Views on AGB's Club Management System.

[Rabid Hamster]

my feeling has always been agb want their fingers in your pie. our website will get 30k views this year. I dont need their input.

 

[pipeski]

My understanding from discussion with AGB people is that regional coordinators (or whatever they're called) have been asked to push the CMS. They seem to see it as a way for clubs to get their own web presence, presumably assuming that it's still 2003, and not 2023. Nowadays many clubs will be getting more engagement through Facebook or Instagram anyway.

As a web developer (and someone who's worked on a number of bespoke and off-the-shelf CMSes) I hated the AGB CMS immediately - it's awful. Making it a worse offering than a generic WordPress site took some doing.

As we only have to use it to register courses and taster sessions, that's all we'll ever use it for. AGB isn't going to be able to compel any club to use the CMS to host their website. That ship sailed years ago.

 

[Murray]

If my club wanted to increase the cost of memberships/sessions by 7.2%, it would need to be discussed by members rather than being forced upon them.

7.2% is even more expensive than Eventbrite. Just for comparison, if they're using Stripe for card processing, it typically charges only 1.5%+20p,so I'm not sure where the rest comes from. Their cut for running/administering the system perhaps? There's hosting to take into consideration, so maybe it all works out in the end.

It's a no from me though.

 

[pipeski]

There are some major bugs too. If you register a course, you'd expect it to show up in the 'start archery' course finder, wouldn't you? And if you fill in the URL field for the booking, you'd expect it to take visitors to your website (or whatever booking URL you provided). But no. It directs visitors to the Sport 80 site, where it displays the details of your course scattered at random across a black page, with no obvious way to find your website.

And if you don't list the price in the course registration (maybe you have a different price for juniors/disabled archers), it helpfully tells visitors that your course is free!

It's what happens when a organisation without much knowledge buys into a technology that isn't really fit for purpose. Everyone gets p***ed off and has to make workarounds for everything.

 

[Andy.D]

This is why my target club, and several others in our area, have left AGB and are independent. Out of 150 archers, 4 need AGB membership which they now do directly. AGB not fit for purpose.

 

[Albert]

We will ignore it and increase our private insurance.

 

[wully]

I’m in agreement with Andy.D

AGB seem to exist for the benefit of themselves and a few elite archers. It thought it maybe makes some kind of sense if you are a target only archer But seemingly not.

Our club left because we could see no point in paying double for nothing...

 

[mk1]

So long as the CMS remains voluntary in its wider context of setting up a website and taking payments, then for my club it's just a slightly more long-winded means of registering a beginners course or have a go. And for some clubs it may well be a great tool, especially new clubs who perhaps haven't got a website of their own or an established system in place of taking bookings and payments. Maybe that would work for them.

I always worry about the thin end of the wedge though, not least because about 10 years ago GNAS came up with the modernisation proposals and have been trying to get them through ever since, and lurking in the background of these is the idea of members paying their fees direct to GNAS and not to their clubs, and possibly also their club membership fees as well. I won't go into the many reasons as to why this is a horrendous idea as I'm sure you know them all, but the CMS does have within it the possibility of this becoming a thing. Going by how GNAS have behaved at various times during the last decade, it wouldn't surprise me if I wake up one morning to find that this has become "the new normal". I think it will remain just an option though, they must know by now than most clubs do not want it.

I've been on all sides of the fence on this having run a club from the days when we used sheets of paper in quadruplicate and has to send of memberships in diminishing batches - then on to the current system where it still takes as long to renew a dozen people as it takes to do one!
I'm also secretary of a walking group where the national system is on-line annual renewal on a rolling basis and it's really quite simple for a secretary to check membership though it probably takes a few days at the office end for them to appear. I don't have to handle money or keep reminding people etc etc.

So, auto renewal is a great thing, and I recall (some years ago now) one County saying they made 1000s from people who'd forgotten to cancel. Any organisation has to deal with people who "forget" to renew - we've all had people turn up to shoot who've ignored the six emails reminders and the warning they can't shoot without a new card etc. Long gone - I hope - are the days when someone would stuff paper money into my hand as they were setting up their bow. (better than the couple who set up their kit in the car park and walked on to the line hoping I wouldn't notice!!)