Life is a struggle for a lot of community based sports clubs. Those dedicated groups of volunteers spend hours and hours of their time organising competitions; managing registrations; booking grounds and worrying about their finances.
Local Government knows the importance of voluntary community and sporting groups. Without them our communities would be all the poorer with fewer affordable recreational opportunities and inevitable increases in social problems.
So how useful would it be if your local clubs could put in place a system that saved them up to 45% of their effort on registrations?
A system that improved their communications with members, helped raise sponsorship and attract new members, made administration more efficient and facilitated better electronic links with their State and National organisations and government.
The Australian Sports Commission and Telstra have now developed a system, designed and priced for local clubs, providing access to a state of the art online network.
The network is based on Internet technology and is designed to help sport and recreation capitalise on the opportunities an online system offers. This includes the following.
- Assisting with the administration of sport and recreation
- Providing better service to members and supporters
- Creating new business and sponsorship opportunities.
Many clubs in your area probably already have web pages &endash; that is great but SportNet is much more than just an Internet site. SportNet gives a public face – that is the Internet site with the information clubs want any passer by, or potential member, to see. The public web site might include calendars or club contacts, latest results or cancellations.
It can even include selling merchandise online or membership renewal. But SportNet’s big plus, the thing that makes it more than just a web site, is access to a secure private network.
SportNet offers the chance for a real improvement in administration and real time savings for volunteers. Instead of having paper membership records or several different computer databases the whole sport will use just one. Members will be entered once and other levels will be able to read or amend those records.
The package includes email, calendars, NetMeeting and private forums. As well as access to a range of goods and services at special SportNet subscriber prices. Internet sites will be promoted as part of the Telstra BigPond SportNet site &endash; potentially the biggest Australian Sport site on the Internet.
That is sure to attract new members and give extra value to sponsors. With searchable listings residents in your area will be able to look up sporting organisations close to home and get the latest up to date contact details. SportNet presents the opportunity for clubs to change the way they do business, it also presents a great opportunity to improve the relationship between sport and government at all levels.
Could your local processes be speeded up if Local Government had facility and ground hire bookings available to approved SportNet member clubs online? And what if the fees could be paid using secure ecommerce facilities? What sort of potential would that have to achieve more efficient use of ground and maintenance resources?
For a Local Government keen to build more efficient links and help the development of its community sport and recreation clubs, SportNet could be a valuable tool. Council could help just by being aware of SportNet, shared computer facilities could be set up in libraries or community centres for use by local sporting organisations or direct assistance could be given to local clubs.
SportNet is an exciting development that can bring clubs ‘online’. Starting at $295 for a year it is cheap enough for most clubs and it comes designed so that even an Internet novice can get great results.
To get more information browse our Internet site on www.sportnet.com.au or call 1800 358 560.
