Starting a club · 13 min read · 24 July 2026
How to build a sports club website (step-by-step guide)
Everything a committee needs to build a club website members actually use — what to include, how to structure it, domains, costs, and a checklist you can work through in an afternoon.
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Running the club · 7 min read · 16 Oct 2026
A club admin dashboard that shows only your jobs
Treasurer, registrar, communications officer, coach coordinator: each committee role needs a different slice of your club software. Here is how to set up a role-based admin view so every volunteer sees their own jobs first, and what a focused view can and can't do.
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Running the club · 9 min read · 16 Oct 2026
Get a new committee member up to speed on your club software in a week
A new treasurer or secretary doesn't need a binder of screenshots. Here is a seven-day plan that uses guided page tours, a ten-chapter tutorial and a learning centre built into the software, with the handover conversations only a person can have.
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Running the club · 8 min read · 16 Oct 2026
Training volunteers on club software without a manual
Nobody reads the PDF. Guided tours, built-in tutorials and short real tasks teach club software faster than a manual or a video library, but they have limits. Here is how to train volunteers on the screens they actually use, and where a person still has to step in.
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Digital & communication · 10 min read · 13 Oct 2026
Club platform or web studio? When your club needs a custom-built website
Most clubs are best served by a club platform they can run themselves. Some are really businesses too, and they need a studio-built site. Here is how to tell which one you are, and what each route involves.
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Membership & money · 12 min read · 13 Oct 2026
How your club can help sponsors get more from their websites
Sponsors renew when they can see what the deal did for them. Here is how a club can send sponsors real, trackable visitors, check that the sponsor's own website is ready for them, and what to suggest when it isn't.
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Product news · 9 min read · 13 Oct 2026
Who builds ClubHelix? Meet Tideframe Digital, the studio behind it
Before your committee trusts any club software with member records and money, find out who builds it. Here are the questions worth asking every vendor, answered for ClubHelix and Tideframe Digital, the web studio that designs, builds and runs it.
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Comparisons · 10 min read · 5 Oct 2026
The best volleyball club management software, compared honestly
Volleyball clubs run leagues as much as they run members — team nominations, a weekly draw, duty referees, a ladder and a finals series, plus a social night that fills up by 6pm. Here is how the realistic software options differ and what to test before you commit a season.
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Comparisons · 9 min read · 2 Oct 2026
The best gymnastics club management software, compared honestly
Gymnastics clubs run on terms, levels and waitlists rather than seasons and fixtures. Here is how the realistic kinds of software differ, what a club actually needs covered, and the questions to ask before you move a term's enrolments.
Read more →Running the club · 9 min read · 23 Sept 2026
AI writing tools for club volunteers: a practical guide for the club secretary
Which club writing jobs AI can draft well (match reports, news, minutes, alt text, sponsor proposals, grant answers, translations, replies to parents), how to write notes that get a usable first draft, what never to paste in, and the one rule that keeps a person in charge.
Read more →Digital & communication · 7 min read · 23 Sept 2026
Club website fonts and branding: choosing fonts that look like your club
How to choose fonts for a club website that every visitor actually sees, pairings that suit a sports club, how to match your logo without copying it, sizing that works on a phone, and what to check before uploading your club's own font.
Read more →Digital & communication · 7 min read · 23 Sept 2026
Custom CSS for club websites: what it is for, what is allowed and why
When a club website genuinely needs custom CSS and when the theme already does the job, what a safe custom CSS feature should allow and refuse, and how to keep a stylesheet from becoming the thing nobody on next year's committee understands.
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Membership & money · 12 min read · 23 Sept 2026
How to run youth sports registration
Registration is the eight weeks when a youth league finds out whether it has eight teams or eleven. Here is how to run it without the scramble: a registration calendar, what your youth sports registration form should collect (and what it should not), payments, sibling pricing and scholarships, waitlists, late sign-ups, and what to look for in registration software.
Read more →Digital & communication · 8 min read · 23 Sept 2026
How to schedule club website updates (and undo the ones that go wrong)
A practical guide to scheduling club website updates — which pages, news posts and events to set up ahead of time, why the take-down time matters as much as the go-live time, and how version history lets a volunteer undo a bad edit without retyping it.
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Starting a club · 14 min read · 23 Sept 2026
How to start a youth sports league
Most youth sports leagues start because a group of parents got tired of a waitlist. Here is how to start one properly: choosing rec, travel or a clinic program, proving demand, forming a board, affiliating, insurance and screening, securing fields, and a month-by-month plan to opening day.
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Digital & communication · 8 min read · 23 Sept 2026
Members-only content on a club website: what to put behind a login, and how
What belongs behind a login on a club website and what should stay public, the difference between a members-only page and a members-only section, what "members only" actually protects, and the things that should never be on a website at all.
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Season & match day · 15 min read · 23 Sept 2026
Youth sports age groups explained — divisions, cutoff dates and playing up
U8, U10, U12 — every youth sports season starts with the same question from parents: which division is my kid in? Here's how youth sports age groups actually work: the birth-year and school-year models, why the cutoff date matters so much, one-year versus two-year bands, a playing-up policy your board can defend, and how to publish an age chart families can read.
Read more →Compliance & safety · 14 min read · 23 Sept 2026
Youth sports coach background checks — a practical system for leagues and clubs
Every adult who coaches, manages or travels with kids should be screened before they're on the field — but the rules vary by state and by governing body, and the checks are only one layer. Here's a practical system for youth sports coach background checks: who needs one, when, how often to renew, abuse-prevention training, a safeguarding policy, and records that keep as little as possible.
Read more →Membership & money · 12 min read · 23 Sept 2026
Youth sports league budget and registration fees: how much to charge
Most youth leagues set their registration fee by looking at what the league across town charges. Here is how to set it from your own costs instead: fixed, per-team and per-player costs, an illustrative sample budget, income beyond fees, sibling discounts, scholarships, installments and cash flow, and how to explain the number to families.
Read more →Digital & communication · 10 min read · 22 Sept 2026
How to lay out a club website page: sections, sidebars and what goes where
A practical layout guide for club website pages — which sections belong in the main column, what earns a place in the sidebar, page-by-page layouts for home, membership, training, committee and contact pages, and how to keep a page useful without cramming it.
Read more →Running the club · 14 min read · 21 Sept 2026
AI agent permissions for clubs: how much access should you give?
Your committee has agreed to let an AI agent work on the club platform. Now decide the scope. A plain-language guide to the three access levels — read, change, publish — the optional narrowing that limits a connection to one corner of the admin, a staged adoption ladder you can vote on, and the governance wrapper that keeps it reviewable.
Read more →Digital & communication · 13 min read · 21 Sept 2026
How to connect your club to Claude, ChatGPT and other AI tools
You have minted a connection token for your club. Now you have to tell your AI tool about it — and whether that works comes down to one question you can answer in ten seconds. This guide gives you the rule, the exact command for Claude Code, the config shape for editors and desktop clients, the OpenAI API field, and what to do when a tool asks you to sign in instead.
Read more →Digital & communication · 14 min read · 21 Sept 2026
MCP vs an API vs webhooks: three ways to connect club software
A club platform can offer three genuinely different kinds of connection - a read-only REST key for your own code, outbound webhooks that push events to your system, and an MCP token for an AI assistant. This is the plain-language explainer for the committee member who wants to know which one they actually need, and why an agent connection is not just an API with extra steps.
Read more →Running the club · 11 min read · 21 Sept 2026
Running a club with an AI agent: what a volunteer week actually looks like
Committees lose people to admin, not to sport. This is the unglamorous, repeatable version of an AI agent connected to your club platform — a money check on Monday, a committee pack on Wednesday, drafts on Thursday, site hygiene on Friday, and a handover the incoming secretary can simply ask about.
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Digital & communication · 17 min read · 19 Sept 2026
Club email consent and opt-in: permission, records and re-consent
What consent actually means for a volunteer-run club — express versus inferred permission, why the opted-in-only setting is on by default, capturing opt-in at registration and on a member's own account page, running a re-consent campaign, honouring unsubscribes, keeping the consent list as evidence, and when to stop emailing someone who has left.
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Digital & communication · 13 min read · 19 Sept 2026
How to email your club members: a practical guide for committees
A step-by-step guide to club-wide email for committees — building the list from your member database, choosing the audience by role, position or paid status, writing a subject line people act on, using merge tokens, testing and scheduling, budgeting your email allowance, and knowing when to send a broadcast instead of a newsletter.
Read more →Digital & communication · 13 min read · 15 Sept 2026
Club website down? What to do in the first ten minutes
The club website won't load, or registration has stopped working, right in the middle of the night that matters most. Here is how a volunteer works out whether it's just them, keeps the event running and tells members what's going on, and what a well-run platform is already doing about it before anyone picks up the phone.
Read more →Digital & communication · 12 min read · 15 Sept 2026
When a fixed bug comes back, and what “fixed” should mean
The committee reports a problem, is told it's fixed, and three weeks later it's back. Here is why fixed bugs return, what a good platform does so a volunteer isn't left to notice and chase the same problem twice, and the questions to ask any vendor about what “fixed” really means.
Read more →Digital & communication · 12 min read · 15 Sept 2026
Who fixes bugs in your club software? What happens after something breaks
A volunteer hits an error on a busy night. On a lot of club software, nothing happens until someone writes in. On ClubHelix the failure records itself, lands in a ticket, our team is alerted, and the fix is watched after release so it stays fixed. Here is what happens, step by step, and the little that is left for your committee to do.
Read more →Running the club · 12 min read · 13 Sept 2026
Club admin notifications: making sure the right volunteer hears about orders, forms and tasks
A shop order sits unpacked for a week because the alert went to someone who stepped down at the AGM. Here is how to route club admin notifications to roles instead of personal inboxes, tell the alerts that need doing from the ones that are just news, and keep a five-minute routine that stops anything waiting.
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Digital & communication · 14 min read · 13 Sept 2026
Push notifications for club members: what to send, what to leave out, and how members stay in control
A push notification is the most personal message a club can send, and the easiest one for a member to switch off for good. Here is a test for what earns a push, a table of what to send and what to leave out, when to ask members to turn notifications on, and the per-category settings that stop them muting the club altogether.
Read more →Reports & analytics · 16 min read · 12 Sept 2026
Affiliation reporting — getting numbers out of your clubs
A spreadsheet emailed to ninety clubs comes back in four formats, three of them PDFs, and every club has counted 'member' differently. Here is how a governing body defines the count once, runs a collection calendar instead of a chase, reports an honest 'not recorded' instead of a nought, and files a participation return it can defend.
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Compliance & safety · 15 min read · 12 Sept 2026
Parent and guardian consent for junior members
Consent at a junior club is rarely one signature — it is six separate permissions routinely collected as one tick, which is why a club cannot answer a parent who asks what they agreed to. General information on the six consents, who can actually give them, how a young person's own view fits, and how to record, withdraw and renew them.
Read more →Compliance & safety · 19 min read · 12 Sept 2026
Handling complaints at a governing body
The complaint a club could not finish lands on your desk, and the first question is not what happened — it is whether the matter is yours at all. Jurisdiction, intake, panels without conflicts, natural justice in plain words, timeframes, interim measures, outcomes, appeals and the register that protects the association two years later.
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Season & match day · 16 min read · 12 Sept 2026
How to run a box league at your club
Boxes of four to six players, a round a month, promotion and relegation — the cheapest retention activity a racquet club has. Here's how to design the boxes, choose a scoring system, handle the player who never arranges a match, and publish results members actually look at.
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Season & match day · 14 min read · 12 Sept 2026
How to run a pennant season
A pennant tie is not one score — it is a sequence of rubbers, rinks or sets that add up to a team result, and that is the thing every spreadsheet gets wrong. Here is how to grade and nominate teams, select and notify a side each week, run the match card, record forfeits and washouts honestly, and read the ladder that decides finals.
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Running the club · 15 min read · 12 Sept 2026
Make-up classes and credits — a policy that survives a term
Every swim school, gymnastics club and dance studio gets the same message by Tuesday lunchtime: we were sick, can we make it up? Here is how to answer it the same way every time — the four workable models, how many make-ups a term can absorb, notice periods, expiry, and the wording that makes it stick.
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Membership & money · 16 min read · 12 Sept 2026
Peak and off-peak court pricing
Weekday evenings are full and Tuesday mornings are empty, so the same court is really two products. Here's how to set peak and off-peak court hire rates: reading your own booking grid instead of trusting instinct, how big the gap should be, pricing a booking that straddles the change slot by slot, fair-use caps, and how to tell six months later whether it worked.
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Season & match day · 18 min read · 12 Sept 2026
How to register a junior team
Nominations close before you know your numbers, grading happens before half the registrations land, and every child has to be cleared by round one. Here's how to register a junior team without the annual scramble: a countdown from round one, how many teams to nominate, the age-group rules that actually bite, what to collect at registration, and the parent who should be receiving everything.
Read more →Membership & money · 15 min read · 12 Sept 2026
Setting up family and sibling rates
A committee resolution is not a rule. Here is how to turn "third child free" or a family cap into something that charges the right amount at every sign-up: who counts as one household, which child is the second child, what happens to a late joiner or a refund, how family rates sit beside promo codes and early-bird prices, and what the treasurer should check each month.
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Running the club · 14 min read · 12 Sept 2026
How to design a skill progression scheme
Most swim schools, gymnastics clubs and dance studios either inherit a badge scheme nobody has read properly or invent one with twice as many levels as it needs. Here is how to design a skill progression scheme that families can see, coaches mark the same way, and you can defend to a parent at the desk.
Read more →Running the club · 18 min read · 12 Sept 2026
One form, every club — standardising registration across affiliates
Ninety clubs, ninety slightly different registration forms, and one participation return that has to add them up. Here is how a governing body sets the questions every affiliated club must ask — the four kinds you legitimately own, how to word a mandatory question so it survives ninety clubs, the order that protects completion rates, and who should see which answers.
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Running the club · 14 min read · 12 Sept 2026
How to run term enrolment for classes and programs
A term of classes is sold four or five times a year to families who decide again every time. Here's how to run term enrolment properly: the term calendar and how many weeks to sell, class capacity and instructor ratios, per-term versus per-session pricing, pro-rata for a late joiner, waitlists, the register on the day, and re-enrolment.
Read more →Membership & money · 10 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Chasing unpaid member fees without being the bad guy
Nobody volunteers at a club to send debt letters. Here is the arrears policy that does the chasing for you — when the clock starts, the escalation the committee agrees once, what consequences you are actually willing to apply, and a hardship path that lets a family stay without a conversation they dread.
Read more →Running the club · 17 min read · 11 Sept 2026
A conflict-of-interest register for your committee
A register is one table your committee keeps continuously: who declared what, how it was handled, and when it stopped mattering. Here are the columns that work, how the register and the minutes fit together, who may read it, how long to keep it, a worked example, and the five ways a register quietly stops being true.
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Running the club · 17 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Court booking no-shows and late cancellations: policies that work
A court held by someone who never turns up is a court three other members were told they could not have. Here is how to measure no-shows before you police them, pick a fair notice window, and work up the ladder of responses — reminders, easy self-service cancellation, a waiting list, strikes, a pause, and only then money.
Read more →Membership & money · 10 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Direct debit, PayTo and bank payments for clubs
Bank-to-bank payment looks cheaper than a card and sometimes is — but it moves work rather than removing it. What direct debit actually is, how mandate-based bank payments differ from a member typing a transfer, the failure modes nobody mentions, and how to decide which fees belong on which rail.
Read more →Membership & money · 13 min read · 11 Sept 2026
The end of card surcharging — what it means for your club
The rules on what a club may put on top of a card payment are changing, and for most clubs the surcharge was never the right tool anyway. What is changing, what is not caught by it, and how to price card costs into your fees without anyone feeling stung.
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Season & match day · 13 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Setting up quarters, halves, sets and innings in your competition
How you divide a match decides what the scorers write down, when substitutions happen and what the crowd sees on the board. A sport-by-sport walkthrough of halves, quarters, sets, innings, periods, ends and chukkas, how to pick junior period lengths, and the one-page scoring note that keeps every volunteer doing the same thing.
Read more →Season & match day · 15 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Ladder tiebreakers explained — percentage, points difference and head-to-head
Two teams finish level on points and somebody has to decide who is third. This is what each tiebreaker actually measures, which order suits which sport, why head-to-head is loved and awkward, and how to write the rule into your by-laws before round one so nobody argues about it in round eighteen.
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Membership & money · 10 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Paying officials — reimbursement, honorarium or fee?
Three envelopes of cash after a Saturday round are three different transactions, and most clubs have never said which is which. What separates a reimbursement from an honorarium from a fee, why the distinction reaches your club rather than only your accountant, and how to run official payments so the answer is recorded before the money moves.
Read more →Compliance & safety · 10 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Removing a former member's details — what associations must do
When someone stops being a member, most clubs do nothing — the row sits in the roster with a phone number, an address and an emergency contact for years. In Victoria the rule is explicit and the clock is 14 days. Here is what that rule actually says, what it does not reach, and the leaving checklist that makes it routine.
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Season & match day · 10 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Streaming your club's matches with a camera you already own
Most clubs shopping for a streaming camera already own one. Here is how the phone, action camera or club camera system you have gets a match onto the internet, which platforms your match page can actually embed, and the one honest limitation worth knowing before you pick where to stream.
Read more →Digital & communication · 9 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Why your club software shouldn't sell your members' attention
When a club tells every family to install an app, the club is handing over an audience it spent years building. Here is what we found reading the public reviews of a widely used club app, why the advertising model produces it, and the questions to ask a vendor before your members find out for you.
Read more →Compliance & safety · 10 min read · 11 Sept 2026
Keeping a working with children register that actually protects children
Most club registers track one thing — the expiry date — and that is the one thing a cancelled clearance does not change. Here is why a date-only register misses a revocation, what the regulators actually run on your behalf once you link a worker to your organisation, and the record to keep so your club can prove what it checked.
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Compliance & safety · 17 min read · 8 Sept 2026
Facility hire terms and conditions template for clubs
A court, arena, lane or room hired on a handshake works until the first dispute. Here's a reusable facility hire terms and conditions template for clubs — twelve numbered clauses you can copy, covering who may book, what a booking includes, numbers, payment at booking or at the venue, cancellations and refunds, conduct, damage, weather closures and privacy — with a plain-language note under each.
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Membership & money · 17 min read · 8 Sept 2026
How to hire out a riding arena (per horse, per hour, paid at the gate)
An arena costs the same to light, harrow and fence whether one horse is in it or none. Here's how to hire out a riding arena properly: exclusive hire versus shared sessions, pricing per horse per hour with member and casual rates, surface and safety rules, clinics as blocks, and taking the money at the gate by QR code without losing track of who still owes.
Read more →Membership & money · 15 min read · 8 Sept 2026
How to price facility hire (per hour, per head, member and casual rates)
A court, an arena, a lane or a room has a cost every hour whether anyone uses it or not. Here's how to price facility hire so the numbers add up: the cost floor, the four pricing shapes (per slot, per head, per place, free for members), member versus casual rates, what to do about regulars and evening rates honestly, showing the price before anyone books, and reviewing it with the reports.
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Running the club · 12 min read · 8 Sept 2026
How to set up online court booking for your club
The diary in the clubhouse and the phone in one volunteer's pocket work right up until the day they don't. Here's how to set up online court booking for your club: the six decisions to make first, who counts as a member, clash-proof courts, guest bookings, cancellations, and taking payment by card or at the venue.
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Running the club · 12 min read · 8 Sept 2026
How to share a facility between bookings (lanes, arenas, bays and walls)
A pool has six lanes, an arena holds four horses, a range has eight bays — and a booking form that lets one person take the lot. Here's how to share a facility between bookings: choosing a capacity, naming a place, per-place pricing, why a grid that shows places left changes behaviour, blocks that hold every place, and when named lanes beat a shared one.
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Running the club · 12 min read · 8 Sept 2026
How to take pitch and oval bookings (without a diary in the canteen)
Your ground is the most valuable thing the club has, and it sits empty most weekdays. Here's how to take pitch and oval bookings properly: who hires grounds, fitting hire around training and match days, half-pitch versus full-pitch, lights, pricing per hour, per team or per player, ground-care rules, and getting paid at the venue or by card.
Read more →Membership & money · 16 min read · 8 Sept 2026
Taking payment at the venue for club bookings (cash, QR codes and card terminals)
Not every club wants a card taken the moment someone books a court or an arena. Here's how to take payment at the venue properly: when it beats card at booking and when it doesn't, the three things a venue-paid booking must still do, QR codes, card terminals and cash for volunteers, reconciling the owed list against the takings, no-shows, and how it lands in the club's books.
Read more →Digital & communication · 9 min read · 7 Sept 2026
Club website migration checklist
A print-and-tick checklist for moving a club website to a new platform — what to export before you commit, what to test before you switch, what to redirect, and the order that keeps your domain, your email and your members intact.
Read more →Comparisons · 11 min read · 7 Sept 2026
How long does it take to switch club software?
There is no honest average, because the work is not the same job twice. What decides your timeline is how much content you have, whether a usable export exists, and how often your committee can actually sit down — and only one of those is about software.
Read more →Digital & communication · 10 min read · 7 Sept 2026
How to move your club website to a new platform
What actually transfers when a club changes website platform, what has to be rebuilt by hand, what can never move at all — and the order of operations that keeps your domain, your members and your search rankings intact.
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Digital & communication · 10 min read · 7 Sept 2026
Is your club website being scraped?
Automated copying of public club pages is ordinary, constant and mostly unstoppable — you cannot block bulk copying without also blocking search engines. So the realistic goal is not prevention. It is publishing less about people, and knowing when harvesting has happened.
Read more →Digital & communication · 9 min read · 7 Sept 2026
Keeping your Google rankings when you change club website
Changing website platform is the most common way a club accidentally disappears from search. Here is how redirects, canonical addresses, sitemaps and Search Console actually work, and the order to do them in so your rankings survive the move.
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Running the club · 11 min read · 7 Sept 2026
Moving club member data between systems
How to get your member roster out of one system and into another without losing records or breaking privacy duties — what a complete export looks like, how to clean it, how to reconcile the import, and what can never be transferred at all.
Read more →Comparisons · 10 min read · 7 Sept 2026
Switching club software without losing your members
Stored card details and direct debit authorities never move between systems — every payer has to authorise again. Here is why that is true on any platform, and how to run the re-authorisation campaign so the switch costs you money you were owed rather than members you had.
Read more →Digital & communication · 9 min read · 7 Sept 2026
What happens to your old club website
Your domain, your hosting and your content are three separate things, and clubs lose the first one by cancelling in the wrong order. What to archive before you go, the safe order of cancellation, and how long to keep the redirects running afterwards.
Read more →Comparisons · 7 min read · 26 Aug 2026
The best badminton club management software, compared honestly
Badminton clubs need court booking, club-night caps, visitor payments and a pennant season in one place — a combination most club software only half covers. Here is how the realistic options differ, what each is genuinely built for, and the questions to ask before you commit.
Read more →Comparisons · 6 min read · 26 Aug 2026
The best boxing club management software, compared honestly
Boxing clubs are timetable businesses with a compliance obligation — class capacity, medicals, gradings and coach accreditation matter more than membership records. Here is how the realistic software options differ and what to test before committing a season.
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Comparisons · 6 min read · 26 Aug 2026
The best cycling club management software, compared honestly
Cycling clubs are calendar-and-compliance operations — ride schedules, rider grades, waivers and race levies — which is a different shape from the team-sport products most club software is built around. Here is how the realistic options differ and what to test before you commit.
Read more →Running the club · 8 min read · 8 Aug 2026
Club committee task management: how to stop action items dying between meetings
Every committee meeting produces a list of things people agreed to do, and every next meeting opens with discovering which of them nobody did. Here is a task system that survives volunteers — capturing actions properly, the one-list rule, chasing without nagging, and the handover that doesn't lose a year of memory.
Read more →Membership & money · 7 min read · 8 Aug 2026
Club membership types and tiers: how to structure family, junior, social and life memberships
Most clubs never design their membership categories — they inherit them, and add one more every time a situation doesn't fit. Here is how to structure types deliberately — the six categories that cover almost every club, the family question, what each type should include, and how to prune the list you already have.
Read more →Digital & communication · 8 min read · 8 Aug 2026
The club software demo checklist — what to test in twenty minutes
A demo is only as useful as the questions you bring to it. This is the committee's twenty-minute test plan for any club platform — the screens to open, the buttons to press, the exports to demand — plus the difference between a guided sales demo and an open one you can drive yourself.
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Compliance & safety · 8 min read · 8 Aug 2026
Emergency contact and medical forms for clubs — what to collect, and what not to
Clubs need to know who to call and what matters medically when a member goes down at training — but every extra question you ask is data you must protect. Here is what a club genuinely needs to collect, the questions to stop asking, who should see medical information, and how to keep it current without re-typing the roster every season.
Read more →Digital & communication · 8 min read · 8 Aug 2026
How to choose club management software (without regretting it by round 3)
Most clubs choose software under time pressure, off a feature list, with the decision made by whoever volunteered to look into it. Here is a calmer way — start from the jobs your committee actually does, ask the questions that separate platforms, and never sign up to anything you have not driven yourself first.
Read more →Membership & money · 7 min read · 8 Aug 2026
How to display sponsors on your club website (so they renew next season)
The logo strip at the bottom of the home page is where sponsorships go to die. Here is how to present sponsors so the value is real and renewals get easier — placement by tier, the sponsor page that sells for you, logo hygiene, and the screenshots that turn into next year's renewal email.
Read more →Digital & communication · 8 min read · 8 Aug 2026
How to report a bug in your club software (and what a good process looks like)
Something broke on registration night and a volunteer is staring at it. What happens next depends on two things — whether the report is written so an engineer can act on it, and whether the vendor has a process worth reporting into. Here is how to do your half well, and how to judge theirs.
Read more →Season & match day · 7 min read · 8 Aug 2026
How to sell tickets for a club event (presentation night, quiz night, season launch)
Ticketed events fund clubs and fill clubrooms, but the ticketing itself is where the volunteer hours vanish — cash floats, door lists, "I paid Deb at training". Here is how to run event tickets properly — pricing, selling online from your own site, early-bird tactics, the door list, and refunds without drama.
Read more →Comparisons · 8 min read · 8 Aug 2026
How to switch club management software without losing your data (or your volunteers)
Clubs stay on software they dislike for years because switching feels riskier than suffering. It isn't — if you run the move in the right order. Here is the full migration playbook — what to export, when to switch, how to move the members, the money and the website, and the traps that actually catch clubs.
Read more →Membership & money · 7 min read · 8 Aug 2026
How to track who has paid club fees (without a spreadsheet and a headache)
Every club has a version of the same awkward list — members who are playing, voting and borrowing kit while their fees sit unpaid. Here is how to keep a truthful who-has-paid picture all season — what a financial member actually is, the one-list method, and how to stop the tracking being a volunteer's whole job.
Read more →Digital & communication · 6 min read · 31 July 2026
Editing your club website with an AI assistant: a practical walkthrough
How AI website editing actually works for a club — the propose-review-apply loop, what a built-in site assistant can change (theme, navigation, pages, forms), how draft-only editing protects your public site, and the jobs where a human in the editor is still faster.
Read more →Digital & communication · 6 min read · 31 July 2026
Using AI to draft club newsletters and news (without losing your voice)
A working method for AI-drafted club communications — the facts-in, draft-out workflow, prompts that keep your club's voice, the review habits that catch AI mistakes before members see them, and why the send button should always belong to a person.
Read more →Running the club · 7 min read · 31 July 2026
AI for sports clubs: what it can actually do for your committee
A practical, hype-free guide to using AI in a volunteer-run club — what an AI assistant genuinely helps with (admin questions, drafting comms, building web pages), what it should never be allowed to do on its own, and how to set it up so a person always presses the final button.
Read more →Compliance & safety · 8 min read · 31 July 2026
The AI safety and privacy checklist for club committees
General information for committees adopting AI tools — the questions to ask any vendor about member data, the approval and audit rules that keep humans accountable, a simple club AI policy you can adapt, and the red flags that should stop a rollout.
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Digital & communication · 8 min read · 31 July 2026
How to connect an AI assistant to your club data (safely)
A step-by-step guide to plugging an AI assistant like Claude into your club platform over the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — what a connection token is, how scopes and expiry keep it safe, what the assistant can and cannot do once connected, and the questions to ask before you connect anything to member data.
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Membership & money · 8 min read · 31 July 2026
Who pays for a club website? Sponsors, councils and community funding
Your club doesn't have to fund its own website. A practical guide to the people who will — local sponsors, councils, Community Bank branches and ClubGRANTS — with the exact ask for each, and an honest note on what grants won't cover.
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Reports & analytics · 6 min read · 26 July 2026
Club AGM report template and running order
What has to be reported at a club annual general meeting, in what order, with a template for each report and the numbers to have ready before somebody asks from the floor.
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Reports & analytics · 6 min read · 26 July 2026
Club attendance tracking — what to record and what it tells you
Attendance is the earliest warning a club gets about a member who is about to leave. Here is what to record at training, sessions and match day, how to capture it without slowing anyone down, and what the numbers actually predict.
Read more →Reports & analytics · 7 min read · 26 July 2026
The monthly club committee report pack (a template that ends the guesswork)
A committee report template that turns the monthly meeting from a round of guesses into a decision-making session — the eight reports to include, who owns each one, and how to make the pack arrive before the meeting.
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Reports & analytics · 7 min read · 26 July 2026
Club financial reports explained (for committee members who are not accountants)
What each club financial report actually shows, how to read one in two minutes, and the four questions a committee member should ask about any set of numbers put in front of them.
Read more →Reports & analytics · 7 min read · 26 July 2026
The 12 club KPIs worth tracking (and the ones that waste your time)
A practical club KPI dashboard — twelve measures that actually predict whether a club is healthy, how to define each one so it cannot be argued with, and the vanity metrics to leave out.
Read more →Reports & analytics · 7 min read · 26 July 2026
The club member census — how to count your club properly
Every season your association, council or funding body asks how many members you have. This is how to produce a defensible count, what participation statistics they actually want, and how to stop the annual count taking a fortnight.
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Reports & analytics · 10 min read · 26 July 2026
Club treasurer report template (with the numbers that matter)
A complete treasurer's report template for a club committee meeting — the five figures every report needs, the wording that stops arguments, and how to produce it in ten minutes instead of a weekend.
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