Student union handover: pass the baton without starting over

Student union handover: pass the baton without starting over

A successful student union handover means a new committee that starts the year with keys, accounts and merch already in hand. It comes down to three jobs: elect the committee and declare it to the French prefecture within 3 months, pass on the money and access, hand down the merch file.

Key points for the handover:

• A student union's new committee is elected as its statutes say, usually by the general meeting; the new officers then declare the change to the associations registry within 3 months.
• Without a declaration, the officers of a declared French student union face a fine of up to €1,500 (€3,000 for a repeat offence, up to €10,000 in Alsace-Moselle), and the change cannot be relied upon against third parties.
• At handover, the new committee takes over the union's access: mailbox, social media, the government's online accounts, the tknp.io account if it has one, then the bank once the election is proven.
• A student union's merch file is handed over in six items: vector logo, approved proofs, product sheets of the models, sizes, pre-sales in progress (tknp.io Store campaigns), next class sweatshirt.

On election night, the new team inherits a room, a bank account, sponsors and a whole class already waiting for its sweatshirt. A well-run student union handover also passes on the instructions: who to call, where the files live, what worked last year. Botch it, and the next committee has to relearn everything, from the Instagram password to the logo file.

This guide follows the real order of a handover, from the official vote to the merch, the part nobody thinks of handing over. The legal rules below apply to a BDE (bureau des étudiants, the student union of a French school or university) set up as a declared association under the French law of 1 July 1901. They come from the official French sources, service-public.gouv.fr, associations.gouv.fr and Légifrance; for your exact case, your statutes and the associations registry of your département (the court in Alsace-Moselle) have the final word.

What is a student union handover?

A student union handover is the passing of the baton from the outgoing committee of a BDE to the newly elected one: the roles, the official formalities, the money, the access and the memory of the year. When the BDE is a student association declared under the French law of 1901, part of that handover is a legal obligation: declaring its new officers to the authorities.

The rest is required by no law, and that is often where everything gets lost: the contact of the sponsor who funds the gala, the real budget of the integration weekend, the logo file, the sizes of last year's sweatshirts.

What are the steps of a student union handover?

A student union handover runs in six steps: call the general meeting, hold it, sign the minutes, declare the new officers, update the bank, insurance and access, then hand over the merch file. The legal deadline to remember is the declaration, 3 months; the rest follows your statutes and the union's calendar.

Who elects the new committee, and when?

The union's statutes say who elects the new committee, when, and with what quorum: the French 1901 law says nothing about an association's governing bodies, as service-public.gouv.fr points out. In general, the statutes give this renewal of the committee to the general meeting of members, which elects the officers.

Read them, with the internal rules if there are any, before sending the notice: notice period, who may vote, proxies, length of terms. If your statutes are silent, the general meeting has general authority over decisions beyond day-to-day management, including appointing the officers.

Use the same meeting to approve the year's accounts and the outgoing committee's report, two tasks of the general meeting listed by service-public.gouv.fr. The new treasurer then starts from accounts approved by everyone.

What goes in the minutes of the handover meeting?

The minutes of the handover meeting contain, in practice, the date and place of the meeting, the members present and represented, the result of each vote, the name and role of each person elected and the signatures your statutes provide for. They travel with the declaration: service-public.gouv.fr asks for a copy of the resolution ("un exemplaire de la délibération") to be attached.

For each person elected, state the role (president, vice-president, treasurer, secretary), and add the agenda and the quorum if your statutes set one. Then file the minutes in the union's archives, with the attendance sheet and the proxies.

How do you declare the new committee to the prefecture?

In France, the new committee is declared to the associations registry (greffe des associations) of the prefecture of the département where the head office is, online, by post or in person. It is up to the newly elected officers: service-public.gouv.fr specifies that it is filed by the officers who have been appointed, and not by those who have left office.

Two ways to do it:

• online, with the e-modification service on service-public.gouv.fr, which you log into with FranceConnect, the French state login;
• by post or in person, with form Cerfa no. 13971*03, the declaration of the list of people in charge of running the association.

Either way, attach the minutes of the meeting and the final, up-to-date list of the whole committee: surname, first names, occupation, home address, nationality and role of each person. If someone else files it for you, they attach a mandate signed by an officer. The official details are on the service-public.gouv.fr page Changements dans l'administration d'une association (in French).

How long do you have to declare the handover, and what is the risk?

A declared BDE has 3 months to declare its change of officers: article 5 of the French law of 1 July 1901 requires associations to report within that period all changes in their administration.

The penalty without a declaration: the officers of a declared student union face a fine of up to €1,500, €3,000 for a repeat offence (up to €10,000 in Alsace-Moselle). A more immediate consequence, as service-public.gouv.fr points out: these changes can only be relied upon against third parties from the day they are declared to the associations registry. In other words, before that date, a third party such as a bank or a sponsor may disregard it. Declaring within a week of the meeting means getting the receipt sooner, and the new committee will need it at the bank.

How do you change the signatories on the union's bank account?

To change the signatories on the union's bank account, the new committee brings the bank proof of its election: the minutes of the meeting, then the prefecture's receipt, which the new officers can show the bank to prove their roles. The exact list of documents depends on each bank: ask your adviser for it the day after the vote.

On the same day, go through everything that pays or collects money in the union's name:

• the signing authorities and online access to the account, to be removed from the outgoing members and opened to the new ones;
• the bank cards in the names of former committee members;
• the payment tools: card terminal, online ticketing, membership platform;
• the running direct debits (insurance, subscriptions, rent), whose contact must move to the new treasurer.

Finally, the outgoing treasurer hands over the last statement, the expenses committed but not yet paid (the deposit on the gala venue, an order in progress) and the money still expected: membership fees, grants, the pot of a merch campaign.

Should you review the union's insurance at handover?

Yes: the handover is the right time to reread the union's insurance contract and give the insurer the names of its new contacts. The French government site for associations, associations.gouv.fr, points out that an association welcoming volunteers has every reason to take out civil liability insurance, for itself and its members, even when no law requires it.

The official site also advises checking one specific point: are exceptional events covered by the policy? For a student union, that means the integration weekend, the gala, the parties and the tournaments the new committee plans. If the union is responsible for a room, also check that it is insured against fire and water damage.

Which access should you pass on to the new committee?

The new committee must receive, on handover day, every access that lets it act in the association's name, from online banking to the keys to the room. Change the passwords that same day, and remove the outgoing members' personal access.

The access to pass on:

• the union's mailbox and the shared folder that holds its files, organised as our guide to brand guidelines for an association recommends;
• the union's social media accounts;
• the government's online accounts: the association account on service-public.gouv.fr, where the prefecture's messages arrive after an online declaration, and Le Compte Asso if it was used to apply for a grant;
• online banking and the payment tools;
• the union's tknp.io account, if it has one, with its wardrobe and its Store campaigns;
• the keys to the room and the equipment, with the occupancy agreement if the school signed one.

How long should the union keep its archives?

A student union's archives must be kept for minimum periods that service-public.gouv.fr gives as a guide: for the whole life of the association for the statutes and receipts, at least 5 years for the minutes of general meetings, 6 years for tax documents and 10 years for the accounts. The outgoing committee hands them over in full, sorted by year.

Former members' data, on the other hand, must not be kept longer than needed to manage the membership or meet legal obligations: the full list is on the service-public.gouv.fr page on retention periods for an association's documents (in French).

How do you hand over the treasury, sponsors and the year's calendar?

The treasury, the sponsors and the calendar are handed over role by role, in a handover notebook each outgoing member fills in before the meeting and then goes through with their successor. The most effective way is still a few weeks in pairs, the old and the new holder of each role side by side.

A grant requested through Le Compte Asso also needs following up at handover: the same service is used to enter the financial reports for grants awarded through it, a task to note for the treasurer.

The calendar deserves the most care: it tells the new committee when to book the gala venue, when to prepare the associations fair and when to launch the class sweatshirt. For each event, write down last year's date, the real budget and what you would change.

What merch file should you leave the new committee?

A student union's merch file comes down to six items: the logo as a vector file, the approved proofs, the product sheet of each model ordered, the size split, the pre-sales in progress (tknp.io Store campaigns) and the date of the next class sweatshirt. With it, the new committee reorders the same custom hoodie, identical, without redesigning everything.

1. The vector logo (SVG or PDF), with its single-colour version, the file our guide to the student union logo explains in detail.
2. The approved proofs of the year, saved as screenshots in the shared folder: each proof sets the size, position, colours and technique of a print or embroidery. Our guide to proofs lists what to check on them.
3. The product sheet of each model ordered: brand, reference, colour, technique, size and position of the logo, quantity and invoice. Prices move: check today's price grid on the product sheet before reordering.
4. The size split of the last batch, how many S, M and L: a benchmark if the union orders ahead. To redo it properly, our guide explains how to collect sizes for a whole class.
5. The pre-sales in progress (tknp.io Store campaigns): closing date, number of reservations, announced delivery date. A campaign's pot is paid by bank transfer after delivery: note the expected delivery date and amount in the file, so the treasury can follow it.
6. The next class sweatshirt: the target date, the model in mind and the budget voted. A pre-sale campaign wraps up in 7 to 21 days, and the sweatshirts reach the union about three weeks later, on the date shown before payment. To cost it, follow our guide to the class sweatshirt budget.

Each committee adds its garment to the union's wardrobe

On tknp.io, a student union's collection grows from one committee to the next: every garment designed goes into the account's wardrobe, logo in place, and the next committee adds its own, the class sweatshirt one year, the gala t-shirt the year after, the tournament cap after that. What stays in the account is handed over with the access, as our student union merch guide details.

The free pro account also brings together the quotes and the orders for the whole team: the new treasurer finds what the union has already ordered without depending on the outgoing treasurer. The new committee adds the new year's logo if it changes, then reorders from 10 units per model; for the garment it will add, the School & campus selection gathers models chosen for student associations.

With a pre-sale on the Store, your members reserve for 7 to 21 days, we produce everything in a single run, each garment at the price of the volume it reaches, and the difference fills the union's pot: it all starts on the Sell with pre-orders page. Opening a Store is for "verified pro accounts only" (SIREN, SIRET or VAT number): a French student union under the 1901 law, outside Alsace-Moselle, with no employees and no tax to pay, can request its SIREN number online on associations.gouv.fr, once its details are up to date at the registry.