Why Your Sports Shooting Clubs Need A Membership Management System
Now, I’ll be honest, despite growing up around guns and gun people, I’m not much of a shooter or a hunter. Despite this, I love finding out about strange and unusual guns; there seems to have been a period of time when people were just trying to throw any old thing at gun design to see if it worked as an effective firearm.
For example, the famous Sten gun with its side-mounted magazine or the KAC Silenced Revolver Rifle, a revolver rifle with an inbuilt suppressor.
Maybe liking guns like this makes me more of a history nerd than a gun nerd, but either way, I’m here for it.
Anyway, let’s put strange guns aside for a moment and talk about the reason you clicked on this article in the first place; membership management systems to help your gun club.
What Are Membership Management Systems For Sports Shooting Clubs?
Membership management systems for sports shooting clubs are specialised software systems designed to streamline administrative tasks and enhance the overall experience for both club administrators and members. Making it easier and more convenient for you to run your gun club, hunting, sports shooting club, etc. These systems include features specifically tailored to the unique needs of shooting clubs, such as:
Club and Member Management
- Online member registration
- Automated membership renewals
- Secure Member database and profiles
- Online payments
- Automated reminders for renewals and events
- Event management system
- Online event registration and ticketing
- Event check-in
- Calendar management and scheduling
- Online store
Compliance and Reporting
- Attendance tracking and reporting
- Tracking of compliance reporting
- Members can view their own compliance reports
- Storage and management of licences, certifications, and waivers
Communication Tools
- Website
- Mobile app
- Digital membership cards
- Newsletters and email campaigns
- Group chats and forums
- Push notifications
Using a membership management system simplifies and automates various administrative tasks, making running your club easier and giving you more time to reinvest in and enjoy it. Crucially, they also make your attendance and compliance reporting requirements easier and less labour-intensive to manage.
Let me introduce you quickly to the most badass war vehicle ever made, shockingly made by the Italian scooter company Vespa. This is the Vespa 150 tap, better known as the “anti-tank scooter”.
This 145.2cc scooter was mounted with an M20 recoilless rifle, which fired a 75mm round with an effective range of between 400 metres to one kilometre, depending on the round used. These scooters were airdropped into warzones during the late 50s; they were accompanied by two French paratroopers who would ride the parachuting Vespa to the ground.
The massive gun was designed to be removed and fired from a tripod, but it could be fired while driving.
Anyway, back to the serious stuff.
The Problem With Manual Membership Management
Trying to run your gun club with traditional pen-and-paper methods does work, kind of. People have been doing it for a very long time, but it is increasingly becoming costly, time-consuming, and ineffective. It requires a lot of paperwork, excel spreadsheets, manual membership renewal notifications, and a ton of posted letters. Trying to track down a missing membership form in a mountain of paperwork or diving into an overly complicated spreadsheet database to try and retrieve a member’s number of logged hours so they can complete their compliance reporting can be massively frustrating and a real-time sink. It can all lead to a frustrating, time-consuming and inefficient process, which can also lead to critical errors like missed payments, overlooked renewals, and miscommunication with members.
Not to mention the sheer time and cost associated with handling things like your membership renewals manually.
In today's digital world, where instant access and streamlined processes are the norm, relying on manual methods can hinder your club's growth and create unnecessary stress for both administrators and members. Members will be less likely to join and more likely to leave a club that is using slow, ineffective methods. This is doubly true as younger and younger members begin making up higher percentages of club memberships, as younger individuals are more likely to be digital natives and are less likely to put up with slow manual methods.
It's time to embrace a more efficient and effective approach to membership management that frees up your time and empowers you to focus on what truly matters - fostering a vibrant community of shooting enthusiasts.
While we’re talking about old impractical things, let's talk about the Punt Gun, a turn-of-the-century shotgun used for hunting waterfowl. What makes the Punt Gun worth remembering is its size. They were typically over 8 feet long, had a bore diameter of over two inches, and fired just under half a kilogram of shot per round, compared to a modern 12-gauge, which fires about 28 grams of shot per round.
Despite being very effective at hunting waterfowl, what makes Punt Guns so impractical is that due to their size, they need to be fired lying down in a small boat or “punt”. This way, the recoil shoves the boat backwards rather than turning the bones in your shoulder and the shoulders of your grandchildren into a cloud of fine dust.
Benefits of Implementing a Membership Management System
Membership management systems, like Member Jungle, have been designed by people in clubs to help other people in clubs. They do this by providing a website, mobile app, and digital membership cards for your club, all of which are linked together by an all-in-one membership management system. These systems also prioritise security to ensure that your sensitive member data remains safe and secure.
As mentioned above, this membership management system comes with a whole host of features that help to streamline and automate your membership management, data management, communications, and pretty much everything else you need to run your shooting club.
There are too many features to break down them all individually, but I’ll quickly go over some of the headliners.
An Automated Membership Renewal System for Your Sports Shooting Club
An automated membership renewal system revolutionises how your club handles renewals, transforming a time-consuming and error-prone process into a seamless experience for both you and your members.
Effortless Renewals, Engaged Members
With a system like Member Jungle, you can set up automated renewal reminders at specific intervals leading up to each member's renewal date. The system intelligently tracks expiration dates, sending timely emails to gently nudge members towards renewal. Once a member renews, their membership expiry date is automatically updated, and they're removed from the reminder cycle, ensuring they don't receive unnecessary emails. You can even configure the system to send follow-up reminders after a membership has lapsed, encouraging members to rejoin and stay connected with your club.
Benefits of Automation:
- Time Savings: Eliminate the need for manual tracking and reminders, freeing up valuable staff time for other essential tasks.
- Improved Cash Flow: Reduce late payments and membership lapses with timely, automated reminders.
- Enhanced Member Experience: Provide a convenient and hassle-free renewal process, improving member satisfaction and retention.
- Reduced Errors: Minimise the risk of manual errors and ensure accurate membership records.
The best part? It's all online. Members can pay their renewal fees directly through your membership management site, eliminating the need for cash or cheques and those time-consuming trips to the bank. While you can still accept manual payments if necessary, the online option becomes the convenient norm, making the renewal process a breeze for everyone involved.
Online Event Management System For Your Sports Shooting Club
An online event management system, such as the one offered by Member Jungle, is a game-changer for sports shooting clubs. It centralises and streamlines the entire event planning and hosting process, from registration and payment to communication and attendance tracking.
No more juggling paper sign-up sheets or deciphering messy spreadsheets. With Member Jungle, you can create professional-looking event pages, set up online registration and payment, and cancellations with ease. Members can check in with their digital membership cards, so their attendance will be automatically logged in the system. Automated reminders ensure your members never miss an important event, while integrated communication tools allow you to keep everyone informed and engaged throughout the process.
But it doesn't stop there. Member Jungle's event management system also enables you to track attendance, collect feedback, and generate reports, providing valuable insights into your events' success and areas for improvement. This data-driven approach allows you to refine your events and cater to your members' preferences, fostering a more engaging and satisfying experience for everyone involved.
By embracing the power of an online event management system, you'll transform your club's events into seamless, well-organised experiences that leave a lasting impression on your members.
Attendance & Compliance Reporting Tools For Your Sports Shooting Club
One of the big stand-out features for sports shooting clubs is how membership management systems can help you keep track of your attendance and compliance data. Not only does the Member Jungle system help track members' attendance for their licensing compliance needs, but it also allows them to see their own attendance records. This means that when a member wants to know how many hours or attendances they have, they don’t need to call you; you don’t need to dive into a complicated spreadsheet to find the answers. Instead, they can view it themselves on the club website when the member logs in. Saving both you and them a ton of time and effort.
It also allows you to export all of your compliance reporting data as a CSV file easily, making your reporting easier and more efficient than ever before.
In essence, Member Jungle transforms two major time sinks for shooting and gun clubs into streamlined, efficient processes, allowing you to focus more on what matters most: providing a safe and enjoyable experience for your members.
I was going to include one more weird historical gun to show off before I ended this article, but there were honestly too many to choose from; duck foot pistols, harmonica guns, knife guns, axe guns, belt guns, and guns meant to shoot around corners. So I ended up panicking and picking a doomed 1950s pistol that isn’t weird but looks amazing.
Meet the Whitney Wolverine, a .22 calibre semi-automatic pistol made in the mid-50s.
Just look at this thing; it looks like a Walther PP by way of Star Wars. It may not be as ludicrous as a four-barrelled flintlock rifle, but I think it’s still worth remembering.
Do Membership Management Systems Work For Sports Shooting Clubs In Real Life?
Yes. Look, the simple answer is yes, they absolutely do. However, I know hearing that from someone who actually runs a gun club will be worth a whole lot more than hearing me say it. So, to that end, let’s actually hear from someone who runs a gun club.
Let me introduce John Howden, the Secretary of the Newcastle District Hunting Club. He has been using the Member Jungle system to help run his club for five years, and earlier this year, I sat down to talk to him about how he’s found the experience.
You can watch the full video interview below.
You can also read our full customer story interview at Newcastle District Hunting Club - Customer Story.
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