Code of Conduct

At an early plenary session, the senior staff person present will be introduced to attendees. They will be the person making decisions about the safety of the event and the conduct of the event. These decisions will be final during the event but may be subject to review after the event.

The Leading Officer.

The Senior Officer will be introduced to attendees. They will liaise with the Senior Staff Persons on decisions about the safety of the event. For any trilateral event in Northern Ireland, the President of NUS-USI will be liaised with as appropriate.

Duty Safeguarding Person

The Duty Safeguarding Person may be a member of AMLÉ staff, a person hired by AMLÉ for the purpose or a suitably trained person from another organisation. This will be made clear at the opening meeting of any event.

SU Delegation Leader

Your SU has a delegation leader (DL). This will usually be the Students’ Union President, but it may be someone else on the delegation. The DL is responsible for supporting and leading the delegation of representatives from your SU, and for most circumstances will be your most useful contact. They should supply you with their phone number, and you should supply yours to them.

AMLÉ Safety Basics

AMLÉ residential events (events where AMLÉ arranges accommodation) may be attended by adults aged 18 and older only.

At a AMLÉ residential event, in your joining instructions and on your Event Wristband, you will find the telephone number for the Event Safety Person, who you can call at any time of the day or night to seek support or report anything which you think could be unsafe.

It is important that you understand that contacting the Event Safety Person doesn’t get you or anyone else into trouble Ð we provide this number to ensure that the wellbeing of attendees at our events is protected. The safety of our members is our highest priority. If you need to call the number for yourself or on someone else’s behalf, do so.

In an emergency

In what appears to be a medical emergency, you should immediately call for an ambulance by calling 112 and follow their instructions; you should then call the Event Phone Number to inform them that an ambulance is on the way.

If you witness or become aware of an incident of violence or assault, you should call 112 and ask for the Garda’ (Republic of Ireland) or Police (Northern Ireland). You should not take action which endangers yourself or anyone else.

Responsibility to others

At AMLÉ we believe that we each have a responsibility to take care of ourselves and to respect the space, integrity and needs of others. Every delegate, facilitator, trainer, committee member and member of staff of AMLÉ and its partners is entitled to a safe, enjoyable and productive event. We won’t accept or tolerate any action which causes another person at a AMLÉ event to either be unsafe or to believe that they are unsafe.

Your Safety

You are the person primarily responsible for your own safety, and you have a responsibility to promote safety for everyone at an event. You must report anything you feel could endanger yourself or another delegate, and can expect your concerns to be taken seriously.

Protocols

Abusive, exclusionary, bullying or violent behaviour

AMLÉ will not tolerate abusive, exclusionary, bullying or violent behaviour at any AMLÉ event.

Anyone breaching this protocol at a AMLÉ event can expect to be removed from the event.

Incidents of this sort should be reported to the Duty Safeguarding Person, your Delegation Leader or a member of AMLÉ Executive Team.

Respect for others

AMLÉ believes in the right to respectful freedom of expression for our delegates which recognises the right of others to a contrary opinion.

Debate about competing ideas is healthy and the basis of our policy process. We don’t shout down others when they’re speaking. We don’t use personally insulting, threatening or offensive language and we don’t stop others from expressing themselves.

Attendees at our events should be respectful of the freedom of expression of others, in particular relating to their identity; their gender and pronouns in particular should be respected by others.

Drugs and Alcohol at AMLÉ events

It’s not acceptable to share or supply drugs at a AMLÉ event.

Use of alcohol and unprescribed drugs may be illegal, can impair a user’s judgment and endanger personal safety and health, and by extension pose risks to other attendees.

AMLÉ would prefer that you didn’t take drugs at our events; national health guidance in Ireland advises that if you decide to take drugs, you should ‘start low and go slow’.

Any person engaged in activity which endangers another person or themselves at a AMLÉ event can expect to be excluded from the event (or any part of it) and not allowed to participate in future AMLÉ events.

Sexual conduct

AMLÉ has a zero tolerance approach to breaches of sexual consent and sexual harassment.

AMLÉ expects all attendees at events to apply the highest standard of active consent.

Personal space, privacy and the right to control over one’s own body are key principles within AMLÉ. AMLÉ will not accept:

Unwanted sexual comments, including about someone’s body, gender, sexuality or private life
Repeated unwanted sexual invitations or requests
Unwanted touching or unwanted sexually motivated activity
Sexual assault

No Pressure Events

Nobody owes an explanation to another attendee or to AMLÉ for sitting out part of an event, a comhdh‡il session, skipping a social event or taking some time and space for their own wellbeing.

You must not pressure anybody else into doing anything they are not comfortable doing.

“No.” is a full sentence.

Accommodation and sleep

AMLÉ provides accommodation at some events.

Rooms provided by AMLÉ will often be shared between multiple delegates.

Everyone at our events has a right to a good night’s sleep in the room and the bed they’ve been allocated, with no exceptions.

Delegates allocated to a room have responsibility for that room and are responsible for loss or damages there. Delegates should secure their rooms when absent to prevent loss or theft of personal effects.

AMLÉ Staff and facilitators

AMLÉ Staff and colleagues in NUS-AMLÉ work hard to deliver AMLÉ and NUS-AMLÉ objectives and events. Delegates should feel comfortable with approaching staff for support and information.

AMLÉ Staff have no right to participate in the democratic bodies of AMLÉ, and no right to reply to public comments about their work.

AMLÉ staff should not be mentioned or discussed during debates at a democratic event. Concerns or complaints about staff should be brought to the President. Any violent or abusive conduct towards staff will be treated with the utmost seriousness and if unresolved will lead to the withdrawal of AMLÉ staff from the event and the whole event’s termination. You can expect such conduct to be reported to the relevant authorities in every case.

The same applies to staff AMLÉ has hired temporarily or employees of organisations with which AMLÉ works.

Steering Committee

Steering Committee members are independent of the organisation and entitled to the same respect as staff and delegates. Steering Committee are not responsible for the content of the Congress and have no responsibility to answer for the organisation or decisions they have taken, outside a session.

Investigation

If an allegation of misconduct is made to AMLÉ relating to which endangers or has endangered our members, AMLÉ will always support the right of an affected person to seek support from relevant authorities in whatever way it can. AMLÉ may conduct a limited investigation to find facts relating to an allegation of misconduct – but allegations of activity which could be, on advice, criminal in nature, will be handed off to the relevant authorities.

If AMLÉ staff become aware of something which endangers attendees, you can expect the staff member to report it to the Senior Staff Person as appropriate.

Why would we eject a person?

In some circumstances, we might need to take the decision to eject a person from an event. Some of those circumstances include:

If we feel that the wellbeing or security of participants at the event, or the perception of safety or security of participants would be reduced or imperilled by the person’s continuing presence at the event.

If otherwise the order of a democratic or training event would be impeded, where they have engaged in misconduct contrary to this code, or the standing orders of the event, or have threatened to do so.

Authority to eject

The authority to require a person at a AMLÉ event to leave the event (temporarily or permanently) in line with the Code of Conduct lies with each of the SU delegation leader of the person in question, the AMLÉ President, and the senior staff persons present. Any of these may take a decision to eject a person from an event.

The authority to direct that a delegate be required to leave the floor of a democratic event rests with the chair of the meeting.

The President or senior staff persons present may take whatever advice and make whatever consultations they feel are appropriate Ð their decision is final for the current event and no refunds may be made in respect of fees paid for attendance for an ejected person.

Banning from future events

In respect of a person who has seriously and/or repeatedly breached the Code of Conduct, appropriate action including banning an individual person may be taken by AMLÉ in the interests of the operations of the organisation and the protection of participants and staff.

People responsible for safety at the event

The Event Director