Durham City Angling Club

Increased membership base by 25%, saved hours on admin time, enhanced reporting and created a standardised system for staff and volunteers.

Founded nearly sixty years ago, Durham City Angling Club is one of the longest standing clubs in the area. We control several stretches of the River Wear and pride ourselves on being able to cater to all types of freshwater fishermen; from specialist coarse fishing to still-water specimen fishing on our four-lake still-water complex.

In my eight years as Chairman of D.C.A.C, I saw multiple members of staff leave the membership secretary role. Whilst it was for their own personal reasons, each time their departure was at very short notice.

The problem was that once they left, it was up to me to hold the fort.

It became my responsibility to take care of the time-consuming admin tasks to keep the club running. Since each secretary had their own way of doing things with their own systems, it was a stressful task to get usernames and passwords from them to access the information I needed. That was followed by many hours of work getting memberships in and keeping them organised.

As Chairman of the club, I realised that we needed a reliable, standardised system that would make keeping track of members and payments easier. The solution needed to be independent of an individual – something that allows staff and volunteers to have their own logins so that if they were to leave the club, the next person could pick up where they left off. 

Now, more than ever, fishing is needed as an escape and a way to feel a sense of normalcy amongst everything going on. We’ve already put certain precautions in place to keep our members safe, and they’re already practising social distancing when they’re out on the water. Adding Clubmate is just one more way to keep things running smoothly.

Since Clubmate allows members to pay online, I rarely need to handle cash. This feature has been especially useful during the COVID-19 pandemic because we’re able to maintain social distancing by avoiding collecting cash directly from our members. Plus, paying online means that there’s no more sending cheques through the post – it’s a much safer way for our members to pay.