Managing cricket club membership is an evolving process. Your members are the lifeblood of your club but the admin behind the scenes can be a burden.

There’s collecting club payments, managing a wealth of personal data and all the while, thinking about how to increase players, members and ultimately, income.

So, what’s the solution? For time-strapped volunteers, it has to mean taking full advantage of running club membership online.

So, here’s some ideas to help cricket clubs save time, increase their productivity and boost the amount of money they could make.

Simplify record-keeping

If you’re a Secretary, Membership Secretary or Treasurer, you’ll be all too familiar with the logistics of keeping up with the flow of information through a cricket club.

Collecting and storing everything a cricket club needs to function efficiently in one place is best done online. Not stored on a personal computer hard drive or in a pile of paper forms that aren’t easily accessible for other club officials.

With Pitchero, the emphasis is on flexibility and ease. A cricket club can manage member roles, change member access, create groups to segment an audience, create custom membership forms and much more. Here’s the membership section of our Help centre.

You can still import membership lists into your club database and export specific data to Excel as and when you need it.

The custom membership form can be tailored however you want and means your club can request the information it needs at the point of joining.

See who hasn’t paid - and nudge

A clear picture of exactly who has paid for what - and who hasn’t - is vital. A fair system relies on accounting and accountability. 

Endless chasing for annual membership fees would probably rank highly in frustrating jobs for those on cricket club committees. It’s partly about educating members what to pay and when, allied with repeated nudges.

Pitchero’s payment system offers real-time reporting to give an instant snapshot. This saves time but it’s also simple to send payment requests in a few clicks. Job done!

Open 24/7

If the goal is to make more money for your cricket club to allow it to balance running costs and achieve success on and off the field, why turn the tap off?

Being online means your cricket club can set up products to buy, set and forget. Whether that’s senior and junior membership, buying cricket whites or booking a place on a cricket tour, members can purchase whenever it suits them.

If there happens to be a late-night, membership flurry to take advantage of an early-bird discount, the money flows into the club immediately.

Ultimate flexibility & sell more

The world is your oyster when it comes to being inventive with product types so a cricket club can sell all manner of things.

Promote membership packages (both new and existing), raise funds for a clubhouse build with a Buy-a-Brick scheme, sell merchandise or offer player sponsorship through your club shop. Here’s 8 things your club could sell to get the ideas flowing.

By moving membership online, a cricket club can offer as many different buying options as it chooses to. Spread the cost for members, remove the barriers to paying and it’s win-win.

Pitchero uses product variants which means cricket clubs can keep the number of products it creates to a minimum and avoids confusion for shoppers.

An example might be a Senior membership where you pay a one-off sum of £30 then 3 x £10 monthly instalments.

Equally, a cricket club might offer a special, cheaper membership rate before 31 March to encourage advance payment ahead of those chilly April fixtures where you need two jumpers stood on the fine leg boundary rope.

No more trips to the bank

Some members will always want to pay by cheque and Pitchero’s Payments control panel can record cash and cheques, plus online payments.

However, it’s fair to say there are less banks on the high street, more pressure on the Post Office network to fill the void and more demand for card transactions. Between 2008 and 2018, the number of cash transactions in Britain fell by 51%.

For a cricket club (or any sports club for that matter), that trend towards electronic payments is important. Moving membership online will make it more convenient for volunteers running clubs but also reflects what their members want.

A single membership hub online means a club can track membership renewals, ticket sales, donations campaigns, teamwear orders and build a more intelligent picture of finances. It’s about projecting, not reacting.

The point about trips to the bank might sound trivial. Unless you’re the one doing it. In the next decade, one of the most important issues for all cricket clubs and leagues will be retaining those volunteers who give up so much of their time.

Stay GDPR-compliant

Being GDPR-compliant is a cricket club’s responsibility and Pitchero handles the transparent collection of consent as well as keeping personal data safe. Have a read of our blog on GDPR for sports clubs.

It’s worth saying that GDPR was thrust into the news in 2018 when the looming deadline came and went - but clubs need to continue to be vigilant and abide by the Data Protection Act.

Increasingly, sports clubs are having to think like and be run as if they were a business - which in some ways they are (even if their official status is a charity or a community amateur sports club (CASC).

The finer points of GDPR might be yet another thing to add to a long list of responsibilities but it can be made much easier.

Security

Peace of mind is paramount when it comes to handling your cricket club’s data and that of its members.

Pitchero does not store bank information or process any payments. Instead, we work with two global payment providers GoCardless and Stripe so clubs can be sure all transactions are protected.

As for the secure storage of user data by Pitchero, the production system operates in Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres who maintain the highest security compliance.

For any personally identifiable information, it is transmitted over secure "https" connections only. This stops the interception of data between your browser and the Pitchero system.

Low Transaction Fees

Yes, there are fees to process online payments but typically, clubs find that by embracing a move to online membership, they save in ways too.

Most importantly, clubs can process many more payments and get that income into the bank account quickly. Equally, members do appreciate the ability to shop online for everything cricket-related.

Petrol money and waiting in line to bank cheques can be a thing of the past. As can stumping up the fees for using that method. In fact, for membership subs, the need for a club to handle any cash is up to them.

It’s a theme that crops up a few times in this article but let’s not down-play convenience either. Would you rather manage your club’s membership from home or trek out on a winter’s day when the car needs de-icing?

Each transaction carries a transaction fee to us and also to the relevant payment provider.

Our standard transaction fee is 2.9%. It is possible to reduce this to 1.9% by subscribing to the Elite package or 0.9% by subscribing to the Ultimate package. See pricing comparison chart.

The transaction fee is inclusive of VAT. Exports from the shop and payments systems will separate the VAT.

Current payment provider transaction fees are available via their respective websites.

At the time of writing, provider fees for UK clubs are:

• GoCardless: 1% + 20p (max: £4)
• Stripe: 1.4% + 20p

Because the payment providers offer a financial service only, there is no VAT to pay on their transaction fee.

It works - give it a try!

Pitchero’s research has identified that clubs who opted for online payments can increase successful collection by up to 80%.

Have a read of our club case studies across sports who explain, in their own words, how they’ve done it and what their tips are for growing revenue and membership.

In the case of Rainhill Cricket Club, they appreciate the ability to build flexible membership packages that reflects what their members want. For their President Peter Mercer, online simply translates to being paid sooner:

“We want to be a club that dispenses with cheque payments whose members pay directly into the bank account. If it drives us forward with more transparency and accountability then it’s going to be good.”

Want to know more about Payments? Book a payments demo with a Pitchero expert.