Ad-Hoc Room Bookings

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 lot 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 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 regular activity, you will need to complete an event proposal form which can be found on our webpage regarding Planning CSP Events.  

    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. 
     
    College spaces are available to book from 18:00 on weekdays and from 9:00 on weekends subject to availability. Rooms in the Union building are available to CSP’s from 9:00-22:00 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 on our website page about bookable spaces and rooms. 

    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 the CSP or college department that has the time booked 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 an Ad-Hoc Room Booking Form.

    By submitting the form above you as a representative of your student group are agreeing the Room Bookings Terms and 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 Confirmations 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 department to check or speed up your bookings before those 10 working days are we are not able to do this. 

    • Approved Requests will receive an email confirm your booking, this is your booking receipt. This booking receipt will contain your confirmed room/space, timings and a link to our room booking terms & conditions.  
       
    • Rejected Requests will receive an email explaining the reasons behind your booking rejection and will be encouraged to submit a separate request. If the Union can easily book you into an alternative space, we will do. 

Room Bookings Policies 

As well as the space we have in the Student’s Union building, we have lots of space across the college that CSPs (Clubs, Society and Project) 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 use of the spaces is outlined in our Room Booking Policy (which is due for a review this year). This policy is then upheld in practice by individual bookers who agree to the Room Booking Terms and Conditions.  

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 Union will issue the CSP a strike as outlined in the Strike Policy. Repeated breaches of the terms and conditions will lead to a CSP’s room booking privileges being revoked.  

FAQs

  • How do I cancel a booking?

    To cancel a booking please email a cancelation request to activities@ic.ac.uk 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 bookable spaces list, please email Robert Thomas, Activities Operations Administrator on robert.thomas@imperial.ac.uk. 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 college. This is because you are legal entity within the Students’ Union, and we are therefore responsible for any activity you deliver.