Communication between club and members

michaelm

Quick question: What methods are clubs using to communicate with members - texts, apps, email or other? I know some clubs are using products like Teamer, some using whatsapp and more using email. Would be interested in people's experiences.

CramCycle

michaelm wrote: »

Quick question: What methods are clubs using to communicate with members - texts, apps, email or other? I know some clubs are using products like Teamer, some using whatsapp and more using email. Would be interested in people's experiences.

I think e-mail is the best as its the one most likely used by everyone or the majority.

Set up a general all club google group, and then set up specific mailing lists for different groups so no one gets annoyed with their inbox getting cluttered with info that has nothing to do with them.

jamesd

Group texts via an App called Group Text, also have a WhatsApp group setup and the members love it

wirelessdude01

Facebook page, facebook group, email are the ones used to access the general wider audience. Obviously different racing/leisure groups will have closed facebook groups and also whatsapp groups set up.

Lusk_Doyle

Teamer is a good app for seeing who is going / not going to the next race.

buffalo

Website and facebook/twitter for broadcast, mailing lists and forum for interactions. A WhatsApp group of 480 people would be noisy!

ednwireland

text
email
facebook
website

kerry4sam

Can I ask how clubs communicate with its' members?

~ Do you / ClubSecretary use texts (I know the likes of Vodafone allow 600 free texts a month)
~ Does someone like the ClubSecretary send e-mails
~ Do you rely completely on socialmedia like Facebook? <- what happens those who don't use the likes of facebook then?
~ Do you even mind if you don't encourage people onto their bikes? Just take the membership monies and just don't communicate afterwards?
~ Do you feel as a club you do enough to promote cycling ; promote being active ; promote club activities?

Many Thanks,
kerry4sam

Skrynesaver

We use WhatsApp, free texts & photo sharing

outfox

I think there was a thread on this a few weeks ago.

pats22b

bit more orientated towards team sports and regular weekly communications but have a look at http://teamer.net/ - it might be useful - we use it for kids gaa team. Im not familiar with cycling comms but it may be of use.

manwithaplan

My club primarily uses facebook and the club website - most e-mails are just forwards of stuff that people promoting events send in to the club e-mail address. We have recently started to use Teamer for club league races - it's very handy.

I would be very happy with communications in our club. I do little or nothing other than ride my bike so I can't take any credit but there is a dedicated group of people that have done wonders in recent years.

CramCycle

MOD VOICE: Threads merged

Gallant_JJ

We use whats-ap, fortunate that every single member is on it, so very effective. We then set up separate groups for racing members etc.

kerry4sam

Thanks for the replies & Thanks for the Merge also

I joined a club recently (80-euro incl CI-licence). Informed no texts as costs too much ; no emails as takes too much time ; only facebook. Eventhough I informed them I don't use facebook I was told, only facebook and given two links to look-up there.

A weekly cycle commenced and I attended the first. Missed two after due to other commitments on that day/time ; 4th week I went to original location. A cyclist who happened to pass by informed me the location had changed. Only for her passing by I would NOT have been aware of the location change at all.
No contact made by the club.

Am I expecting too much for some effort to be made by the club Secretary (who I don't know holds the post btw) ; don't know about AGM; meetings; club-rides outside of that weekly one where on the first night I was given the sheet with the details for the following weeks for that day/time.

Am I expecting too much for some correspondence to members, especially when they know I don't use facebook?

I always go out of my way to help people. Always do more than necessary if I am in a position to do so and if someone contacts me asking initially to inform me of a possible problem.

This just seems wrong to me. Am I expecting too much? I'l stay with the club for this year, but will have to think twice about renewing.
Even my membership was a problem. Instead of updating my account a new one was setup with CI. Each time I logged into my own account it kept asking me to renew my membership, even after I paid my 80euro. It was the very prompt professional member working with CI who responded who found the club had set up a new account for me instead of asking that my own original be updated.

No communication just seems wrong to me,
kerry4sam

wirelessdude01

kerry4sam wrote: »

Thanks for the replies & Thanks for the Merge also

I joined a club recently (80-euro incl CI-licence). Informed no texts as costs too much ; no emails as takes too much time ; only facebook. Eventhough I informed them I don't use facebook I was told, only facebook and given two links to look-up there.

A weekly cycle commenced and I attended the first. Missed two after due to other commitments on that day/time ; 4th week I went to original location. A cyclist who happened to pass by informed me the location had changed. Only for her passing by I would NOT have been aware of the location change at all.
No contact made by the club.

Am I expecting too much for some effort to be made by the club Secretary (who I don't know holds the post btw) ; don't know about AGM; meetings; club-rides outside of that weekly one where on the first night I was given the sheet with the details for the following weeks for that day/time.

Am I expecting too much for some correspondence to members, especially when they know I don't use facebook?

I always go out of my way to help people. Always do more than necessary if I am in a position to do so and if someone contacts me asking initially to inform me of a possible problem.

This just seems wrong to me. Am I expecting too much? I'l stay with the club for this year, but will have to think twice about renewing.
Even my membership was a problem. Instead of updating my account a new one was setup with CI. Each time I logged into my own account it kept asking me to renew my membership, even after I paid my 80euro. It was the very prompt professional member working with CI who responded who found the club had set up a new account for me instead of asking that my own original be updated.

No communication just seems wrong to me,
kerry4sam

Just register some random email address with facebook and then only use facebook to keep informed of information from the cycling club. Plenty in our club do not use facebook except to keep informed of club news, results o races and photos from the club.

delynet

A few of us setup a new club in Claremorris 6 months ago and this was one of the first jobs, getting communications out. Around 60 members

1. We created a Facebook page which works okay for some people
2. Launched a website and hosted on Google sites so free. Handy for static docs like membership forms
3. Setup a text notification service createtext.ie. 300 text cost around €20. We were sending a text every week but credit goes quick so we only use it for important announcements (cancelled cycle etc...)
4. Created a gmail account and added all members into a group. Takes seconds to send an email to everyone
5. Setup WhatsApp group. Around 60% of people using it and it is very successful. Most used of all the tools.

outfox

Kerry4sam, maybe you could approach the club to get involved, for example in their communication network. If it's disorganised, it might be because they need to delegate but no one is volunteering. Sometimes, one club member ends up doing all the work. We changed this in our club a few months ago, and it's made a big difference.

doniek79

Our club is 3 years old now, from the very start we use text and also have a facebook page, we have approx 100 adults and 30 juveniles.
Our club PRO sends out 2-3 messages a week about club spins, sportives and meetings.
No need of doing anything complicated, simply buy a vodafone ready to go phone, majority of people on vodafone network, top up e20 a month, free texts to vodafone and just charged for other network texts. So our club phone cost us E240 a year. Had to upgrade phone this year so got Samsung S3 mini E150, so PRO uses facebook for club on this also.
We have a club Facebook page for the wider community and also a closed group for just members to discuss club stuff.
Our club racers use a whats app and our coach is on it also, works very well for a smaller group.
Kerry4sam E80 is crazy for a leisure member ours is E55.

eeeee

Jesus the cost of joining some of those clubs :eek: My club is €15 to join, €10 if you're a student. €80/50 seems like an awful lot, although I have only even been a member of one so it might be the norm.

Re communication, the club I'm in use Facebook, twitter, email, a load of us have each others numbers, there's a whatsap group if we're going away on a training camp. It's not a big club though, maybe it's harder if there are a load of members.

Sorry to hear you're not having a good club experience kerry4sam, but as others have said, set up a fake Facebook and use it to keep up to date with it? If it's a big club and you're a new member maybe they just can't keep track of who's on and who's off Facebook. As suggested maybe put yourself forward to organise communications? Maybe it's just one person who's organizing everything?

My club absolutely rocks. If I went full time working for them I couldn't give half back what it has given me. It even has the coolest kit

ROK ON

It is annoying to feel left out and excluded. You say that the club know you do not use FB.
To be fair there is a growing number of potential ways that a club can communicate with members. Club PROs and secretary's also have lives. They may for very valid reasons decide not to use all means available but settle on one or two popular ones (gmail groups, twitter, FB etc).

I'm not on FB but inset up a page to subscribe to the cycling stuff that I have decided I need to subscribe to. Other than that I don't connect with any friends over FB - I don't want it for that. I'm not in was app but if it was the way that my club communicated then I would be on it.
Maybe your club is disorganised. But maybe some of the responsibility lies with you.
Try to ascertain what the communication policy of the club is - you must have some contact in the club as you joined them. Ask that person how communication about group rides and club matter actually happens.

Then make sure you use that medium. A club usually welcomes members but that does not mean that they have to bend over backwards to accommodate you.

doniek79

gadetra wrote: »

Jesus the cost of joining some of those clubs :eek: My club is €15 to join, €10 if you're a student. €80/50 seems like an awful lot, although I have only even been a member of one so it might be the norm.

Re communication, the club I'm in use Facebook, twitter, email, a load of us have each others numbers, there's a whatsap group if we're going away on a training camp. It's not a big club though, maybe it's harder if there are a load of members.

Sorry to hear you're not having a good club experience kerry4sam, but as others have said, set up a fake Facebook and use it to keep up to date with it? If it's a big club and you're a new member maybe they just can't keep track of who's on and who's off Facebook. As suggested maybe put yourself forward to organise communications? Maybe it's just one person who's organizing everything?

My club absolutely rocks. If I went full time working for them I couldn't give half back what it has given me. It even has the coolest kit

Are you sure your club is registered with cycling Ireland their fee is €30 minimum for an adult hence why ours is €55. 30 for CI 25 for club.

eeeee

doniek79 wrote: »

Are you sure your club is registered with cycling Ireland their fee is €30 minimum for an adult hence why ours is €55. 30 for CI 25 for club.

100% certain. It's €15. €10 student/youth. This year and last anyway.

Beasty

gadetra wrote: »

Jesus the cost of joining some of those clubs :eek: My club is €15 to join, €10 if you're a student. €80/50 seems like an awful lot, although I have only even been a member of one so it might be the norm.

But your club is largely focussed on one discipline. It probably does not directly fund youth development, send riders to race multi-day events in other provinces, or indeed subsidise training. It does not promote any open events or sportives, and does not have a club car (ours is used for club events, but also provides support for certain non-club events such as the Ras na mBan). (I'm assuming all the track league/training income and related expenditure, and indeed access to the track itself is down to the track commission - when my club wants to use Corkagh Park we pay for it, and we also pay for ambulance/emergency medical cover for a lot of our events - yes we also have entry fees to cover some of that off, but the club essentially uses membership fees to subsidise a lot of events that all members can benefit from)

There is a lot of things a club can do, and some provide very extensive support to members and the wider cycling community. Others may be much more limited both in size and in what they can do to support members - there are definitely benefits of scale, but equally larger clubs tend to offer a lot more to their membership. I know of clubs that charge €25, but you really do not get much for that. Others may charge twice as much and provide a hell of a lot more

No clubs are in it for profit (if they were there would be tax consequences!), and all cycling clubs plough it all back into cycling is some way. Contrast cycling with certain other sports - €50 would only go part of the way towards a single entry fee in many triathlon events for example

Beasty

doniek79 wrote: »

Are you sure your club is registered with cycling Ireland their fee is €30 minimum for an adult hence why ours is €55. 30 for CI 25 for club.

You need to separate out CI membership - with some clubs you can pay it all in one go, and with others you pay your CI fee separately from your club fee. CI membership (and racing licence) fees are on top of the figures gadetra quoted

kerry4sam

Thanks for your replies everyone

Not questioning the cost to join as the club does Wonderful work and involved competitively in almost all apsects of Cycling, so taking out the CI membership, it's 50euro for the year for a Great Cycling Club.

It's just the lack of communication I've issues with. Whenever I was on a committee for any Society through the years the initial time-consuming manner was in collating the membership data and creating databases for varying aspects of the society as not everyone would receive the same/all info etc etc.
After that then, it was minimal time involved with sending out texts and e-mails to ensure all involved were aware of what they needed to know ; when they needed to know ; you know.

I don't want to have to bow down to the pressures of having to re-activate my Facebook account just to stay abreast of a club and club activities. So I won't! I de-activated my account for very personal reasons and it will stay that way too.

Sending e-mails and/or texts would not take too much time if the interest to do so was there. It's not. I sent an e-mail to the club and it took 3-days for a reply to inform they only use facebook. Just seems wrong to me as you might have guessed already.

The time involved by whoever is responsible is minimal if the interest is there to do so. As I said, it's the initial work that would be most time-consuming; after that; even one correspondence a week would suffice to inform of club activities for the following week. 24hrs a day with 7-days in a week ; to not be able to find the time to do something like this is nothing short of despicable in my eyes and whoever holds the communication responsibility does not deserve it as it does not act in the best interests of the club in my eyes and that should be key!

Anywhoo, Thanks Again for your replies & suggestions,
kerry4sam

shaka

We use a combination of a number of things.

texts,Social media and occasional email for important stuff. We also put our notes in two local papers on a weekly basis .

Facebook does seem the easiest way at the moment to get a message out there and most of our club members use that the most, we do send reminders through texts if there is any change to the normal times for a training spin.

We don't use whats app or any of the other free messaging apps as not all members have smart phones and those that do don't necessarily have or want to download the apps.

We spread the workload amongst our Committee, PRO does the notes for the papers and Facebook with our Secretary taking care of the phone and texting.

Generally this works well but at the end of the day everyone are volunteers and I'm sure there are times when members have had reason to give out about us .

The changing of the location of a cycle without a text does seem odd to say the least.

doniek79

kerry4sam wrote: »

Thanks for your replies everyone

Not questioning the cost to join as the club does Wonderful work and involved competitively in almost all apsects of Cycling, so taking out the CI membership, it's 50euro for the year for a Great Cycling Club.

It's just the lack of communication I've issues with. Whenever I was on a committee for any Society through the years the initial time-consuming manner was in collating the membership data and creating databases for varying aspects of the society as not everyone would receive the same/all info etc etc.
After that then, it was minimal time involved with sending out texts and e-mails to ensure all involved were aware of what they needed to know ; when they needed to know ; you know.

I don't want to have to bow down to the pressures of having to re-activate my Facebook account just to stay abreast of a club and club activities. So I won't! I de-activated my account for very personal reasons and it will stay that way too.

Sending e-mails and/or texts would not take too much time if the interest to do so was there. It's not. I sent an e-mail to the club and it took 3-days for a reply to inform they only use facebook. Just seems wrong to me as you might have guessed already.

The time involved by whoever is responsible is minimal if the interest is there to do so. As I said, it's the initial work that would be most time-consuming; after that; even one correspondence a week would suffice to inform of club activities for the following week. 24hrs a day with 7-days in a week ; to not be able to find the time to do something like this is nothing short of despicable in my eyes and whoever holds the communication responsibility does not deserve it as it does not act in the best interests of the club in my eyes and that should be key!

Anywhoo, Thanks Again for your replies & suggestions,
kerry4sam

Last suggestion Kerry4sam go to the clubs AGM and propose they get a club phone similar to what we use as mentioned earlier only 240euro a year, 5 of your memberships will cover the cost

kerry4sam

^^^ I would attend the AGM if I knew when it would be held. Since I don't use facebook and therefore don't receive any correspondence now; I won't hear about the AGM. Questioning my attendance at the weekly cycle that I actually do know about.

Really appreciate hearing about the effort your clubs go to to promote cycling ; to keep the interest there ; to keep people informed of the latest ; to keep people peddling and wanting to get out there cycling safely.

Thank You All,
kerry4sam


/I am just extra-grumpy today. My linear tibia bruising that appeared 4-days ago (that I don't know how appeared) is only starting to go down ; had to cut my morning cycle short due to back-pain ; so I'm back on the ice-packs and pain-killers.

Might be in a better mood tomorrow to communicate nicer myself

eeeee

Beasty wrote: »

But your club is largely focussed on one discipline. It probably does not directly fund youth development, send riders to race multi-day events in other provinces, or indeed subsidise training. It does not promote any open events or sportives, and does not have a club car (ours is used for club events, but also provides support for certain non-club events such as the Ras na mBan). (I'm assuming all the track league/training income and related expenditure, and indeed access to the track itself is down to the track commission - when my club wants to use Corkagh Park we pay for it, and we also pay for ambulance/emergency medical cover for a lot of our events - yes we also have entry fees to cover some of that off, but the club essentially uses membership fees to subsidise a lot of events that all members can benefit from)

My club do indeed do an awful lot for youth development! Youth training sessions are held every week and through the winter when track is closed. There's a huge emphasis on getting youth riders involved and they have their own racing league. There are a comparatively large number of juniors in our club. We have members from single digits to those in their 70's. People with children bring them with them to track when they race, something that doesn't happen on group road spins!

My club also does an awful lot to get women out racing and on bikes. We have quite a high percentage of women, our own league, women's only accreditation and tomorrow we're having a women's track day, doing all the events in the omnium ahead of the Duane Delaney and the omnium.

My club do indeed promote a race, the Duane Delaney, and in fact the track league every week is run by my club, it's open to all clubs but run from ours. I don't know of any other club that runs an open races every single week!

We get coached up to 3 days a week in the season, with highly experienced and qualified coaches. Riders are helped out and supported incredibly well, the help and support is second to none, I personally have been on the receiving end of it, and continue to be.

We don't have a team car, but we're not a road team. My club almost singlehandedly keep track going in Leinster, which is no easy feat. All the accreditations at Sundrive are done by members of my club, all of them. Equipment etc. are all maintained and managed by my club too. There isn't anther club in the country that do that!

eeeee

kerry4sam wrote: »

^^^ I would attend the AGM if I knew when it would be held. Since I don't use facebook and therefore don't receive any correspondence now; I won't hear about the AGM. Questioning my attendance at the weekly cycle that I actually do know about.

Really appreciate hearing about the effort your clubs go to to promote cycling ; to keep the interest there ; to keep people informed of the latest ; to keep people peddling and wanting to get out there cycling safely.

Thank You All,
kerry4sam


/I am just extra-grumpy today. My linear tibia bruising that appeared 4-days ago (that I don't know how appeared) is only starting to go down ; had to cut my morning cycle short due to back-pain ; so I'm back on the ice-packs and pain-killers.

Might be in a better mood tomorrow to communicate nicer myself

Why not set up a mock Facebook account, with no personal information and just use it like a an email account for cycling? No one needs to know you're n Facebook, just use it for your club communications? Use it, rather than it using you!

ROK ON

kerry4sam wrote: »

It's just the lack of communication I've issues with. Whenever I was on a committee for any Society through the years the initial time-consuming manner was in collating the membership data and creating databases for varying aspects of the society as not everyone would receive the same/all info etc etc.
After that then, it was minimal time involved with sending out texts and e-mails to ensure all involved were aware of what they needed to know ; when they needed to know ; you know.

I don't want to have to bow down to the pressures of having to re-activate my Facebook account just to stay abreast of a club and club activities. So I won't! I de-activated my account for very personal reasons and it will stay that way too.

kerry4sam

Everybody else is doing it wrong.
Why can't they all be like me?
:rolleyes:

07Lapierre

kerry4sam wrote: »

Thanks for your replies everyone

Not questioning the cost to join as the club does Wonderful work and involved competitively in almost all apsects of Cycling, so taking out the CI membership, it's 50euro for the year for a Great Cycling Club.

It's just the lack of communication I've issues with. Whenever I was on a committee for any Society through the years the initial time-consuming manner was in collating the membership data and creating databases for varying aspects of the society as not everyone would receive the same/all info etc etc.
After that then, it was minimal time involved with sending out texts and e-mails to ensure all involved were aware of what they needed to know ; when they needed to know ; you know.

I don't want to have to bow down to the pressures of having to re-activate my Facebook account just to stay abreast of a club and club activities. So I won't! I de-activated my account for very personal reasons and it will stay that way too.

Sending e-mails and/or texts would not take too much time if the interest to do so was there. It's not. I sent an e-mail to the club and it took 3-days for a reply to inform they only use facebook. Just seems wrong to me as you might have guessed already.

The time involved by whoever is responsible is minimal if the interest is there to do so. As I said, it's the initial work that would be most time-consuming; after that; even one correspondence a week would suffice to inform of club activities for the following week. 24hrs a day with 7-days in a week ; to not be able to find the time to do something like this is nothing short of despicable in my eyes and whoever holds the communication responsibility does not deserve it as it does not act in the best interests of the club in my eyes and that should be key!

Anywhoo, Thanks Again for your replies & suggestions,
kerry4sam

You'd make a great Club Secretary! Go for it!

nilhg

Our club's facebook page is public, no need for a FB account to see the posts and get the info, granted you have to register to interact but for someone just looking for the info it's no different than visiting any other webpage.

PeadarCo

nilhg wrote: »

Our club's facebook page is public, no need for a FB account to see the posts and get the info, granted you have to register to interact but for someone just looking for the info it's no different than visiting any other webpage.

You can never satisfy everyone. Most clubs will look at their membership and decide based on that what's the easiest and most efficient way to communicate with their members. If 1 or 2% people are discommoded so be it. The people sending the texts/emails/in charge of facebook page/website are all volunteers giving up their time for the benefit of everyone else.

Beasty

gadetra wrote: »

My club do indeed do an awful lot for youth development! ....

Wasn't questioning your club's commitment to development at all levels, and I full recognise there are a number of volunteers within your club that are up there with the best in terms of their overall contributions to cycling in Ireland.

I was pointing out areas where other clubs invest the cash they raise from membership to explain why higher membership fees can often be justified. I think there were a few factual inaccuracies in your comments, but they are something I can explain further separately. I know there have been attempts to distinguish club activities and events from those that are the responsibility of the track commission, which is provided with it's own funding via CI, but maybe the lines remain a little blurred in the eyes of some;)