Ellon BC Club Story
As we move into February 2022, the Bowls Scotland team are working hard to process affiliation and national competition entries from bowling clubs around the country. Our Administrative Officer, Kelly, has been supporting clubs with the online process:
“Clubs are being very proactive and getting in touch about the online system and sending us updated contact details to enable us to send out log in details. New for this year is the creation of an affiliation certificate; clubs can use this on their notice boards or websites. To ensure clubs receive this and other email notifications and invoice requests, clubs need to pop their email into the ‘My Profile’ page when they login using the club admin login/password.
It is really important that club admins do not use their personal profile for affiliation and competition entries, instead, they need to use their club admin log in detail that we provide them. If clubs are unsure, just drop us an email and we’ll be in touch.
Another wee reminder about the system is all the help guides and info on competitions and events. These can be found in the ‘Menu’ section at the top left-hand side of the screen, then click ‘Documents’ to view all the information required”
We spoke to Allan Giles, Secretary and Club Administrator of Ellon Bowling Club in District 3. Allan successfully submitted his club’s affiliation, tournament licenses and national competition entries with no training, using just the help guides available for support.
"How was it for me? I was pleasantly surprised to find that I managed to navigate the system without too much bother, especially seeing it was the first time through – with a little help from the guides that were supplied of course.
The new system tallies everything up money wise, so there are no worries about forwarding the incorrect payment which is a boost, and everything can be printed out, all broken down into each item that has been “ordered”.
The club membership numbers are already there for Club administrators, so having to change a few minor numbers is so much easier than starting from scratch. We presumably will be able to now trace our membership history on this system as the years pass by, which again will be a useful tool.
The guides were very helpful, as was the checklist which was supplied. I am not a whizz kid computer wise by any means. I can do the basics that are needed to complete my secretary’s duties, so that having been said, it would appear that Bowls Scotland’s new Online Club & Membership System must be quite user friendly. If I am going to be honest, as an elderly person, I feel that nowadays, especially since COVID restrictions have been introduced, we are being left behind with the accelerated promotion of technology. Young people can cope with these changes – and I can see why these changes have to be made in the current climate – but older people who have not spend their lives on keyboards, do find such changes formidable and I feared that this online process would fall into that category. I did expect it to be quite an arduous challenge, but it was so much simpler than I had imagined.
The fact that we can still pay for our affiliation fees, tournament licences and national competition entries by cheque is excellent, since as a club, our account does not have a debit/credit card and the Treasurer, like many people, still has a cheque account for paying for things. Well done for keeping that avenue alive and the response I received after pressing the “asking for an invoice” button was really speedy. To be honest, when the response arrived saying that the completion of the system had been successful – and everything was listed – that gave me a great sense of relief."
Thanks to Allan for sharing his experience of using the Online Club and Membership system, we wish him and all at Ellon BC the best for the 2022 season. Annual Affiliation for the 2022 season must be completed by 28th February and competition entry date deadlines are all outlined in the competition information guide.
Support is available to all our clubs, just contact info@bowlsscotland.com