds like something you need for your next event? Discuss your event details with mga-gradgroups@monash.edu and fill out the Merchandise Request Form.

Unfortunately, as an MGA group, you are unable to ask members to pay for membership. However, you can ask people to chip in the cost for events.

Alternatively, sometimes faculties are willing to chip in money to assist with the running of events.

Finally, you can make money by gaining sponsorship from organisations. Access to students is desirable for organisations and you can take advantage of this by offering access to your members for money. However, there are strict rules as to what organisations you can accept sponsorship from. The easy rule to remember is that the organisation cannot provide services that Monash University offers. However, if you are unsure, please get in touch with the MGA Graduate Groups team.

As long as the sponsorship is in line with MGA’s Sponsorship Agreement, you need to supply the Sponsorship Agreement and an Invoice Request Form to the MGA Graduate Groups team for vetting. We will then email you an invoice to pass on to your sponsor.

If you are seeking a reimbursement from the MGA, there are two things necessary to reimburse a member:

• A digital or physical tax invoice that has a printed ABN on it. Be careful not to submit EFTPOS receipts or order details as they won’t be accepted; and
• A Reimbursement Form with all sections filled out.

Submit both of these to the MGA Graduate Groups Officer before 10am on Wednesdays to have the payment processed in the same week.

If seeking a reimbursement of MGA money from the Faculty, please speak to your corresponding faculty staff member.

A tax invoice is a legal document issued by a seller to the buyer of their goods or service, showing payable tax. Usually the document will include the product and description, invoice date, invoice number, tax amount and services rendered.

For the MGA, the most important thing to note is it must include enough information to clearly show:

1. Document is intended to be a tax invoice
2. Seller’s identity
3. Seller’s Australian business number (ABN)
4. Date the invoice was issued
5. Brief description of the items sold, including the quantity (if applicable) and the price
6. GST amount (if any) payable – this can be shown separately or, if the GST amount is exactly one-eleventh of the total price, as a statement which says ‘Total price includes GST’
7. Extent to which each sale on the invoice is a taxable sale

If you are unsure, please feel free to email mga-gradgroups@monash.edu.

If you need MGA to pay an invoice on your behalf, please speak to the MGA Graduate Groups team.

Your Finance Officer should be keeping track of all incoming and outcoming expenditure throughout the year, however if you need updates on Money in the Bank or Sponsorships, please speak to the MGA Graduate Groups team.

Meetings are a key tool for managing your Grad Group, keeping everyone on the same page and ensuring your Group keeps on track with its goals and aims. There’s really no other way to put this: for your Group to succeed, you’re going to need meetings. Meetings can take many levels of formality and it’s important to follow the requirements of your Group.

For some of you, this may be the first time you’ve managed formal meetings, so we have put together a guidance with commonly-used terms and the basic things you need to know about planning and running your meetings in Group Resources and Forms.

An Annual General Meeting (usually referred to as an ‘AGM’) is a meeting that takes place, as the name suggests, annually. It is traditionally a meeting for your whole Grad Group to meet – the committee, members and any stakeholders – to discuss your Group’s activities of the past year and make plans for the future. An AGM is a key tool for your Grad Group’s transparency, communication and sustainability.

It’s an important meeting to keep your Grad Group on track and usually includes:

• updates from the outgoing Executive Committee;
• a breakdown of your Group’s finances;
• plans for the future;
• celebration of successes to-date;
• discussion of challenges to-date;
• the election of your new Executive Committee.

It’s also an opportunity to discuss or vote on any big motions that the whole membership might vote on.

During a group meeting, you will make several decisions that will dictate the operation of your group. Whenever you aim to finalise a decision, this is called a motion. One member of the executive committee must call a motion and another member must second the motion for it to be finalised. Make sure that neither member has any conflict of interest with the matter being motioned, otherwise the motion is invalid!

During a meeting, a member of your team should be taking notes of every discussion and motion that’s moved. After the meeting, they should collate all the information into a set of minutes. Minutes are essentially evidence that the executives of a group have moved motions and settled on a plan that they will action moving forward.

When writing out minutes, you can use the MGA Meeting Minute Template as a starting point, which can be found in Group Resources, under Sample Documents. Make sure to include all the attendees and all the motions from a meeting. Once they have been written up, they should be distributed to all executive members.

To have reached quorum in a meeting means you have reached the minimum attendance to commence your meeting. Quorum is defined as 50% +1 of your group executive members. Therefore, if you have 6 executive members, you must have 4 group executives at the meeting for the meeting to be valid. Otherwise, meeting minutes can be contested should quorum not be reached.