Alice Peacock wrote a pretty comprehensive College-Reps Info Pack - well worth having stored somewhere.

Here’s my top-ten tips for being a college rep:
1. Make friends

The bar steward, the college president, college secretary and JCR social sec should all know you, and know you as a genial, helpful (even if slightly odd) chap. Seriously, half an hour lugging gear for a stressed exec member one week may mean next week’s formal has DUCK buckets lining the tables, or the pub quiz proceeds go to your total, or you just get given lots of free food. The last one is especially great.

2. Do freshers’ week. In a big way.

Make friends with the freshers’ rep(s) and make sure there is an event in freshers’ week that is a DUCK EVENT. Big spangly capitals for that, too. If it means taking the responsibility for a whole evening’s entertainment (which they will love you for) then do it. You want all your freshers to remember from day 1 DUCK is acey-pacey skill. They might not remember the evening at all if you go over the top, but it’s worth it.

This is especially good advice if your college has a stinking DUCK record- your freshers’ don’t need to know that the rest of the college are tight-fisted gets- convince them philanthropy is where it’s at right at the start.

Get to the freshers’ fair- if they give you their email address you can spam them legitimately.

A side point to this is make sure DUCK is in the freshers’ handbook- this may mean making friends way in advance. Make DUCK the funniest thing in there.

3. Ask for advice

Hunt down and kill the previous years’ DUCK rep, and extricate all their knowledge. They can come up with handy tips like:

“Don’t do that, we did it last year and it ended in A & E”

“That was banned last year by society council. Way don’t do that again”

“That just doesn’t make money. Try this instead”

Barbara in the office is also the fount of all wisdom for the oddest of pieces of information you will need.

4. Buy Barbara flowers, chocolate, coffee, holidays.

Nothing is too good for this woman.

5. Take it easy

Don’t work too hard. Try to pass your degree at the same time.

6. Look after people

Especially if you have side-kicks, DUCK rep-lings, or just generous friends. Take them out for coffee, do them favours when you have the energy, otherwise everyone feels beat up (you never know, they might reciprocate).

Happy, motivated, cared for people are productive people, who will do work for you.

7. Careful with your wallet.

Don’t be tempted to give outright to DUCK until you’ve taken into account the printer credits, chocolate, sweets, train tickets, coffee, marker pens, deposits, paper, bath-tubs, custard, glo-sticks and phone credit you will pay for. In theory, you could claim this back, but being generous like you are, you probably wont and will end up going bust.

Commit your soul or your finances to DUCK, not both.

7. Really carefully assess your effort

Here’s an example: we had a body shop party, which ate up £7 of printer credits, lots of time, lots of effort, phone calls and an embarrasing evening when no-one showed up. This was a guaranteed winner, right before valentines day, with everyone promising to rock up. In the end we made more by just walking around the bar for five minutes at the end asking for change. A lot more. Lesson: sometimes the simplest things work best. But always ask yourself “could I make more cash by being more lazy?”
8. Learn from your mistakes.

Even better, ask what Hatfield ballsed up last year and avoid theirs too. But pick yourself up from your mistakes (even the loss making ones) and stop only to ask yourself why it didn’t work and what needs to change next time. Most people either give up, or carry on without learning the lesson.

But that’s just common sense, right?

9. Learn this: people will pay an awful lot for crap, but nothing for thin air.

In general, people don’t give. But find the right rubbish, and people will buy. Eight girls, one evening, £600 of Anne Summers’ clothes. Evidence enough, methinks. Brand something, pint glasses or wrist-watches, make sure it’s darn cheap and flog it. Harribo works well too.

10. Pass it on

Become a nerd, write down everything you’ve learn on a website and send it on. Put it in lists of 1-10 which have two point sevens. But hand out all your trade secrets at rep meetings and share the love.
A really under-estimated part of the job is maintaining the momentum of DUCK- keeping it being associated with cool, fun, and crazy. A sponsored wax didn’t make an awful lot of money, but five guys standing on bar table before 200 people, waxing each others’ testicles whilst wearing DUCK t-shirts is priceless publicity. Instantly DUCK is once more associated with hilarious idiocy.

Don’t worry too much about college totals: they are a good incentive to work harder, but if you’re from Van Mildert where they remove freshers’ spleens and sell them for cash, you’re always going to win, and if you’re from a college where they don’t let you borrow rooms (Collingwood) or you have a tight-fisted bar steward (Cuth’s); you’re never going to compete on a level playing field.

And if you’re from Castle, you’re always going to loose.