Stortford Gymnastics – “We could not have reacted so quickly to the changing environment without LoveAdmin”

Stortford Gymnastics Provide Value to Their Members

Stortford Gymnastics is a friendly, family-run gymnastics club for young children based in Bishops Stortford. The club was founded by sisters, Janine and Karen, who both started gymnastics at the age of 7 and wanted to continue their passion for the sport by teaching others. They operate as a non-profit organisation with the main aim to provide a valuable service to the community.

Before the club came about in 2016, there was a high demand for gymnastics in the area. Local gymnastics clubs had unmanageable waiting lists, so Janine and Karen took this opportunity to open up Stortford Gymnastics. Four years on and the club has around 1000 members.

The Challenge - Before LoveAdmin

For a few years, Stortford Gymnastics used an advanced spreadsheet to manage member information and GoCardless to process direct debit payments. This worked fairly well for them from both an administrative and cashflow perspective as the spreadsheet was accessible by different people and all members paid their fees monthly.

However, as the club grew, this system uncovered a few flaws. Although many people were able to access the spreadsheet, it wasn’t a satisfactory way of managing member information. As it was edited and updated, there were different versions created and no true way to know what information was the most accurate and latest. On the payment side of things, the downside was reconciliation. Every 3-6 months, the team at Stortford Gymnastics would set aside a number of days to manually reconcile payments which proved to be inefficient and time-consuming.

The club’s external administrator suggested looking for a new system to better manage the club’s growing needs. She explored many options and in the end, the preferred choice came down to LoveAdmin.

The Solution & Results - After LoveAdmin

After switching over to LoveAdmin, Stortford Gymnastics experienced several benefits. For starters, everyone could now work in one central place at the same time, so member information was always up to date. This also included class registers – previously these were done manually and never 100% matched up to their spreadsheet. But with LoveAdmin, class registers were automatically updated and allowed the club to quickly plan for any changes. For example, if a class had empty spaces more children could join, or they could save resources by having fewer coaches there.

With member information and payments being under the same umbrella, it also meant that reconciliation was better and was done automatically as and when each payment came in, rather than at the end of a 3-6 month period. Another plus from a financial point of view was that the club was able to efficiently manage their waiting lists to make sure all free places were filled much quicker.

During the Coronavirus crisis

Like many other gymnastics clubs, Stortford Gymnastics were incredibly worried about their future as the fate of a country-wide lockdown became apparent. Luckily, this worry was alleviated with the help of Government aid and largely LoveAdmin, which has allowed the club to effectively communicate with its members and engage them with exclusive online content.

The club created a unique home gymnastics schedule and publishes online classes every week to the timeline of the LoveGymnastics app which parents can access from their mobile devices. There’s lots of content available for everyone including siblings who are at different levels of gymnastics. As a result of this home gymnastics schedule, the club reduced their monthly member fees which they were able to do quickly and easily within LoveAdmin. Additionally, they are also delighted with the group email feature in LoveAdmin which lets them send out relevant emails to categorised groups of members from their database.

Stortford Gymnastics says, “We are so pleased that we made the decision to move to LoveAdmin last year. We were already seeing benefits prior to lockdown, however, in recent times, we could not have reacted so quickly to the changing environment without LoveAdmin. We have used it to create a new home gymnastics schedule, almost overnight. It has enabled us to implement new membership pricing tiers, to communicate with our customers in a targeted way, and also to deliver a new Virtually Gymnastics award scheme. Throughout it all, the LoveAdmin team has been open to the new ideas for development that we have suggested. Thank you LoveAdmin.”

With online classes, ongoing communication, and a new virtual award scheme, Stortford Gymnastics are able to continually provide value to their members through LoveAdmin and stay positive during this tough time!

If like Stortford Gymnastics you would like to reduce your admin and increase your income, then our gymnastics club management software could be the solution.