Swimming NSW launches digital club operational guide: the Club House

Swimming NSW has this week launched a brand new, progressive, online resource for club and area committee members – the Club House. A website encompassing all things related to the operation of clubs, the Club House is a unique digital portal for club and area level administrators. The Club House website replaces Swimming NSW’s unwieldy paper Club Operational Manual and adds further value with blog-style articles that address administration topics that can’t be learned in a book. All club content currently found on the Swimming NSW main site nsw.swimming.org.au will, in time, be moved across in full to the Club House, leaving the main site a hub that will service individual member needs.

The Club House (clubhouse.swimming.org.au) is Swimming NSW’s online, digital club management and support guide to help swimming committee members navigate the management of their club or area. This guide aims to be a handy reference point and “one stop shop” for anyone involved in their swimming club.

“We wanted to make volunteering for a swimming club as easy as possible,” said Sarah Koen Swimming NSW’s Sport Development & Participation Manager. “We had these huge paper versions of the Club Operational Manual collecting dust in the office and thought, if we can’t find time to read this, how could volunteer committee members work through it? We have to make this simpler.”

The aim of the Club House is to act as a clear, easy to follow guide for all club operational needs, covering topics such as:

• Implementing the Safe Sport Framework at your club
• How to run a committee, including conducting meetings and eventual hand over to an incoming committee
• How to fulfill club governance obligations
• Ideas for club activities
• How to run a club night, and
• Tips for marketing and member retention

In addition, using the site’s blog functionality, the Club House will share the practical, invaluable information, currently protected by the keepers of our sport – our “brains trust”.

To simplify the user experience even further, administrators can search a single word or phrase and find all content on the site related to their query.

“The Club House is a significant achievement that is unique to our sport,” said Mark Heathcote, Swimming NSW CEO. “It’s the first stand-alone site we’re aware of with the sole purpose of meeting the needs of grassroots administrators. We hope this resource simplifies the learning curve to becoming an effective club committee member, and in the long run, removes a well-known barrier to volunteering – lack of time.”  

A work in progress, Swimming NSW will continue to add content to the site over time, and in future, migrate all club-geared content from the main Swimming NSW website to the Club House where it will live permanently.

Visit the Club House today at clubhouse.swimming.org.au to take advantage of the resources available to Swimming NSW-affiliated clubs.

Please let us know about your experience with the Club House as it relates to workflows and content so we can continue to improve the user experience – contact Sarah Koen, Sport Development & Participation Manager (sarah.koen@nsw.swimming.org.au), or your local Club Support Officer.