Zoom and the AGM and other meetings.
Webinars and Meetings  held using “Zoom” technology or similar are becoming increasingly commonplace. Online meetings and consultations are part of the lives of most of us these days. We moved over to Zoom from face to face meetings at the time of the Covid epidemic. Our Zoom meetings include the bimonthly committee,  the Game Meeting, the Bailiff meeting, numerous internal meetings including the coarse, finance, planning and other committee subgroups. The AGM is held a Webinar.

The main difference between Zoom meetings and webinars is that meetings are designed for collaboration, while webinars are designed for presenting content to a large audience.

The move to Zoom proved to have several advantages:
attendance at meetings increased, more members full and associate took part,
cost of meetings reduced,
meetings became more businesslike,
travel reduced for members, officers and volunteers,
volunteer and staff time saved.
There were also several disadvantages:
A few members could not take part due to technology issues,
A few members objected on principle,
Voting and question and answer facilities proved tricky,
Loss of face to face informal contact.
After the pandemic we have returned to face to face meetings for the Game Meeting, many of the sub groups, the Open Day because the face to face contact proved most valuable in these settings. (We have tried to develop a Coarse Meeting in the past and would happily hold a face to face session for coarse members but attendance has always been an issue.)
We have continued Zoom meetings for the full committee and the AGM and for those subgroups where it can prove a quick and effective way of conducting business.
We have reviewed and refined the voting and question and answer part of the Zoom Webinar.
At the AGM we will be putting forward changes to the constitution which allow for meetings to be held both face to face and by Zoom or similar systems.
The AGM and committee have a specific function in our business cycle and in our constitution, the committee is elected at the AGM every five years to manage all aspects of the club’s fisheries, finances and systems. It does so through allocating specific roles to committee members, officers and through subgroups including finance, coarse and game. The AGM is the only body that can amend the constitution and receives annual reports on the club’s activity, including game, coarse, match, bailiffing, finance and membership.
The committee has worked well through Zoom and has allowed us to include associate member representatives from a much wider geographical area also saving volunteer time on often dark evenings. Venue and travel costs have gone.
The AGM has specific business to conclude, attendance has always been an issue sometimes barely reaching the required number to be quorate. Zoom has greatly improved the numbers attending particularly for those from distance. The advantage of the increased attendance is considered by the committee to outweigh the informal face to face opportunity on that occasion.
When Andreas took over as manager, we had no online ability to renew memberships, he was able to put a system in place with the help of volunteers and our ICT and Communications officer. We had previously received all 1800 or so memberships by hand or by post, made frequent visits to the bank with huge amounts of cash and cheques, entered all data by hand and posted out all memberships and books by licking and sticking. Much of this has gone and now 97% of our members renew online creating a huge time saving and significant loss of risk and improvement in accuracy.
The membership currently stands at around 1800 meaning the number not now renewing online is just over 50. We have reached the point where using technology includes far more than it excludes.
At the time of Covid we chose to collect our catch return data online using QR codes and mobile phones, home computers tablets etc. It worked, again telling us that the vast majority of the membership can now engage through online systems.
This brings me on to Clubmate.

The Clubmate system.
Andreas currently manages the club using three key systems, the online shop, the member database and the finance and banking package. With every one of the c.1800 memberships he must jump in and out of the systems entering data manually, it takes hours and particularly within the member database there are risks of inaccuracy. Believe me I have operated it, do not speak to the operator during these processes, he is likely to be short of tolerance! For security, future planning and resilience we have known for some time we must update these systems.
“Clubmate” has proved to be the best option, it is used by many clubs and is backed and discounted by the Angling Trust. It has been tried and tested by our staff. We are currently starting to implement it. 2025 memberships will go through the new system. It will save a huge amount of Andreas’ time which can be used elsewhere in managing the club’s assets.
It will handle all the membership, day tickets, other products online and will link to the finance system producing a daily report for the manager.
It can do much more, all our fishery information, maps, rules and access arrangements can go online, catch returns can go online, bailiff activity can be conducted online. All can be amended instantly rather than having to wait a year to go in the new membership book.
Many of our members are aware of this change already through discussion at our game meeting and elsewhere, it has been broadly welcomed, some members are already seeing it in use in other clubs but because of our experience developing the shop and online renewals and because of member feedback we realise that it will not suit everyone so we will continue to be able to accept cash or cheques for renewals, the membership book will continue with some changes, it will still be posted out. The first year we want to establish the membership process, the shop and we will use the online returns at trial sites just as we have for a few years now.
In time we may go further, the change to online renewal has now reached all but 50+ of our members and Andreas will continue to deal directly with those in the same way that he has to date. No member will find that he is unable to renew or view the club’s key information because they have no online access or skill.