How We Turn a Conversation Into Compelling Video Articles in 30 Minutes
Learn how a simple interview can be transformed into a polished video article in about 30 minutes. Watch our step-by-step tutorial and discover how you can volunteer.
The New CAQ Membership Portal
1. The Core Problem We Are Solving
Our current method of managing membership data has created significant challenges that impact the entire association:
- Database Instability: Allowing direct data entry from multiple sources into RevSport has led to frequent database breakages and data corruption.
- High Administrative Burden: A significant amount of administrative time (specifically Helen's) is spent fixing these data errors and managing the fallout, rather than on more valuable tasks.
- Complex Training for Clubs: RevSport is a complicated system, requiring a heavy and ongoing training commitment to get club volunteers comfortable with its use, which is not our core business.
2. Our Solution: A New "Front Door" for Our Data
We have built a new, simple web application, the CAQ Membership Portal, which acts as a smart "front door" for all membership data.
- It does NOT replace RevSport. RevSport will continue to be used for all the things it does well, like event management and payments.
- The only change is that clubs will no longer enter data directly into RevSport. They will now use our new, simple portal.
3. The Key Benefits & How It Works
This new approach provides three main benefits:
- Simplicity for Clubs: The new portal is designed to be incredibly simple and intuitive, requiring little to no training for club volunteers. This makes their job easier and reduces their frustration.
- Guaranteed Data Quality:
- When data is entered through the new portal, it is first automatically checked and formatted by an AI assistant to meet our standards.
- It is then reviewed by a CAQ Membership Officer in a simple approval queue.
- Only after this human approval is the clean, correct, and standardised data sent to the main RevSport database.
- This means the system cannot be easily broken by incorrect data entry.
- A Central Hub for the Future: By creating our own membership database, we have established a "single source of truth". This is a powerful asset that allows us to plug in other tools and systems in the future, such as:
- A modern newsletter system.
- A dedicated handicap system.
- An expense claim system for volunteers.
- Anything else we can define.
4. The Outcome
The new CAQ Membership Portal solves our most pressing administrative problems by making the data entry process simpler for clubs and more robust for the association. It saves countless hours of administrative work, ensures our data is reliable, and provides a powerful, flexible foundation for future growth.
Screenshots:
Previous work
As I go through each step of the process I will document what I am doing, and the next bit of the process. That way you can follow the white knuckled excitement of creating a new membership system from the comfort of your own couch!
Just before we start, here's a little video about the editing software that I'm using to create these videos. When you see the video, you'll see why I use it. We can use the text of the transcript to edit the actual video, which makes it very easy to create interview and direction-style videos.
🌶️hot tip! - watch videos in full screen to make it easier to see
The Planned Flow:
Step 1: The current form
Ok- it is Saturday morning and I am looking to get this system drafted up so my idea can get general approval and be in a draft state to view on Monday.
The first thing I need to do is look at the current form the clubs use to register a new player. I want to take what is currently being done, and make it easier.
This is the current form:
CAQ want their membership system to use minimal volunteer hours to maintain. So simple and ‘common sense’ is what I am thinking when improving the system.
I will take the form and recreate it to be completed online and submitted far more easily.
I will take the form and recreate it to be completed online and submitted far more easily.
Step 2: Re-creating the form
Before I get to the actual created form, a quick show of the form builder called tally.so It has been chosen because it works the same as notion. so things will be familiar to you when you see it in the video below, if you’ve experienced Notion software.
The first draft has been done. The video below shows the first draft of the form and also a brief look at how the form is created using the software.
This form is now ready to be used to enter information. And the next step is to bring that information into our checking mechanism, ready to present the final correct information to the membership officer for confirmation.
I'll be back later on Sunday with the next update showing you how I get the information from entering the form into our systems.
Step 3: Capturing and moving the data
Alright, the first and most crucial piece of our automated system is now in place before the end of the weekend. This step is all about connecting the digital plumbing.
As you saw in the video, we've successfully linked our new online Tally form directly to the Notion database that will act as the command centre for our Membership Officer.
What does this mean in practice?
From now on, whenever a club secretary submits a new member's details, that information will instantly and automatically appear as a new task in our checking system. No more emails to chase, no more scanning PDFs, and no more copy-pasting.
The first major manual step has been eliminated.
What's Next?
Now that the data is flowing into our system, the next update is where the real magic happens. I'll show you how Notion's built-in AI gets to work the moment a new submission arrives – automatically cleaning up names, standardising addresses, and creating the helpful 'changelog' we designed, all before the Membership Officer even has to look at it.
Step 4: Automatic AI correction for our Membership Officer
This is where we are up to. Monday has been spend preparing………and….
…now you can now watch and see the process from Form Entry to authorised by the membership officer. I did this for the first time live in the video…..will it work? 😇
From here the data is ready to get put into the database! I’ll be back with that tomorrow 😎
Step 4.99: Improve Membership Officer Interface
calm down! not so fast.
Instead of doing what I said I was going to do, I went and improved the membership officer interface and backend. So it's now a much more robust system in the backend and hopefully easier for membership officers to use.
Check out the video below for a quick run-through on what I did.
Step 5: Send the Approved Player Data to the Database
All we need to do is pick up the data from Notion and put it in our database now it has been approved. Should be easy……..lets see!
Alright! We have the process completed! Perfected, not quite, I have a list of improvements to make, but first version is working.
We now have our membership officers able to register new members with 3 clicks, saving hours of work! Simple for clubs and simple for membership officers.
So tomorrow, what I'll be looking to do is go back through this process and make it more efficient and more robust with the points, updates, and improvements that I've made along my journey today. That way, we'll be able to make sure that nothing goes wrong in this process.
I'll return tomorrow with the updates and the improvements that I'll make to even better improve this system.
Step 6: Making it more robust and easier to operate
A good place to start is to demonstrate just how easy this system is for those who use it. It aims to reduce errors and time taken while being easy and intuitive to use.
The video below shows how in a few seconds and two clicks of a mouse, our membership officers will now be able to add a new member to our database.
So what is going on in the backend? How does this magic happen where someone fills out an online form and then it gets processed and delivered to our membership offices for final approval?
That's what the video below will show—the process that the data goes through from being entered into a form through to being delivered to our database and our new member notified.
Building out the system, with the person as the basis
While building this I've had multiple questions, comments, discussions about what and why we're doing things the way that it's being done and also asking about future plans and features that need to be added.
I made a video which is below, and in it I go through why having a solid single source of truth about our players is vital and that it allows us to have modular architecture where we can plug in different systems- everything from our handicap system through to our marketing system, accounting system, and an app can all just plug straight into what we're building here.
When we have it, then everything connects up and that database is what drives everything, and so what is in it is important- that it's been cleaned and it's true so that everything around it works seamlessly.
It's a bit of a long video, but if you have an interest in the topic and what CAQ is doing, it's worth a 20-minute watch. Just grab a coffee.
Summary of the video for a quick takeStep 7: Deactivating (removing) a member
So the clubs will need to inform us when members leave- we won’t delete them, instead we will switch them to ‘unactive’ membership. that way we can set up say an exit questionnaire or similar.
First things first though we need to do the following steps to deactivate a member
- Have the clubs tell us who has left
- Search the records for that person
- Return outcome to membership officer
- Success - one match found. Please confirm
- Multiple matches - Please take custom action
- Fail - no matches found. Contact club
- On success change Person’s status to ‘inactive’
- Update notion with the change to status.
Related Articles
Southport Croquet Club Use Technology to Save Time & Attract Volunteers
Overwhelmed by club admin? See how Southport Croquet Club used simple tech to reduce volunteer workload, streamline payments, and make management easier.
