Barrow Angling Association
Customer Story
KEY BENEFITS
Automated sending out key information such as gate codes & stocking dates, outsourced ID card printing & shipping and the ability to contact all anglers from one place.
Barrow Angling Society - Our Story
Founded in 1888, we’re proud to continue to operate as an independent, community-oriented fishing club which prides itself on providing top-quality fishing to our members. Barrow Angling Association has fishing for stocked brown and rainbow trout on Poaka Beck, Pennington, Harlock and Ireleth reservoirs. We also control the fishing on Cavendish Dock situated in Barrow itself, now primarily carp water. Fishing on all the trout waters is restricted to members of BAA and their guests, however, Cavendish Dock is open to Season Ticket holders and their guests.
We had an overcomplicated digital ecosystem.
Before we got started with Clubmate, we had an overcomplicated digital ecosystem at the club. Our old website was stale and hadn’t been updated in years so it wasn’t fit for purpose anymore. Plus, it was a pretty backdoor-style way of operating in that it was hard to communicate with the developer that managed the website which led to a lot of hold-ups. Members were able to pay online, but we still had to post manual tickets which cost us a lot of time and money.
Most of our members fall into the older generation so we wanted a user-friendly system that’s simple for us to manage and allowed us to continue managing a small portion of our memberships manually, in case some anglers didn’t want to use an online platform.
We also needed a more efficient process of creating and shipping out ID cards because our committee spent too much time getting them made and posting them to members by hand.
Why we chose Clubmate.
I saw Clubmate on the Angling Trust Facebook page almost a year before we actually got started with them. It was the platform itself that initially caught my attention, but then I learned they offer a website creation service, and having that linked with the application would remove a great deal of our workload. They also offered an optional ID Card service which was the cherry on top.
I instantly knew Clubmate was what we needed and after meeting with Kevin online I sold it hard to our committee; I was adamant that this was the way forward for Barrow Angling Association. The Clubmate Team answered all the questions I had and even offered a printout for me to take to the committee to answer all of their questions. Ultimately, they voted in favour of giving Clubmate a try – we haven’t looked back since.
Running the club is so much easier now.
Running the club is so much easier thanks to Clubmate. My favourite feature is the ability to set up automated emails; for example, recently I set up an automated email with gate codes and stocking dates that get sent one day after someone buys a membership. That way, they’re not receiving lots of emails at once as soon as they sign up.
We can email our entire membership base or send messages to individuals by email or text throughout the season without using our personal emails or phone numbers. We’re more in contact with our members than we ever have been and there’s no extra work involved.
The ID Card service means that we’ve been able to outsource that entire process. Once a member joins, their ID card gets sent out directly to them without us having to manually intervene. It’s saved us so much time and money, as well.
The software has also allowed us to bring control back to the club, both in member management and on our website. We can update it ourselves whenever we need to and we’re not reliant on a developer to implement changes.
What’s great about Clubmate is that it’s not an all-or-nothing setup; our less tech-savvy members aren’t forced to use the platform if they don’t want to. But, we can still manage their membership on Clubmate internally and they simply use their ID card as their membership instead of logging in online.
Perhaps best of all, we know that all our bases are covered. I can find assistance for almost everything in the Help Centre, whether it’s adding a new photo gallery to the website or setting up a new email template. If an answer to a question I have isn’t on there, Clubmate’s Help Team are always more than happy to help.
Would we recommend Clubmate?
I’d definitely recommend other fishing clubs use Clubmate. The platform is user-friendly, cost and time effective and you have everything you could need in one place. If you’re on an angling committee and you’re thinking about getting started, just go for it. Everything is done online these days and managing your fishing club should be no exception because it’ll future-proof the club for upcoming generations. It’s such a simple-to-use platform and you’ll be surprised how quickly you pick it up.
If you’d like to learn more about Clubmate and how it could benefit your fishing club, please get in touch (we don’t bite!):
0333 987 4677
CLUB NAME
Barrow Angling Association
CLUB MEMBERS
290+ members
CLUB WATERS
Ireleth Reservoir, Harlock Reservoir, Pennington Reservoir and Poaka Beck Reservoir
MAIN CONTACTS
Sam Greenway
WEBSITE
KEY CHALLENGES
Unable to update their club website
Had to post ID Cards & tickets manually
Wanted an online platform to future-proof the club
Members unable to join online
Interested in becoming a member of Barrow Angling Association?
Membership is now open to new and renewing members for the 2023 season.
Visit their website for more information.