Slaugham Angling Club

Transformed member communications, saved hundreds of hours on club admin, provided a secure database to digitally store member records.

Slaugham Angling Club was formed in 1957 and aims to provide exceptional fishing in beautiful surroundings. We value sportsmanship, the environment and each other. We have 4 lakes in and around the village of Slaugham in West Sussex.

Our previous method of managing memberships was a paper-based system that involved lots of hand-writing membership cards, envelope stuffing and many, many trips to the bank which is ten miles away from us. Each trip took about two hours!

After renewals season opened, every evening was spent sitting at the kitchen table rewriting each member’s details, referencing previous records, numbering new membership books, sticking a picture on, laminating the picture, stuffing another envelop, putting the address on it, sticking on a stamp and taking it to the post box. Then we had to chase down members that hadn’t paid the correct amount or not signed the cheque, post-dated the cheque etc.

I act as the chairman, secretary and treasurer rolled into one, so all of that work was my incredibly stressful responsibility. Running the club was inefficient, laborious and time-consuming.

I desperately needed a faster way to complete all the tasks I mentioned above. I’ve just retired and you’d think that means I’d have more time on my hands, but it’s quite the opposite when you run an angling club. The bottom line is that for many of us, it’s a thankless task with little reward, so anything that minimises the admin is a blessing.

Clubmate was recommended to me by some good friends from two neighbouring clubs. When I looked into it, I liked that it had been designed by a team of anglers specifically for the angling community. It had some great core functionality which looked simple and sound.

I was a little apprehensive because we had no digital copies of any of our records, so I was concerned it’d take too much time to type in every member’s details. However, once the work had been done, I wouldn’t have to do it again!