Ad Hoc Room Bookings - How To

An ad hoc room booking is a one-off booking for a single room or activity. We offer ad-hoc room bookings to any of our affiliated Club’s, Societies and Projects, so you have the space to hold in-person activities and events that fall outside of your regular annual activity. Hosting a fundraiser, a conference, or a show? Planning a meeting, a lecture, or an exhibition? The Student Union has lots of different spaces across the Student Union Building and the College Spaces to help facilitate your Club, Society and Project’s in-person activity or event.  

 Please note we can only accept a maximum of 25 ad hoc room booking requests per CSP, per term. This number is not a fixed quota and, if a student group is making a booking for a large conference or event, we may be able to process higher volumes of requests.

AD HOC ROOM BOOKING PROCESS

Step 1 – Ensure the Student Union knows about your events and activities.

If your activity is covered by your annual activity proposal, you can book a room without submitting an event proposal or creating a separate risk assessment. 

If you are planning any event or activity that falls outside of your core risk assessment, you will need to complete the event and trip proposal process (see: Event Information Pages).

This is because the Union has a legal responsibility to have a record of all events and activities that our groups do, and to ensure they are risk assessed appropriately.

 Step 2 – Choose a room.
To help you choose what room you need for you activity please see a full list of bookable spaces and rooms in the CSP Bookable Spaces section below (Training Room Bookings > CSP Bookable Spaces).
  
College spaces are available to book from 18:00 pm on weekdays and from 9:00 pm on weekends - subject to availability. Rooms in the Union Building are available to CSPs from 9:00 am - 23:00 pm every day - subject to availability.  

Step 3 – Check the Celcat calendar for room availability
Once you know which room you want to book for your activity/event, you will need to check when the room is available. To do this please see the guidance steps on checking space availability in the CSP Bookable Spaces section below (Training Room Bookings > CSP Bookable Spaces > Checking space Availability).

We are unable to book over any existing college or CSP activities. If the room already has a booking during the time you wish to book, please find an alternative time or room.

 Whilst you may wish to reach out to another CSP that has a time booked that you want, please do not chase anyone to swap their bookings as this can frustrate others.  

 If the room is available with no existing bookings during the time you wish to request, you are ready to move on to step 4!

Step 4 – Submit our Ad-Hoc room booking form
 To submit a booking for an available room please submit a room booking (Student dashboard > Room Booking).

By submitting the form above you as a representative of your student group are agreeing the Room Bookings Terms and Conditions (Student dashboard > Resources > Policies, terms and Conditions > Room Booking Terms & Conditions). Please note that the live calendar is accurate up to the time you submit your booking. If another CSP has placed a request for this room before you, your request may still be rejected.

 Step 5 – Booking confirmation or rejections
 The union will do our best to process any ad-hoc room booking requests within 10 working days. 

Due to the high volume of requests, we receive, please do not chase the activities team to check or speed up your bookings before those 10 working days as we are not able to do this. 

• Approved requests will receive an email to confirm your booking, this is your booking receipt. This booking receipt will contain your confirmed room/space and timings.
  
   
• Rejected requests will receive an email explaining the reason behind your booking rejection and you are encouraged to submit a separate request.

Room Booking Policies

As well as the space we have in the Student Union building, we have lots of space across the college that CSPs can book. This is because the Union has built a good working relationship with those colleges. On an annual basis, the spaces CSPs are allowed to book are reviewed by those college departments.  

The terms and conditions for using this space is outlined in our Imperial College Union Room Booking Terms and Conditions 23-24 doc. (Student dashboard > Resources > Policies, terms and Conditions > Room Booking Terms & Conditions). This policy is then upheld in practice by individual bookers.

 CSP Room Booking Etiquette

 The spaces the college allow us to use is highly dependent on how well our CSP’s look after the spaces they book and how well they follow the process related to those spaces. It impacts education and learning when of an evening, student groups have left a room or space in a poor way after their bookings.  

 Leaving rooms in the condition and layout you found them in, is the most basic etiquette we expect of our CSPs. A diagram of a room’s default layout can be found at the front of most College Spaces. Please use this when resetting the room to the layout you found it in. 

 If a CSP is found to be repeatedly breaching the Room Booking Terms and Conditions or if the Union receives a complaint from a college department regarding a booking, the Student Union will issue the CSP a warning. Repeated breaches of the Room Booking Terms and Conditions will lead to a CSP’s room booking privileges being revoked.  

The principles of swapping room bookings 

We understand that, in some instances, student groups will swap their room bookings with each other. Although we recommend that groups use our ad-hoc room booking process for securing on-campus space for student activity, in the event of a room booking swap we ask for the following: 

• Written evidence of a swap communicated between two committee members (one from each group). This evidence can be submitted to the Activities Team prior to the activity (for validating) or you can just keep hold of it (as we may ask to see it long after the activity has taken place). 
• Please note that, in an instance of space misuse, we will hold the student group who holds the booking accountable – unless we see written evidence that a swap took place. 

The general principle: cover your back. When you book on-campus space, you take responsibility for the condition of that space - for the time you booked it. If you are trading that responsibility with another CSP committee, you will need to be able to prove it. 

Our spaces are bookable to ICU affiliated CSP members only – therefore, you can only swap bookings other ICU affiliated CSPs. For a full list of our ICU affiliated CSPs please see our A-Z.

FAQs

How do I cancel a booking?

To cancel a booking please submit a ticket to the Activities Team with your name, CSP name, committee position and the time, date, and room the confirmed booking is due to occur.   

Can we block book, or make more than one booking at a time?

No. The ad hoc booking form is for one room booking request, at one time on one date. To ensure fairness of access to the limited spaces we have, we do not allow a process of block booking outside of the annual room booking process which has now closed. The number of bookings a CSP requests will be monitored, and if a group is putting in excessive requests, the Union may limit the number of bookings the CSP is allowed.  

We want to book a space that is not on this list, how can we book it?

If there are spaces around the college that you as a group wish to book that is not on our CSP Bookable Spaces section, please submit a ticket to the Activities Team. We will work with the department to see if this space can become available bookings.   

Do we have to use this process when my department can book for me?

Yes, CSP bookings must be solely made by the Students’ Union as per our agreement with the college. This is because you are legal entity within the Students’ Union, and we are therefore responsible for any activity you deliver.