1 Jul 2024
VolleyZone club case study – Darkstar Volleyball Club
Like many clubs, Darkstar have traditionally used more manual methods to process their club membership payments, but they found this to be difficult and time-consuming.
“Before VolleyZone, our club took payments through standing orders direct to our club’s bank account, and we kept records on a spreadsheet,” said Darkstar Treasurer Dan Haywood.
“This was tough considering we’d have to manually cross-reference payments, sometimes from non-player accounts, and go chasing people who didn’t setup SOs.”
When Dan became aware of the opportunity to use VolleyZone to smooth out their process, he was quick to put the club forward to help trial the process.
He added: “I was unfortunate in that I came into my role after the onboarding process on VolleyZOne, so had to get to grips with the portal through a lot of trial and error. But the video guides VE had created (with Eoin from SportLomo) were immensely helpful and had me utilising the incredible tools VolleyZone has to offer in no time.
“Our experience of starting to manage our members through VolleyZone has been fantastic! For this past year, we’ve sort of piggybacked on a different feature (events) to handle our membership payments for the year, even though it’s technically not been the right tool, we’ve been able to do so much more than before.
“Tracking payments, automatic emails to myself and the club, ready-made records of members for each membership type, recurring payments or one lump sum. And it gives us complete control of the payment amount, length of time, different membership types etc.
“With a year of experience in handling our membership payments this way, we’re excited to continue using the new features of VolleyZone to make managing our memberships easier.
“The immense amount of control and options you, as the administrator, have initially be quite daunting, but once you become familiar with the tools and features at your disposal, it really is a fantastic portal.
“Specifically, when organising membership payments, you can create as many as you want, and the automatic emails (that you set up) are very useful for keeping records.”
Dan appreciates that some clubs may be apprehensive at trying the VolleyZone platform for managing their club memberships, but believes it is worth taking that step.
“I would say to other clubs to not try to tackle everything all at once. Use the video guides Volleyball England and Eoin have created (they’re incredibly helpful) and reach out if you’re unsure!
“VE and SportLomo have been so helpful with questions and support, you just need to reach out. It takes a little time to set up, but once you do, your club will be in such a better, easier position when it comes to managing memberships.”
Any clubs wanting to discuss more about how VolleyZone can help process membership information can contact Dan via thesingularity@darkstarvolleyball.com
