The chair of a Yorkshire tennis club joined Clubmatch for one reason.
"I can't cope with this WhatsApp pinging anymore."
That was it. No in-depth evaluation. No demo request. No spreadsheet comparing features. Just a person who had reached the end of their rope with a messaging app that was never designed to run a tennis club, being used to run a tennis club.
It is not an unusual story. Across volunteer-run clubs in the UK, the same pattern repeats. Someone joins the committee with the best of intentions. They want to help. They enjoy tennis, they know a few people, and they have some time to give. Then they discover what running a club actually involves.
The WhatsApp group for court availability. The separate one for match fixtures. The chain of messages to confirm who's coming to the social on Saturday. The member who wants to know if their guest fee has been received. The renewal reminder that goes out every year as a manually typed message to however many people are in the membership spreadsheet. The incident that needs reporting, typed up in an email because there isn't a form. The booking that got double-counted because two people replied to the same message at the same time.
None of this is hard in isolation. It just never stops.
Kevin Rand talks about what happens when it gets to people. "They didn't sign up to be a data manager," he says. "They signed up because they love tennis and they want to give something back. The admin is what wears them out."
This matters beyond the individual. A committee that burns through volunteers doesn't function. When the person who manages renewals leaves, nobody knows the system. When the bookings coordinator steps back, things start slipping. Small clubs with one or two courts often have a handful of people doing things that, in a well-run club, could largely run themselves.
What James and Kevin built at Woburn Sands — and what they now offer to other clubs — starts from this premise: the admin should not require a person to hold it together. Court bookings, cancellation reminders, guest fee collection, member renewal notices — these should be handled by the system, not by whoever has the phone.
The result isn't just fewer pings. It's that the committee gets to be a committee again — thinking about the Christmas party, planning the coaching programme, figuring out how to get more people through the gate. The work they actually want to do, rather than the work that just needs doing.
The Yorkshire chair is still on the committee. Still enjoys it. The WhatsApp group is quieter.
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