“Played 31, won 19” is a season. “Beaten Sam three times out of four” is a rivalry. “Won four matches from a set down” is a reputation. People come back to a club where their own story is told, and a record is the cheapest way to tell it.

One row per match

Every stat in this post comes from the same place: a list with one row for every match the club plays. Each row holds the date, the competition, who played, the score set by set and who won. It also says how the match ended: in full, retired, walkover, or out of time.

Keep that list, and everything else can be worked out. Lose it, or keep only the tables, and you can never answer “how have I done against her?” again.

For doubles, the row holds all four players, and which pair each was in.

What to track for every player

Start with the first three. Add the rest when the list is long enough to make them interesting.

Head to head is the number players check first

Ask a player what they want to know before a match and it is nearly always the same thing: how have I done against this person before? A head to head answers it:

• How many each has won, counting singles only, or doubles only, but not mixed together.
• Every match between them, newest first, with the scores.
• Doubles played together, as well as against. Players like to know their record with a partner too.

Make it easy to find. The best place is one tap from the opponent’s name on the table, at the moment somebody is arranging the match.

Rules that keep the numbers fair

Decide these before anybody asks, and write them down with the competition rules:

• A walkover is listed, not counted. Nobody played, so it is neither a win nor a loss. It stays in the list so the record is complete.
• A retirement counts for whoever took it, because a match was played.
• A match that ran out of time counts for nobody. Nobody won it.
• Only confirmed scores count. A score waiting for the opponent to confirm is not in the numbers yet.
• A club night round is a share, not a match. Count more games as a win, fewer as a loss, and a level round as neither.
• Corrections replace, not add. When a wrong score is corrected, the old one leaves the record.

Squash, badminton and pickleball count games rather than sets, and points rather than games. The same stats work: deciding games won in place of deciding sets, and wins from a game down in place of a set down.

Use the stats for recognition, not rewards

The end of the season is the time to use them. Box winners and champions are worth celebrating, but they go to the same few players every year. Stats let you celebrate everybody else:

• Most matches played. It rewards the people who make the league work.
• Most different opponents. It rewards mixing.
• Best comeback of the season.
• Longest winning run.
• Most improved, if your club keeps a level. See how to level up your tennis box league for how a level is calculated from results.

A newcomer can win most of these, which is exactly why they are worth giving. Read out the numbers at the AGM too. What to present at your club’s AGM covers the competition report.

A record is where the stories are.

Be careful with prizes for win rate alone. A prize for the best percentage rewards the player who plays three matches and wins them all, and teaches people to avoid a match they might lose. Recognition for playing, mixing and coming back has no such catch.

Use the records for the AGM figures

Add up every member’s record and you have the clearest measure there is of how active the club is. Bring three numbers to the AGM, each beside last year’s:

• Members who played in at least one club competition, and what share of the club that is.
• Matches played, across every box, ladder, draw and club night.
• Members who came back, split by whether they played. At most clubs the members who played renew far more often than the ones who did not. Seeing it in your own numbers is what persuades a committee to put effort into competitions.

What to present at your club’s AGM covers the rest of the report.

The same records tell you who might not renew, while there is still time to do something. A current member with no match this season, or none in the last three months, is the member most likely to drift away. Make a list a month before the renewal date. A personal message inviting them to the next social night or into the next round does more than any renewal reminder. How to collect club subs on time, every year has the renewal dates to work back from.

What members should see

Results with names on them are personal data, so handle them like it:

• Say so in the club’s privacy notice. Results are recorded, and other members can see them.
• Show records to members, not the public. A table on the club website is fine if your members expect it. A full record with every score is for people at the club.
• Let people opt out of the highlights. Some members would rather their results were not celebrated. They can still play, and still appear in the tables, which are the club’s noticeboard.
• Take care with juniors. Many clubs keep junior records to the junior section.

Keeping records on a spreadsheet

A spreadsheet can do all of this, if somebody is disciplined about it:

1. One sheet, one row per match, with the columns above. Never more than one row for a match.
2. A score goes in the day it is played, by whoever runs that competition.
3. Filter on a player’s name for their record, and on two names for a head to head.
4. Work out played and won with a count of rows. The rest, such as deciding sets and runs, needs formulas most volunteers will not want to write.

It works for a small club. Past a hundred matches a season, the list is fine but the stats are a weekly job, and they are the first thing to stop being done.

How Clayside keeps every player’s record

In Clayside, the record is kept for you from the scores players already enter. Nobody keeps a second list.

• Every member has a record: what they are in now and their last five results. It lists every box, ladder and tournament they have played, where they finished and whether they went up or down.
• Head to head on any name. Tap a player on a table, a draw or a game offer, and their record opens on you and them. It shows how many you have each won, and every match you have played against or with each other.

• Who they play most, each opening the head to head.
• The numbers players argue about: deciding sets and tiebreaks won, wins from a set down, their best run, and how many people they have played.
• The rules above, built in. A walkover is listed but not counted, a retirement counts for whoever took it, and only confirmed scores count.
• Milestones in Clubhouse, such as a first win, a winning run or a 25th match, shown to the club and with “well played” on each.
• The AGM figures, counted. The committee’s Stats screen shows how many members played, and how many came back, split by whether they played at all. Nobody is named, and each chart has a sentence ready to read out.
• Who is not playing. The register filters to the members playing now, and every record says when that member last played, so the ones drifting away stand out before renewal.
• Every result as a spreadsheet, one row per match, whenever the club wants its own copy.

The players enter the scores. The records, the head to heads and the milestones look after themselves.

This post is for the next stage. The league runs, but it could be better. The same players carry it every round, the table is always a week behind, and the organiser cannot take a fortnight off without it stalling. Nine upgrades fix most of that. Each one makes the league better to play in, brings new members to the club, or saves the organiser time, and some do all three.

Signs your box league is ready for an upgrade

• Most matches are played in the last week of the round.
• The table is updated when the organiser has a free evening, not when a match is played.
• The same two or three people in each box never arrange anything.
• New members are placed in a box by guesswork.
• Nobody outside the league knows it exists.
• The league stops whenever the organiser goes on holiday.

If two or more of those sound like your club, read on.

Put the table where everyone can see it, the day a match is played

A table that is a week behind takes the life out of a round. Nobody knows whether a win this week will take them to the top, so nobody hurries to play. A table that changes the evening a match is played gives every player a reason to get their next one booked.

Three things make a table live:

• Scores go in the day they are played, by the players, not saved up for the organiser.
• Everyone can see every box, not only their own. People like to see how their friends are getting on.
• The table is on the club website, not only in the group chat. A visitor who sees forty members playing every week sees a club worth joining.

Make arranging a match one message

Most unplayed matches are not refusals. They are a text that started a conversation about dates, which nobody finished. The fix is to make the first message do the work: offer three times, and let the other player take one with a single answer.

Two habits help:

• Offer times, not “when are you free?” Three evenings, a few days apart. Your no-show rule can then rest on whether dates were offered, which is fair to the player who did the asking.
• Ask the whole box at once. A player who owes four matches can offer the same evening to everyone they still have to play, and the first to say yes gets it.

The best version of this needs nobody to swap phone numbers. A member who would never hand their number to a stranger will happily play one.

Let players enter and confirm their own scores

If every score goes through the organiser, the organiser is the bottleneck. Let either player enter the score, and the other confirm it. If nobody objects within a few days, it stands. If somebody does, the box’s organiser is told and sorts it out.

That way the organiser sees only the scores that are wrong, not the forty that are right. A mistyped set is usually fixed in one message between the two players.

Nudge the unplayed matches on a fixed schedule

A reminder only from the organiser feels personal, and gets sent late or not at all. A reminder on a fixed schedule is just how the league works. Many clubs nudge anybody with a match still to play two weeks, one week, three days and one day before the round closes.

Then close the round on the day you said. An unplayed match scores nothing for either player, and the next round starts. Extending the deadline once teaches everyone it is not real. The halfway reminder in the box league guide is a good message to copy.

Celebrate the results as they come in

The best box leagues are a community first. The rules keep it fair, but what brings people back is being noticed:

• The upset. A player from a box below beating a player from the box above.
• The comeback. A win after losing the first set.
• The box winner, and the clean sweep when somebody wins every match.
• The first win. For a new member, it is the match that decides whether they stay.

Post a short round-up every week: the matches played, the best story, and a line for anybody who has not played yet. Let people say “well played” to each other. A league where results are celebrated gets more matches played than one where they are only counted.

Some members would rather not have their results shown off. Let them keep their matches out of the round-up, while still playing in the box.

A league where results are celebrated gets more matches played than one where they are only counted.

Build next season from the final table

Promotion and relegation is the engine of a box league, and the part most organisers dread at the end of a round. Make it a rule, not a judgement:

• Move the same number up and down from every box. One each way with boxes of five or six, two with seven or eight. The box league guide has the details.
• Set a minimum to go up. A player who played only one match does not go up, and the next player down goes instead.
• Relegate anybody who played nothing. It is fair to the people who did, and it keeps the top boxes for people who turn out.
• Ask who wants to play next round before you build it. Anybody who does not answer can sit it out, rather than becoming two unplayed matches in somebody else’s box.
• Allow a jump of two boxes for a player who won every match comfortably and is clearly in the wrong place. Use it rarely, and only when both the result and the player’s level say so.

Then start the next round the day the last one closes. The gap between rounds is where box leagues lose their players.

Give every player a level, calculated from their results

The hardest question in a box league is where to put somebody: a new member, a player back from injury, a junior moving up. A club level answers it.

A level is a calculation, not anybody’s opinion. Every result moves both players’ numbers. Beat somebody rated above you and yours goes up a lot; beat somebody below you and it barely moves. A one-sided score moves it further than a close one. Every match at the club feeds the same number, whether it was played in a box, on the ladder or at a club night.

Use it to:

• Place newcomers in the right box after a few results.
• Keep boxes even, and spot one that is much stronger than the box above.
• Seed the club championships. See how to make a tournament draw with byes for where the seeds go.
• Find a fair game between rounds.

Give it no prize. Once a number has a trophy attached, people protect it by ducking strong opponents. If your club would rather members did not see each other’s levels, keep them for the organisers.

Keep a record for every player

Players love their own numbers. A record gives every member the story of their own season, and gives two players something to talk about before they meet.

A good player record holds:

• Played and won, this round and all time, and the last five results.
• Head to head against every opponent: who has won more, and every match between them.
• Who they play most, which is where the club’s rivalries are.
• The numbers players argue about: deciding sets won, tiebreaks won, wins from a set down and the best winning run.
• Where they finished in every box, and whether they went up or down.

Records help you too. Most matches played, most improved and best comeback make good end-of-season prizes alongside the box winners, because a newcomer can win them. On a spreadsheet, a record like this is a job nobody has time for. Kept with the results, it builds itself. Tracking player stats and records at your club covers what to track and the rules that keep it fair.

Share the running of it

One organiser can look after four or five boxes. Past that, give each box a box manager: a player in the box who nudges the slow matches, settles small disputes and keeps the friendly side going. The organiser then deals with a handful of box managers instead of forty players, and can go on holiday.

Write down what the job involves before you ask anybody to do it. Club committee roles: what each job involves has a one-page description to copy.

Use the league to bring in new members

A box league is one of the best things a club can offer a new member. It promises a match every week against somebody of their standard, which is what most people joining a club want. Make the most of it:

• Say so on the club website and the joining page, with the live tables there for anybody to see.
• Let new members join at the start of any round, not only at the start of the season.
• Place them where they can win a match. A first round of four straight defeats is how a new member is lost.
• Offer something between rounds. A social night or a club night gives them people to play with while they wait. See who plays next: rotation systems for club nights and tennis round robin formats.

Some members will never take to a box league, and would rather pick their own opponents. A ladder alongside the boxes suits them. Ladder or box league: which suits your club compares the two, and how to get more members for your club covers the rest of the welcome.

What each upgrade gives you

How Clayside does this

Everything above can be done by hand, and many clubs do. Clayside is software built to do it for you, and every upgrade in this post is something it does:

• Live tables. Every box’s table updates the moment a score is confirmed. It is on your club website within a minute too, through a widget you paste in once.
• Arranging a match. A player picks up to a few times they could play and sends them. The opponent taps one and it is agreed, or the player asks the whole box at once. Nobody’s phone number moves.
• Scores the players enter and confirm. The opponent confirms, or it stands after a few days. The organiser is told only when a score is rejected.
• Nudges on a schedule. Anybody with a match still to play is reminded 14, 7, 3 and 1 days before the round closes, in the app and on their phone. After an agreed match with no score, both players are asked for it the next morning.
• Clubhouse. The club’s last fortnight on one screen: upsets, comebacks, box winners, finals, first wins and winning runs, with “well played” for each, and a round-up every Monday.

• Promotion and relegation, built for you. Next season is built from the final table as a plan for you to check. It makes the moves you set, holds back anybody short of the minimum and sends down anybody who played nothing. Suggested two-box jumps wait for your tap.
• A club level. One number for every member, calculated from every box, ladder, tournament and club night result, with a word for how sure it is. Your club decides whether members see it.

• Player records. Tap any name for their record: the last five results, your head to head, who they play most, and their deciding sets, tiebreaks and best run.
• Box admins. Give a player one box to run, and they can do that and nothing else.
• Find a game. Between rounds, a member posts when they are free and the first person around their level to say yes takes it.

The organiser starts the round and settles the odd dispute. The players do the rest, and the whole club can see it happening.

When a season finishes and you press Next season, the screen now lists suggested moves above the boxes.

Up two, or down two. A player who won every match comfortably, and whose level sits with the box two above, is suggested to go up two boxes. The same works at the bottom for a player who lost every match.

Sitting out. A player who played nothing can be suggested to sit out the next season. That happens only if they did not put their name down when you asked the club who wants to play. If you never asked the club, it suggests nothing.

Nothing moves until you tap one. Tap Move to Box 2 or Leave it, and Undo puts the player back. Suggestions are for singles, because a pair has no level of its own.

Where to find it

On the Next season screen, once a season has finished. To switch suggestions off, untick Suggest moves when you build next season in League settings.

It can also mean the longest argument the committee has ever had. Tennis members worry about losing court time, about lines on their surface and about noise. Pickleball players feel like guests on sufferance. Most of that is avoidable if the club decides the details before the first session, not after the first complaint.

Start with a trial on one court

The clubs that have done this well nearly all started small: one court, at fixed hours, for one term. A trial lets tennis members see the effect for themselves, and gives the committee numbers to decide with.

Before the trial starts, write down:

• Which court, and why that one.
• Which hours. Pick ones the tennis players do not use.
• What you will measure: how often the hours are used, how many new members join, and any complaints.
• When you will decide, and who decides.

One London club left four pickleball courts marked on a tennis court over a summer. Members booked them for social play about 5% of the time, against 45% for tennis on the same courts. Its tennis committee then asked pickleball to prove itself on one outdoor court before converting any more. Whatever your numbers show, having them is what turns an argument into a decision.

How many pickleball courts fit on a tennis court

A pickleball court is 6.1 metres by 13.4 metres, about a third of a tennis court. The LTA says up to four fit on one tennis court, two side by side at each end, with a pop-up net for each. Its page on pickleball courts in Britain has the measurements and the lines.

For a trial, two courts on one tennis court is plenty. It gives eight players a game at once, and more can wait.

Lines and nets

For the trial, use temporary lines. Throw-down lines, chalk or court tape are cheap and come off. Nobody has to agree to anything permanent before they have seen it working.

If the trial goes well, paint them. Pick a colour clearly different from the tennis lines, and ask the contractor who looks after the surface first. Painting can affect a surface’s warranty, and on clay or artificial grass painted lines are not really an option.

Portable nets are better than the tennis net. A pickleball net is 86 cm at the centre, a little lower than a tennis net, and the tennis net only serves one court. Pop-up nets fold away, and one per pickleball court means every court on the tennis court can play. Decide where they are stored and who puts them out.

Which hours pickleball gets

The best hours for pickleball are the ones tennis does not use. At most clubs that means weekday mornings and early afternoons, when the tennis players are at work. Many of the people taking up pickleball are free then.

Keep pickleball off the peak tennis hours, at least to start with: weekday evenings, weekend mornings and club nights. A tennis member who cannot get a court on a Tuesday evening, and sees pickleball on it, will oppose the whole thing. It will not matter how quiet the courts are at ten on a Wednesday morning.

Review the hours each term with the booking numbers. If the pickleball sessions are full and a tennis court nearby is empty, there is a case for more. If they are half empty, there is a case for fewer.

Booking the courts

This is where sharing goes wrong most quietly. Suppose players book single pickleball courts, and those courts sit on a tennis court. Then the booking system has to know that one tennis booking blocks every pickleball court on it, and the other way round. Many systems cannot do that, and the first anyone knows is two groups arriving for the same court.

The simplest answer is to hold the whole tennis court for pickleball sessions, the way you would for club night or coaching. Nobody can book tennis on it during the session, and inside the session the pickleball players run their own rotation. A paddle rack by the court and the system in who plays next: rotation systems for club nights works well.

Noise and the neighbours

Pickleball is louder than tennis. The paddle is hard and the ball is hollow, and the pop carries further than a tennis ball. It bothers the tennis players on the next court as well as the houses beyond the fence, so think about both when you pick the court.

• Use the court furthest from the houses.
• Keep sessions to the daytime, and away from early mornings and late evenings.
• Talk to the nearest neighbours before the trial, not after the first complaint. Tell them the hours and who to call.
• Ask players to use quieter balls and paddles if your club has close neighbours. Quieter equipment exists.

Membership and money

Decide how pickleball players join before they ask:

• Pay and play for the trial. A session fee lets people try it without the club deciding a category yet.
• A pickleball membership after it. Usually cheaper than full tennis membership, because it covers fewer hours and fewer courts.
• Members who play both pay the full membership and can play either.

Membership categories and fees for racket clubs covers how to set a new category so it sits fairly beside the others.

Buy a starter set for the trial: two portable nets, a few paddles and a bag of balls. It means newcomers can try it without buying anything, and it is the cheapest thing the club will spend on new members all year.

Insurance and the governing bodies

Before the first session, ask whoever insures the club whether pickleball is covered. If the club is insured through its governing body, read that body’s guidance on pickleball. Pickleball England also affiliates clubs and groups, and its guidance on starting a club is a useful read for whoever runs the sessions.

A voice on the committee

Once pickleball is more than a trial, give it a voice. A pickleball representative on the committee, or a section with its own organiser, means problems are raised early and by someone who can fix them. A sport without a voice on the committee will feel like a tenant, and tenants leave.

Most of the argument is avoidable if the club decides the details before the first session, not after the first complaint.

A court-sharing agreement to copy

Write the arrangement down, agree it at a committee meeting, and put it where both sets of players can read it:

[Club name]: sharing court [number] with pickleball

When: [weekday mornings, 9.30 to 12.30], from [date] to [date]. Court [number] is held for pickleball at these times and cannot be booked for tennis.

At all other times, court [number] is a tennis court as normal.

Nets and equipment: two portable nets, stored in [place]. Whoever starts the session puts them out, and whoever finishes it puts them away.

Lines: [temporary lines for the trial / painted in (colour)].

Who can play: members, and pay and play visitors at [the session fee].

Noise: sessions keep to the hours above. Please be considerate of the neighbours on [road].

Organiser: [name], who runs the sessions and is the contact for any problem.

Review: the committee will review this on [date], looking at how often the sessions are used, new members and any complaints.

Running it in one diary

Sharing works best when everyone can see the courts in one place: which are held for pickleball, which for club night and coaching, and which are free. In Clayside, a pickleball session is a block on the court diary, like club night, so nobody can book tennis over it. Once the club has a court of its own for pickleball, it can be marked as one.

The effect is that players on similar scores end up on the same court. By round three nobody is losing 24 to 3, and the games get closer as the night goes on.

If you have not run an americano before, start with how to run an americano at your padel club. It covers the players and courts you need, the points per game, serving and how long it takes. All of it applies to a mexicano too.

How a mexicano works

1. Round one is dealt like an americano. Any fair first round will do: by lot, or the first round of an americano schedule.
2. After each round, rank everybody by points. Each player keeps the points their side won, exactly as in an americano.
3. The top four play on court one, the next four on court two, and so on down the courts.
4. On each court, first and third play second and fourth. It puts the two nearest players on opposite sides of the net, and gives the leader the weaker partner.
5. Repeat until the time is up. Whoever has the most points wins the night.

A worked example

Eight players on two courts, 24 points a game. Round one is the americano’s first round:

After round one the table reads: Priya 15, Sam 15, Tom 13, Ruth 13, Dev 11, Kate 11, Jo 9, Alex 9. Players level on points stay in the order they were entered.

Round two is dealt off that table:

On court one, Priya (first) partners Tom (third) against Sam (second) and Ruth (fourth). The two leaders, level on fifteen, are on opposite sides of the net.

Mexicano or americano

Many clubs run both: an americano when the room is mixed and people want to meet each other, and a mexicano when the same regulars want competitive games.

Who sits out when the numbers do not divide

With nine players on two courts, one sits out each round. In a mexicano it should be the players who have played the most rounds, not the bottom of the table. Sitting the bottom players would sit the same people all night, which is the opposite of why a club runs a social evening.

Everybody else is banded by points as usual. If somebody came late or left early, the sitting out ends uneven. Then rank the final table on average points per game played, not the total. Say so before the first round.

Keeping the table between rounds

A mexicano lives or dies on the table. Every round needs it, so the round cannot be dealt until every court has finished and every score is in. Three habits keep the wait short:

• One scorer. Every court tells the same person both scores as soon as it finishes.
• Play to time, not points. A whistle after twelve or fifteen minutes finishes every court together, so nobody waits for the slowest game.
• Deal from the table, not from memory. A whiteboard, a printed table or the americano and mexicano generator does the ranking and the banding while the players change ends.

Ending on a final

A mexicano ends well on a final. After the last round, the top four play one more game on court one, dealt by the same rule: first and third against second and fourth. Whoever wins it wins the night. The rest of the room can play a last round on the other courts, banded the same way.

By round three nobody is losing 24 to 3, and the games get closer as the night goes on.

What to tell the players before the first round

Read this out, or post it in the group chat before the evening:

Tonight’s mexicano

• [Eight] players, [two] courts. The first round is drawn. After that, every round is dealt off the table.
• Every game is [24] points, or [twelve] minutes on the whistle.
• Every rally is a point. You keep the points your side wins.
• After each round, tell [name] both scores straight away. The next round is dealt once every court is in.
• On each court, first and third on the table play second and fourth.
• If you have to sit out, it is because you have played the most rounds so far.
• The most points at the end wins. [The top four play a final.]

Running it without the arithmetic

The arithmetic between rounds is what makes organisers stick to americanos. The free americano and mexicano generator takes the names and the courts, deals the first round, and deals each round after it from the scores you type in. A social night in Clayside does the same every week, with the players putting their own scores in from the court.

Your match first. The tournament screen opens on your own event, with your next match at the top. Every match says which one it is, for example “Singles Championship and Plate · Plate quarter-final”, so nobody plays the wrong round.

One answer everywhere. Where you have got to in a tournament reads the same on Home, on the tournament screen and on You.

Needs you, for organisers. Whoever runs the tournament sees Needs you at the top: scores to confirm and matches to chase. Anyone who runs the tournament can confirm a score, not only the club’s owner.

The draw on a phone. On a phone the draw is a list of the rounds being played, with the whole bracket a tap away. Doubles pairs are drawn on two lines, so both names fit.

Players are told. When an organiser gives a match longer, awards a walkover or takes both players out, the players hear about it. So does a player whose score is turned down.

Where to find it

The tournament’s own tab in the app, for every player entered and everybody who runs it. Nothing to switch on.

Clubhouse is the first tab on Home, and where Home opens. It shows what the whole club has played over the last fortnight.

The best of the fortnight, as cards. An upset, a comeback after losing the first set, a box winner or a clean sweep. A final and its champion, the winner of a social night, somebody going top of the ladder. A player’s own moments too: a first win, a run of wins, a close rivalry. Tap a card to open the box, ladder or draw.

Every result underneath. The latest results sit under the cards, and Show all opens the whole fortnight, with a filter for each competition.

Well played. Any member can react to a card. The player hears about the first reaction, and the rest are counted on the card.

A round-up every Monday. A notice with the club’s week: the matches, the upsets and the best story, plus a line about the reader, like a match they still have to play. A quiet week sends nothing, and it is never emailed.

Keeping results off it. A member who would rather not appear can keep their results off Clubhouse, and a parent can do the same for a child. Their matches stay in the box and ladder tables.

Where to find it

Home, the first tab. The Monday notice is turned off under What buzzes, and Keep my results off Clubhouse is on You, under Clubhouse.

This post is about that part: what each officer should present, the numbers to bring, how to run the votes, and what to do afterwards. It ends with a notice, an agenda and a one-page report you can copy.

What a club AGM is for

An AGM does four jobs, and every report should serve one of them:

1. The members approve the accounts. The money is theirs, and the AGM is where they see it.
2. The members elect the officers and the committee. Nobody runs the club without being chosen.
3. The members decide the things the constitution reserves to them. Usually the subs and any change to the rules.
4. The committee tells the members how the year went. Whether the club is growing, who played, and what is planned.

Anything that does not serve one of the four belongs in the newsletter instead.

The six weeks before the AGM

An AGM goes well or badly in the weeks before it. Most of the arguments on the night are about a proposal nobody saw coming, or a report nobody had time to read.

Six weeks out, fix the date and ask. Book the clubhouse, then tell members two things: the closing date for nominations to the committee, and the closing date for proposals. Your constitution may set both. If it does not, two weeks before the notice goes out works.

Ask people to stand before you ask the room. An AGM where the chair asks for volunteers and gets silence is usually one where nobody was asked in advance. Talk to the people you would like on the committee in person, weeks ahead. If you need to show them what a job involves, club committee roles: what each job involves has a one-page description to copy.

Three weeks out, send everything in one go. The notice, the agenda, the one-page report, the accounts, every proposal word for word, and the list of nominations. A member who has read the papers asks better questions. A member who has not can at least see that nothing is being hidden.

[Club name]: notice of the Annual General Meeting

The AGM will be held on [day and date] at [time] at [place].

With this notice:

• the agenda
• the one-page report on the year
• the accounts for the year to [date]
• the proposals members have sent in, word for word
• the nominations for the committee

Only members may vote. If you want to ask about anything in the papers before the meeting, email [address] and we will answer it on the night.

[Name], Secretary

Every number beside last year’s

“We have 214 members” means nothing on its own. “We have 214 members, up from 190” tells members the club is growing. Put each number next to last year’s, and let the difference do the talking.

Bring three years if you have them. Two numbers are a change; three are a direction. A membership that fell, then rose, tells a different story from one that has fallen twice.

What each officer presents

Every officer gets two or three minutes. That is enough for three or four numbers and one plan, and it is all most members will remember. The detail is in the papers for anyone who wants it.

The chair

The year in three sentences: what went well, what did not, and what matters most next year. Then thank the volunteers by name, including the ones who are not on the committee. The person who marked the courts every week, the parent who drove juniors to matches and the box league organiser all count.

The chair’s report is not a summary of the other reports. If the treasurer is about to say the club made a loss, the chair does not need to say it first.

The treasurer

The treasurer’s report is usually the longest part of the evening and the least understood. Keep the part presented in the room to three lines:

1. Income against last year, split into subs, court fees and visitors, coaching, and everything else.
2. Spending against last year, with anything unusual named. A one-off repair is not a trend, and members should hear that.
3. What the club holds at the end of the year, and what each part is set aside for.

The third line is the one members most need. “We hold this much” invites the question: why are we raising the subs, then? Answer it before it is asked. “This much is set aside to resurface the courts in four years. This much is a cushion of three months’ running costs.”

Then the accounts are approved. Most constitutions ask for them to be checked first, by an independent examiner, an auditor or simply two members who are not on the committee. Say who checked them, and propose that they are approved.

The membership secretary

• How many members, and how many last year.
• How many joined, and how many did not renew.
• Juniors and adults, and any category that grew or shrank sharply.

The number who did not renew is the one most committees leave out, and the one members most want to understand. If it went up, say why you think so, and what the committee plans to do about it. If you asked the people who left, say what they told you.

The competitions organiser

Membership numbers say who paid. They do not say who played. Show each competition the club ran, how many members took part, and how many matches were played:

• The box league or ladder: players, matches, and how many members played in it for the first time.
• The club championships: entries in each event, and the finals day.
• Social nights: how many were run, and the average turnout.

A box league that ran all season with forty players is something to put in front of the members who never saw it. Name the winners of each event. It costs nothing and people remember it.

The team captains

How many teams the club entered, where each finished, and how many different members played for a team. The last number matters more than the results. A club whose teams are always the same eight people has a recruiting problem, even if it won the division.

If a team needs players or a captain for next season, say so now. There will never be more members in one room.

Juniors and coaching

How many juniors are in coaching, how many play in club competitions, and how many juniors moved into adult play this year. The last number is the one that tells members whether the junior programme is feeding the club or running beside it.

Courts and the clubhouse

What was repaired or replaced, what is due next, and roughly when. Court surfaces, floodlights, nets, the fence and the clubhouse roof all have a life. A member who hears every year that the courts will need resurfacing in a few years is not surprised when it happens.

The welfare officer

A short statement: that the club’s safeguarding policy was reviewed, who the welfare officer is and how to reach them, and what training the coaches and volunteers did. Nothing more. A welfare officer’s report never mentions a case, a concern or a name, even without details. If members want to know more about the policy, point them to it.

Proposing a change to the subs

The subs are often the one decision members came to vote on. Give the proposal its own place on the agenda, after the accounts and before any other business. A rise slipped in under the treasurer’s report feels like an ambush, even when it is not.

Present it in four parts:

1. What changes. The old and new amount for each category, in a small table. Show every category, including the ones that are not changing.
2. What it pays for. “Floodlight costs rose by a third” or “we need to put more aside for the courts” is a reason. “Costs have gone up” is not.
3. What happens if members say no. Which plan is delayed, or which cost the club cannot cover.
4. Who is protected. Juniors, students, or members on a hardship rate. Say what the club does for anyone the rise would price out.

Members will accept a rise they can see the reason for. What they do not accept is a rise that arrives without one, or a second rise a year later because the first was too small. For setting the categories and the rates, see membership categories and fees for racket clubs.

Rule changes and proposals from members

A proposal changes something: the subs, a club rule, or the constitution itself. Each one needs three things before the meeting:

• The exact words. “That rule 7 is changed to read: …” and nothing looser. A proposal that is only an idea becomes an hour of drafting on the night.
• A proposer and a seconder, both members, named on the papers.
• Notice. Whatever your constitution asks. Changes to the constitution itself usually need more notice, and a bigger majority, often two thirds of those voting.

On the night, the proposer speaks first, then anyone else, then the vote. Small changes to the wording can usually be agreed in the room. A change that alters what the proposal does should wait for the next meeting, because the members who stayed at home never saw it.

Electing the committee

If there is one nomination for each job, the chair can ask the meeting to elect them all together. If two people stand for one job, hold a vote. A show of hands is fine unless somebody asks for a secret ballot, and most constitutions allow them to.

If a job has nobody standing, say so plainly and ask in the room. If nobody stands then either, most constitutions let the committee co-opt someone during the year. Say that too, so nobody feels the job was filled behind closed doors.

Change the bank’s signatories, the governing body’s contacts and the website within a month of the meeting. Handing over a committee job: a checklist covers what a new officer needs from the old one.

Running the room

The chair’s job on the night is to keep it moving and to let everyone be heard. Five habits help:

• Take the reports as read. “You have all had the report. Are there any questions?” saves twenty minutes and nobody minds.
• Questions after each report, not at the end. A question about the accounts asked during any other business has lost its context.
• Park the long argument. If one subject is taking over, offer to set up a small group to look at it and report back. Then move on.
• Count the votes and write the numbers down. “Carried, 31 for and 4 against” in the minutes ends any argument about what was decided.
• Finish on time. A meeting that ends when it said it would is one people come back to.

A number on its own tells members nothing. A number beside last year’s tells them how the club is doing.

When too few members turn up

An AGM below the quorum cannot make decisions, so it is worth working to avoid one. The clubs with full AGMs give people a reason to come that is not the business:

• Hold it on a club night, and play afterwards.
• Present the competition prizes at it.
• Put food on. It works every time.
• Send the papers early, so members can see a decision is being made that affects them.

If the meeting is still not quorate, follow your constitution exactly. Most say it is adjourned to a set date, and some say whoever attends then is a quorum. Write down who was there and what happened.

A one-page AGM report

Everything the officers present fits on one side of paper. Fill in the numbers, add a line under any that moved a long way, and send it out with the notice of the meeting.

[Club name]: the year to [date]

Next year: [the two or three things the committee plans, and what each needs from members].

An AGM agenda

Your constitution has the final word on the order. Most club AGMs run in this one and take under an hour:

[Club name]: Annual General Meeting, [date]

1. Welcome and apologies for absence.
2. The minutes of the last AGM, and anything arising from them.
3. The chair’s report.
4. The treasurer’s report, and approval of the accounts.
5. Reports from the officers: membership, competitions, teams, juniors and coaching, courts, welfare.
6. The subs for next year.
7. Proposals from members.
8. Election of the officers and the committee.
9. Any other business, raised with the chair before the meeting.
10. Close, and the competition prizes.

After the AGM

Within a month, send every member a draft of the minutes: who attended, each decision, and the numbers for and against every vote. They are approved at the next AGM, but members want to know now what was decided.

Then do the paperwork while the meeting is fresh. Change the bank’s signatories, update the officers on the governing body’s records and the club website, and change the subs in whatever the club collects them with. For when the new year’s subs fall due, see how to collect club subs on time, every year.

Last, put next year’s AGM in the diary. The best time to fix next year’s date is the evening after this year’s meeting, while everyone still remembers which parts took too long.

Most handovers go wrong in the same three ways. A login nobody else has. A deadline nobody else knew about. And an old officer who still holds the keys a year later. This checklist stops all three.

A handover in three steps

Before the AGM, the outgoing officer writes the pack. Not after. Once somebody has stood down, the job stops being theirs and the details start to fade. The pack is the template below, filled in for their job.

In the week after the AGM, sit down together. An hour, both of you, the pack open and a laptop each. Move every account while you are in the room. A handover meeting that ends with “I’ll send you the logins” is the one that is still going on in March.

For the first month, the outgoing officer stays on the end of a phone. Then they close their own access to everything, and say so.

The accounts and logins

Most clubs have more accounts than anybody realises. Make a list, and for each one write down who can get into it now, and who should be able to after the handover.

• The bank, including the app and any card. See the next section.
• The governing body’s portal: the venue or club registration with the LTA, England Squash, Badminton England, Pickleball England or whoever your club is affiliated to.
• The county or local league’s system, where teams are entered and results go in.
• The court booking system and whoever administers it.
• The club’s email address, the website, and the domain the website sits on, with the date it renews.
• Social media accounts and the club’s group chats, where the officer is an admin.
• Whatever the club collects subs or court fees through, and any card reader.
• The club’s accounts software or spreadsheet, and where its files are kept.

Never pass a password by email or in a group chat. Change it as you hand it over, so the old one stops working. A shared password manager that two committee members can open is the safest place for all of them, and it means the next handover is half done already.

The bank and the money

Changing who can sign for the bank is the slowest part of any treasurer’s handover, so start it the day after the AGM. Most banks need a form signed by the existing signatories and a copy of the minutes showing who was elected.

Until it is done, the outgoing treasurer stays a signatory, and they pay bills only when the new treasurer asks. Hand over:

• The bank statements for the year, and the last reconciliation.
• Every standing order and Direct Debit the club pays, with what each is for.
• Every regular payment the club receives: subs, court hire, coaching, sponsors.
• Any cash, the float, and who else holds any.
• The budget for this year and the accounts for last year.
• Anything the club owes, and anything owed to it.

The calendar

Every job has dates that come round once a year, and missing one can cost the club a season. Write down each one, with what has to be done and how long it takes:

• League entry deadlines, for every team, in every league.
• The governing body’s registration or affiliation, and its renewal date.
• Insurance renewal, if the club insures separately from its governing body.
• The subs renewal date, and when the first notice goes out.
• The lease, the licence and any council agreement, with their review dates.
• Contractors: when the courts are cleaned, the floodlights tested, the hedges cut.
• The AGM, and the notice period your constitution sets.

Put them in a shared calendar the whole committee can see, not in the outgoing officer’s diary.

The contacts

The people the job deals with, by name, with a number or an email and one line on what they are for. The landlord or council officer. The county league’s fixtures secretary. The governing body’s club support contact. The court contractor and the floodlight engineer. The head coach. The bank’s business team.

A name with no context is not much use. “Sarah at the council, who signs off anything we change on the courts” is.

The physical things

Keys, gate codes, padlock combinations, floodlight tokens, the ball machine, the first aid kit and the defibrillator. Write down where each one is and who holds a copy. Then change any code that has been shared too widely, which after a few years is most of them.

The documents

Where to find each of these, and who else holds a copy:

• The constitution and the club rules.
• The minutes of the last two years’ committee meetings and AGMs.
• The club’s policies: safeguarding, data protection, complaints, court booking, codes of conduct.
• The lease or licence, the insurance schedule and any loan or grant agreement, including the conditions attached.
• Anything the club has promised in writing to a member, a sponsor or a funder.

A shared folder the committee can all open beats the same documents on six laptops.

What not to hand over

Some things go to one person and nobody else. The welfare officer’s records of concerns stay confidential and go only to the next welfare officer, in person, following the governing body’s guidance. A member’s medical or financial details go only to whoever needs them for the job.

Once the handover is done, the outgoing officer deletes the club’s member lists, contact numbers and payment records from their own computer and phone. Keeping them is a data protection risk for the club, however well meant.

A handover meeting that ends with “I’ll send you the logins” is the one that is still going on in March.

The handover pack

Fill this in for each job, keep it in the shared folder, and update it every year. The second time round, a handover takes an hour.

[Club name]: handover pack for [job title]

Written by [name] on [date]. Handed to [name] on [date].

What the job is: [two or three sentences].

Accounts and logins:

Dates in the year:

Contacts: [name, how to reach them, what they are for].

Keys, codes and equipment: [what, where, who else holds a copy].

Documents: [where the shared folder is, and anything not in it].

Money: [anything owed or due, any cash held, any payment still to make].

Unfinished business: [anything half done, and who is waiting on it].

The thing I wish somebody had told me: [one sentence].

The last line is the one new officers read first. If you are asking someone to take a job on, give them the one-page description in club committee roles: what each job involves before they say yes.

Nobody is down for two matches at once. A time either player has already agreed for another match cannot be taken, and the app says who is playing then.

Can make none of the times? A player whose box was offered times that do not suit can send their own as an answer. The rest of the box can still take one of the first times.

Times nobody answers. They can be taken back from the screen they were sent from. If they all go by unanswered, the sender is told the next morning.

The morning after. When an agreed match has no score by the next morning, both players are asked for it. On a box, the match reads “Played on Tue?” with the score as its button, and “It did not happen” beside it for the evening that fell through.

Every agreed match in one place. Coming up holds every match a member has agreed, ladder and tournament matches as well as box matches.

A notice opens the match it is about. An old notice says what happened, for example that somebody else took the time, rather than opening a screen that has moved on.

Where to find it

Nothing to switch on. It works wherever members arrange matches: from a box, the ladder or a tournament draw.

This post describes each job at a racket club in those terms: what it is, when it is busiest, and what can be handed to somebody else. At the end there is a one-page job description to copy and fill in.

The three officers every club has

Almost every club constitution names three officers, elected at the AGM: a chair, a secretary and a treasurer. Everything else is up to the club.

Chair

The chair runs the committee meetings and the AGM, and speaks for the club when somebody needs to. The real job is keeping the committee pointed at the two or three things that matter this year, and making sure the other jobs are filled.

• Busiest: the weeks before the AGM, and whenever the club has a big decision to make, such as resurfacing the courts or changing the subs.
• Can be shared: with a vice-chair, who runs meetings when the chair is away and is the natural next chair.
• Good at it: somebody who listens, can end a meeting on time, and does not need to do every job themselves.

Secretary

The secretary keeps the club’s paperwork: the notice and minutes of every meeting, the constitution and the club’s policies. They are also the official contact for the governing body, the landlord and the council. At many clubs the secretary also answers the club’s email.

• Busiest: before each committee meeting and the AGM, and at the start of the season when the governing body’s forms are due.
• Can be shared: the minutes can rotate round the committee, and the email can go to whoever the question is about.
• Good at it: somebody organised who likes things written down.

Treasurer

The treasurer looks after the club’s money: the bank account, the bills and the budget. They draw up the accounts at the end of the year and give the treasurer’s report at the AGM. At most clubs the treasurer is also one of the people who can sign for the bank.

• Busiest: the renewal season, when most of the year’s income arrives, and the year end, when the accounts are drawn up and checked.
• Can be shared: collecting subs can be the membership secretary’s job, and a member who is a bookkeeper may be glad to check the accounts.
• Good at it: somebody comfortable with a spreadsheet, who pays bills on time and says no to spending when it has to be said.

The jobs that run the club

Most racket clubs need some or all of these as well. Smaller clubs combine them; larger clubs give each one its own person.

Membership secretary

Keeps the list of members: who joined, who renewed, which category each is in, and who has not paid. Welcomes new members and makes sure they know how to book a court and join in.

• Busiest: renewal season and the start of summer, when new members join.
• Watch for: the members who did not renew. Asking them why is the most useful thing this job can do.

Welfare officer

Is the person anybody at the club can go to with a concern about a child or an adult at risk. Keeps the club’s safeguarding policy up to date, and makes sure coaches and volunteers have the checks and training they need. Knows who to call when something is reported. If your club is registered with its governing body, it will almost certainly require one. The LTA does at every registered venue.

• Busiest: when somebody raises a concern, which is rare and cannot wait. The rest of the year is a few hours on policy and training.
• Good at it: somebody calm, discreet and approachable, who is not also the head coach or a committee member with a lot of other power at the club.

The governing bodies publish role descriptions and training for this job, and your welfare officer should start there, not here.

Competitions organiser

Runs the club’s internal competitions: the box league or the ladder, the club championships and the social nights. Sets the rules, starts each round, chases unplayed matches and posts the results.

• Busiest: the start and end of every round, and the weeks before finals day.
• Can be shared: with a box manager in each box, who nudges their own box, and with a separate championships organiser. See how to run a tennis box league for how box managers work.

Match secretary and team captains

The match secretary enters the club’s teams in the county or local leagues, keeps the fixture list, and makes sure every team has a captain. Each captain picks their team, books the courts for home matches, and sends in the results.

• Busiest: the weeks before the league entry deadline, then every match week for the captains.
• Watch for: the same eight people playing every match. A captain’s job includes finding new players as well as picking the usual ones.

Courts and facilities

Looks after the courts, the floodlights, the nets and the clubhouse. Books the contractors, keeps a list of what is due for repair or replacement, and gives the treasurer warning of big bills years ahead. At some clubs the same person runs court booking.

• Busiest: the spring tidy, any repair, and the years when a surface or the floodlights are replaced.
• Good at it: somebody practical who notices a sagging net before a member complains about it.

Bookings and club nights

Writes and keeps the court booking policy, sets aside courts for club nights, coaching and matches, and sorts out the clashes. At a busy club this is a job of its own. See court booking policy template for racket clubs for the rules most clubs settle on.

Juniors and coaching

Is the committee’s link with the head coach. Keeps an eye on the junior programme, the coaching timetable and the courts it needs, and on how juniors move into adult competitions and club nights. At clubs with a lot of juniors, the junior parents often have a representative of their own.

Social secretary

Runs the club’s social side: the end of season party, the quiz, the open day. It is the job most often left empty and the one members notice most when it is filled.

Communications

Keeps the club website, the newsletter and the social media up to date. The newer the committee, the more likely this job is done by whoever is youngest, which is rarely the best reason to give it to anybody.

Which jobs to split, and which to keep apart

A job held by one person for ten years is a job nobody else knows how to do. Two habits make every job smaller and every handover easier.

Split the big jobs. A deputy for the chair, a box manager per box, a captain per team, a separate championships organiser. Each one makes a job somebody might say yes to, and each one is the next person to step up.

Keep the money and the checking apart. The person who pays the bills should not be the only person who can see the bank account, and should never be the person who checks the accounts. Two signatories for any payment is the usual rule. The same goes for the club’s logins: no single person should hold every one.

Most people turn down a committee job because they cannot tell what they are agreeing to.

Asking someone to stand

The best time to ask is six weeks before the AGM, face to face, with the job written down. Tell them three things: what the job is, when it is busiest, and who will help. Then let them think about it.

Fill this in for each job on your committee, and give it to whoever you ask:

[Club name]: [job title]

What the job is: [two or three sentences].

When it is busiest: [the weeks or months, and roughly how many hours in a busy week].

The rest of the year: [roughly how many hours a month].

Who you work with: [the officers and volunteers this job deals with].

What you take over: [the logins, documents and contacts the outgoing officer will hand you].

Who helps: [any deputy, sub-committee or volunteers].

Elected for: [one year, or what the constitution says], at the AGM on [date].

Ask the person doing the job now to fill in the hours, not the chair. They know, and a number that comes from them is one a newcomer believes. When somebody says yes, handing over a committee job: a checklist is what they will need from the person before them.

Find out why members leave

Ask everybody who does not renew one question: what would have kept you? A short email, sent by a person rather than the club, gets an answer more often than a survey.

The answers are usually the same few: nobody to play with at my level, could not get a court, felt like an outsider. Each of those has a fix, and every one of them also helps the next newcomer.

Make the club easy to find

Somebody looking for a club searches for one near them, finds your website or your listing on a map, and decides in a minute. Make that minute work:

• A website that answers the first questions. When you play, what it costs, how to join, and a name to ask.
• Your club on the map. A business listing with your opening hours, a few photos of people playing and a link to the website.
• An answer within a day. An enquiry that waits a week has usually joined somewhere else.

Run an open day that signs people up

An open day is worth running when it ends with names on a list. Pick a time when the courts would otherwise be quiet, and plan the whole visit from arrival to joining.

Before the day

• A date and time, on the website and the map listing, at least three weeks ahead
• Posters at local schools, libraries and the leisure centre
• A coach or two experienced members booked to run taster sessions
• Rackets and balls to borrow

On the day

• Someone at the gate to say hello and take each visitor round
• Short taster sessions on the hour, grouped by standard
• A sign-up sheet asking for a name, an email and permission to contact them
• An offer for joining on the day, such as a first-year rate

The week after

• An email to every visitor within two days, with how to join
• A personal invitation to the next club night or beginners’ session

Bring-a-friend and taster offers

Most new members arrive because somebody they know already plays. A bring-a-friend evening, or a free first visit for a member’s guest, turns your members into the club’s best advertising. Keep the guest’s name and email, with their permission, and follow up the same way as an open day visitor.

Give newcomers a way in

The first month decides whether a new member stays. Give each one three things:

1. A named person to ask, who checks in after the first week.
2. A regular game. A place in a box league, a ladder or a club night, so there is always somebody to play.
3. A reason to come back. The date of the next social, a beginners’ course, or a coaching session at their level.

Every member kept is one you do not have to find.

Juniors bring families

The parent watching a junior coaching session is the easiest new adult member there is. Offer parents a session of their own at the same time, or a family membership that makes the second membership cheap. Plenty of adult members started by waiting for their children.

Keep them past the first year

The riskiest renewal is a member’s first one. A month before it, ask how the year went and what would make the next one better. A member who has been asked is more likely to renew than one who only gets a bill.

A member who wants a game posts when they are free: a time, or a stretch like 4pm to 8pm. Clayside offers it to other members, in the app and on their phone, and the first to say yes takes it. Whoever takes it picks the start time.

A friendly or a ladder match. A friendly records nothing: no score, no rating. A ladder match is offered to everybody the ladder lets you play, and the score goes on the ladder as usual.

Who is asked. Members around your level first, then a little further out, or anyone at the club, or people you pick yourself. Nobody is shown a level, and nobody sees who else was asked.

A four that is one short. Say how many places you need and who is already playing. When the last place goes, everybody else’s offer disappears.

Can’t make it? A member who drops out can offer their place around the others’ level, and the rest of the four hear when it is filled.

Who is never asked. Juniors, members who have left, anybody with no sign-in, and anybody who has switched on Don’t ask me for games. Nobody is asked more than a few times a day, and it never comes by email.

Where to find it

Play, then Games. Each member’s Don’t ask me for games switch is on Games and on You.

The good news is that this is a solved problem. Clubs in every racket sport have found the same handful of systems, and each one suits a different kind of night. Pick the right one for your numbers and write the rules down.

Five ways to run the rotation

Most clubs use one system for the core of the night and bend it for the start and the end. Pick the system that fits the night you have, not the one somebody used at their last club.

The peg board

The peg board is the most common system for a reason: once it is running, nobody has to organise it.

Each player has a peg or a tag with their name. When they arrive, they put it on the end of the board. When a court comes free, the four pegs at the front go on. When their game ends, they come off and put their pegs back on the end, winners and losers alike.

Two variations are worth knowing. In the first, the player at the front chooses the other three from the next six or seven pegs. It lets people mix and match standards, at the price of some people never being chosen. In the second, the board has two rows, one for the stronger players and one for everyone else, and each court takes from one row.

The thing that breaks a peg board is uneven game lengths. If one court plays a tight set that lasts forty minutes while the others play twelve-minute games, the board stalls behind it. Give every game the same length, and the board turns over evenly.

Paddle stacking

Pickleball clubs often run the same idea with the paddles themselves. Each player puts their paddle in a rack or a row by the courts. Four paddles go on together when a court is free. Some clubs keep a “challenge” rack beside the open one, where a full four can wait for the winners of one particular court.

The rule that needs writing down is that the next four take the next free court, not the court they would like. Without it, people wait for a friend’s court and the rotation stops being a queue.

Four on, four off

With exactly eight people and one court, the simplest system is a fixed swap: four play, four wait, then the waiting four go on. Change partners every game, and over an evening everyone partners and plays against everyone.

It stops working the moment a ninth person arrives. Then you need either a queue or a deal.

Winners stay

The winning pair stays on court, and the next pair in the queue takes them on. Some clubs cap it, so a pair that wins three in a row comes off anyway. It makes for competitive games and it keeps the best players happy.

It is also the system most likely to leave a beginner sitting all night, or playing once and losing. Use it for one court of a multi-court night, not for the whole evening.

Dealt rounds

When the group is fixed and everyone starts together, the organiser can deal every round in advance. Everybody plays every round, partners change each time, and the sitting out goes round the room evenly. It is how an americano works, and the tennis round robin formats for 4 to 16 players post has schedules for the commonest numbers.

Dealt rounds are the fairest system there is. They are also the least forgiving of somebody who turns up half an hour late, unless whoever is dealing can add them at the next round.

How long each game should be

The game length decides how long people wait, so set it for the busiest part of the night, not the quietest.

A timed game, with a whistle or a phone alarm, is the one system that keeps every court on the same rhythm. When it goes, everybody comes off, whatever the score.

Sitting out, arriving late and leaving early

Three rules settle most of the arguments a club night ever has:

1. Everyone waits about as long as everyone else. Whatever the system, nobody sits out twice before everybody has sat out once.
2. Late arrivals join the end of the queue. In a dealt system, they join at the next round. Nobody is slotted in ahead of people already waiting.
3. Say when you are leaving. A player who leaves mid-rotation leaves a court one short. Ask people to say so before their last game, so the next four can be called.

Mixing standards without losing your strongest players

The most common complaint at any club night is about standards. The strong players are fed up playing beginners, and the beginners feel like a burden. Both sides are right, and both drift away if nothing changes.

Four things help:

• Mixed first, then by standard. The first hour is open to all, the second has a court or two set aside for the stronger games.
• A strong court. One court where the best four can play each other, rotating as normal.
• The front peg chooses. It lets people mix as they like, and they tend to mix more than you expect.
• A beginners’ session before the main night. Half an hour of coached or organised play gives new players the confidence to join the main rotation.

Say which you use in the rules on the wall. A newcomer is far more relaxed about a strong court when they know it exists and how it works.

Get the rotation right and the evening runs itself.

Club night rules for the noticeboard

Change the brackets for your club and put this up by the courts, or pin it in the group chat:

[Club name]: club night

When: [day], [start time] to [end time]. Courts [numbers] are held for club night.

Who: any member. Visitors are welcome [up to three times a year, for a visitor fee].

How it works: put your peg on the end of the board when you arrive. When a court comes free, the front four go on.

Each game: [one set of six games]. When it ends, come off and put your pegs back on the end, winners and losers.

Waiting: nobody sits out twice before everybody has sat out once.

Arriving late: your peg goes on the end of the board, like anyone else’s.

Leaving early: please say so before your last game.

Strong court: court [number] is for [the stronger games] from [time]. Everyone rotates as normal.

Balls: [provided by the club, or bring a tube].

Questions: [name], who runs club night.

When the numbers are fixed

If your club night has a fixed list of players and a start time, you can do better than a queue. Deal every round, keep the points, and finish with a table. That is what a social night in Clayside does. You enter whoever has turned up, and it deals each round as an americano, a mexicano or fixed pairs. It spreads the sitting out round the room and keeps the table as the scores go in.

Almost all of that goes away with three things decided before entries close. Who is seeded and why, how the draw is made, and the date each round must be played by.

The events to run

Decide the events before you ask for entries, and keep the list short enough that the courts can carry it:

• The main singles and doubles, men’s, women’s or open, and mixed doubles.
• A plate for each main event, for players who lose their first match. Everybody gets at least two matches.
• Junior events, often by age group, and sometimes over-45s or over-55s.
• A handicap event, if your club has the levels to set the handicaps fairly.

Cap how many events one player can enter, three or four is common. It stops the keenest members playing on every court on finals day.

How many seeds a draw takes

Seed too few and the strongest players can meet in round one. Seed too many and half the draw is decided before it is made. The governing bodies’ rule, which most clubs follow, is:

A doubles pair is one entry, and is seeded as a pair.

Choosing the seeds

The fair way to seed is on this year’s results, by a method the committee writes down and publishes before entries close. Any of these works:

• Box league positions: the top boxes this season, in order.
• The club ladder, if most entrants are on it.
• A club level worked out from results across everything the club runs. See tracking player stats and records at your club for what a club can count.
• A national rating, where most entrants have a recent one.
• Last year’s results, but only as a tie-break between players this year’s results cannot separate.

What does not work is seeding on reputation: the player everybody knows is good, who has not played a competitive match since March. Two committee members choosing seeds in the bar is exactly the conversation a published method prevents.

Making the draw

The seeds go on fixed lines. Seed one goes at the top and seed two at the bottom. Seeds three and four go into the two remaining quarters, and so on, so the strongest players can only meet late. The byes go to the seeds first. Everybody else is drawn by lot. How to make a tournament draw with byes works through the lines and the byes for a real number of entries.

Two ways to make it so nobody can question it:

• In public. Names in a hat on a club night, with two members watching and the result written up there and then.
• With a tool that follows the rules. The free tournament draw generator places the seeds and byes by the regulations and draws everybody else by lot. Make the draw once, with somebody watching, and publish it.

Either way, never redraw because somebody dislikes the result. A draw made twice is a draw nobody trusts.

Keeping players apart

Some clubs keep certain players apart in the early rounds: doubles partners in the singles, members of the same family, or players from the same team. If yours does, agree the rule before the draw and keep it simple. The usual one is that two such players go in opposite halves, by swapping one with the nearest unseeded player who is not affected. Write down every swap you make.

A draw made twice is a draw nobody trusts.

The plate

A plate is a second draw for everybody who loses their first match. It doubles the matches for the players who need them most, newer and less experienced members, and it is often the event they remember. Run it on the same play-by dates as the main draw, a round behind.

Play-by dates for every round

A championship that runs for weeks needs a date for each round, or the draw stalls behind one unplayed match. Set them when you publish the draw:

• One to two weeks a round for singles, a little longer for doubles, which need four diaries to agree.
• The final round before finals day finishing at least a week before it, so the finals can be published.
• A rule for a match not played by its date. The committee can extend it once, award a walkover to the player who offered dates, or take both out.

Publishing the draw

Put every event’s draw on the noticeboard and in the group chat the day it is made. Add the play-by dates and the name of the person to contact. Update it as results come in. A draw that is a month out of date is the first sign a championship has stalled.

Running it from the draw to finals day

The free tournament draw generator makes the draw. Clayside makes the same draw and then runs the event. It sets the play-by dates, and the players arrange and enter their own scores. The winners move on, and every event’s draw is live for the club up to finals day.

It is also easy to get wrong on the night. The numbers do not divide, two courts finish ten minutes apart, and three people end up level with nobody sure who won. This post is the arithmetic, done in advance.

Round robin. Everyone in a group plays everyone else once. A box league is a round robin in each box, repeated with promotion and relegation between the rounds.

Three kinds of tennis round robin

The third kind is the one most people mean by a tennis round robin at a club night. It is also the one whose numbers are hardest, because it needs groups of four on every court and every partnership to come up exactly once.

How many rounds and courts your numbers need

For singles, an even number of players needs one fewer round than there are players, with every court in use. An odd number needs as many rounds as players, with one player sitting out each round. Six players play five rounds on three courts. Seven play seven rounds on three courts, and each sits out once.

For fixed pairs, it is the same rule with pairs instead of players. Four pairs play three rounds on two courts.

For a new partner each round, some numbers come out perfectly and some do not:

“Comes out even” means every player partners every other player exactly once, faces each of them twice, and sits out the same number of times. With six, seven, ten or eleven players it cannot be done. Play a fixed number of rounds instead, spread the sitting out evenly, and accept that a few pairs never partner.

For any other number of players or courts, the free tennis round robin generator works out the rounds, the sitting out and how long it will take, in singles, fixed pairs or with a new partner each round.

How long a round robin takes

Count the rounds, and multiply by the game length plus two minutes to change partners and ends.

Twelve or sixteen players will not finish a full round robin in an evening on fifteen-minute games. Either shorten the games, or play as many rounds as the evening holds and stop. Finishing on time matters more than finishing the schedule, because people judge the evening by whether it ran late.

Five players on one court

The commonest awkward number at a club: five turn up for one court. Play five rounds with one sitting out each time. Everyone partners everyone once, plays against everyone twice, and sits out once. Give each player a number and read it off:

On fifteen-minute games, it fills an hour and a half.

Eight players on two courts

Eight players on two courts is the commonest club night of all. It takes seven rounds, everyone partners everyone once and nobody sits out. It is the same schedule a padel americano uses, and the printable version is in how to run an americano at your padel club. Only the scoring differs: count games won instead of points.

Singles: six players on three courts

Five rounds, three matches each round, every court in use:

For any even number of players, the same pattern works. Write the numbers in two rows facing each other, keep player 1 still, and move everyone else one place round after each round. For an odd number, add a “sit out” as an extra player.

Fixed pairs: four pairs on two courts

Three rounds, and every pair plays every other:

Scoring a round robin

How you score depends on whether the evening is social or a competition.

Social, with a new partner each round: each player keeps the games their side won. A round that ends 6 games to 4 adds 6 to both winners and 4 to both losers. Everyone’s games count, even in a round they lost, and whoever has the most at the end wins.

A competition, singles or fixed pairs: count matches won, and keep the sets and games for the tie-break. If the matches are short, such as one set or a FAST4 set, many clubs count games won instead, because a close loss then still counts for something.

Whichever you pick, say it before the first round. Changing the scoring at the end, when somebody can work out who it helps, is the one thing that will spoil an evening.

Tie-break rules for a round robin

Agree the order before anybody is tied. Most clubs use this one:

1. Matches won.
2. The result between the tied players, if two are level.
3. The percentage of sets won.
4. The percentage of games won.
5. A tiebreak on court, or a coin toss if there is no time.

If three or more are level, look only at the matches between those players for step 2. If that separates one of them, go back to step 2 for the two still level.

Use percentages rather than totals when not everyone played the same number of matches. A player who sat out once should not lose on games to one who played every round.

For a social evening scored on games won, a tie is simplest left as a tie. Share the prize, or play one tiebreak while everyone watches.

Finishing on time matters more than finishing the schedule.

Running the evening

Before: count the players who have said they are coming, pick the schedule, and book the courts for the whole evening. Print the schedule large enough to read from the court, or post it in the group chat.

At the start: give everyone a number, read the scoring and the game length aloud, and start the first round on time even if one person is late. They can join at round two.

During: use a whistle or a phone alarm if the games are timed, so every court changes together. Somebody collects the scores after each round.

At the end: read out the top three, and post the full table in the group chat. People like to see where they finished, wherever it was.

Round robin groups for a club championship

A round robin also makes a good first stage for a club championship. Put the entries into groups of three or four, play a round robin in each, and send the top one or two from each group into a knockout. Everyone gets at least two or three matches, and nobody goes home after one. How to make a tournament draw with byes covers the knockout half.

When you run one every week

For a one-off, the free tennis round robin generator deals the whole evening for any number of players and courts, and keeps the table. A round robin on paper works well once. Run one every week and the paper becomes a job. Somebody works out the schedule for whoever turns up, then collects the scores and adds them up before anyone can go home. A social night in Clayside deals each round for whoever is there and spreads the sitting out. It keeps the table as the scores go in, so the evening runs from one screen.

It is simple to play and fiddly to organise: the schedule, the points, the sitting out and the scores all need working out before the first serve. This post does that work for you.

Americano. A social doubles format. Everyone enters on their own and plays each round with a new partner. Every rally is a point, each player keeps the points their side won, and whoever has the most at the end wins the night.

How many players and courts you need

Four players to a court, every round. The cleanest evenings use a multiple of four, so nobody sits out:

Eight players on two courts is the classic americano: seven rounds, everyone partners everyone once, plays against everyone twice, and fits in about two hours. With twelve or sixteen you will not get through every round in an evening, and you do not need to. Play as many rounds as the time allows.

For numbers that do not divide, such as six, seven, ten or eleven, more people sit out each round and the partnerships cannot all come up once. Tennis round robin formats for 4 to 16 players covers which numbers come out even, and the arithmetic is the same on a padel court.

Points per game, and how long it takes

An americano game is played to a fixed number of points, not games and sets. Allow roughly half a minute a point, including the time between points:

Twenty-four points suits most evenings. Sixteen suits a short session or a big group on few courts. Thirty-two gives strong players proper games, but needs the courts for longer.

If your players are slow between points, or your courts are booked to the minute, play to a time instead. Twelve minutes on a phone alarm, then everybody stops and counts. It keeps every court on the same clock, which matters more than the exact number of points.

Scoring and serving

• Every rally is a point. There is no deuce and no advantage. Whoever wins the rally scores, whoever served.
• Each player keeps the points their side won. A game that ends 15 to 9 gives both winners 15 and both losers 9.
• A game can end level. At 24 points, 12 to 12 is a real result, and both sides keep their twelve.
• Everyone serves the same number of times. With 24 points, that is six serves each. Most clubs serve in turns of two to four points, going round the four players in order. Agree the turn size in the briefing.

The winner of the evening is whoever has the most points at the end. Points rather than wins is what makes it social: a close loss still earns almost as much as a win.

A schedule for eight players on two courts

Give everyone a number from 1 to 8 and read off the court. Over seven rounds, everyone partners every other player once, plays against each of them twice, and nobody sits out.

Print it large and tape it to the fence between the courts, or post it in the group chat. Keep a score sheet beside it with one row per player and one column per round. For any other number of players, the free americano and mexicano generator deals the evening and keeps the table.

Sitting out

With nine players on two courts, one sits out each round and everyone sits out once over nine rounds. The player sitting out scores nothing that round. Because everyone sits out once, it evens out by the end.

If the sitting out is not even, because somebody arrived late or left early, rank the table on average points per game played, not total points. Say this in the briefing, before anybody can work out who it helps.

A mexicano instead

A mexicano starts the same way and changes after the first round. Instead of a fixed schedule, each round is dealt off the table as it stands:

• Court 1: the players in 1st and 3rd place against 2nd and 4th.
• Court 2: 5th and 7th against 6th and 8th.
• And so on down the courts.

Players of a similar score end up together, and the games get closer as the night goes on. It suits a group with a wide range of standards, because by round three nobody is being beaten 24 to 3. The catch is that each round waits until the last court has finished and the table is updated. Somebody has to keep the scores as they come in. How to run a mexicano night covers it in full, with a worked example.

The evening, start to finish

A week before: book the courts for the whole evening, with ten minutes spare at each end. Ask people to say if they are coming, and get a number you can work with.

On the night, before the first round: count who is there, give everyone a number, and pick the schedule. Read the briefing below aloud. Put new balls on each court.

During: start every round together, on a whistle or an alarm, and collect the scores as each court finishes. If a court finishes early, that is fine; the next round still starts on the clock.

At the end: read out the top three and post the whole table in the group chat. Many clubs finish with a final: the top four play one last game, first and third against second and fourth, and whoever wins it wins the night.

What to tell the players before the first round

Read this out, or post it in the group chat before the evening:

Tonight’s americano

• [Eight] players, [two] courts, [seven] rounds. You have a number: find it on the schedule on the fence.
• Every game is [24] points, or [twelve] minutes on the whistle, whichever comes first.
• Every rally is a point. No deuce.
• Serve in turns of [four] points, going round the four of you. Everyone serves the same number.
• You keep the points your side wins. A game can end level.
• When the whistle goes, stop, tell [name] the score, and go straight to your next court.
• If you have to leave early, tell [name] before your last round.
• The most points at the end wins. [The top four play a final.]

Problems you will meet

Somebody arrives late. With a fixed schedule they cannot join mid-way without breaking it. Either let them take the place of somebody sitting out, or start them at the next round and rank everyone on average points.

Somebody leaves early or gets injured. The rest of their schedule has a gap. Bring in whoever is sitting out, or play that court as a three with a rotating server. Rank on averages from that point.

The scores do not add up. Ask each court to give the scorer both sides’ scores, and check that they add up to the points played.

One court is always last. Play to time, not to points, and every court finishes together.

Points rather than wins is what makes it social: a close loss still earns almost as much as a win.

Running it every week

A printed schedule works once. Every week, with a different number of players, the schedule is the part that eats the organiser’s evening. A social night in Clayside deals each round for whoever has turned up, as an americano, a mexicano or fixed pairs. It spreads the sitting out round the room and keeps the table as the scores go in.

A draft the moment you press Start. It is built from your club’s name, how many courts you have, what you run and what it costs. A page with nothing behind it starts switched off, so a club with no lessons gets no Coaching page.

Pages that write themselves. Membership, Courts, Competitions and Coaching read straight off your club every time somebody opens them. Put next year’s subscription up and the Membership page shows it the same day.

Pages of your own. Add a page gives you Juniors, Our history or whatever else your club needs. Its address stays put when you rename it, so a link you handed out goes on working.

News that does not go stale. Write a title and a few lines and press Post it. One tick sends the same words to your members as well. A club that stops posting has News taken off the home page rather than showing old posts.

Photos and documents. Every photo is uploaded with a tick saying the people in it are happy for the club to publish it. Without the tick it is never shown. Your rules, minutes and safeguarding policy go on whichever page they belong to.

Nobody’s name on it. No member is named on any page: not a table, not a draw, not a booking, not a result. The one exception is a card saying who to ask, which your club writes on purpose.

Publishing, and taking it down. Nothing is public until somebody presses Publish, and the screen lists what changes before the button. Take it down and nothing is deleted.

Where to find it

On a club plan, open Club, then Website, and press Start. The owner, the secretary and anybody on the committee can work on it, and the first publish is the owner’s.

Box league. Players are split into small groups, called boxes, of five to eight of a similar standard. Everyone in a box plays everyone else once before a set date. Then the top of each box goes up a box and the bottom goes down, and the next round starts.

How many players to put in each box

Five to eight. Every player plays every other player in the box once a round, so the size decides the number of matches and the length of the round.

Squash players can often fit in two matches a week, so rounds can be shorter than a week per match. Ask your keenest box and your busiest box before you settle on one length for everybody.

Group players by standard. For the first round, use team selection, last season’s results or your best guess. Promotion and relegation will sort the order out within a couple of rounds.

Scoring a squash box league

Score by games rather than by result alone. Every game then matters, a close loss is worth fighting for, and a player who turns up and loses still scores.

A win always scores more than a loss, however close. When two players finish level on points, the match between them decides it. If that does not, games won minus games lost does, then points won minus points lost.

The squash box league rules to agree

Most arguments are about the same few things. Settle them before the first round:

1. Matches are best of five games, each to [11] points, point-a-rally, two clear at ten all.
2. Either player may arrange the match. The player asked offers at least [three] times within the week.
3. The player who arranges the match books the court. The other brings [a double yellow dot] ball.
4. Players warm up for the usual five minutes, two and a half on each side.
5. Players referee their own match. When in doubt about a let or a stroke, play a let.
6. A match not played by the closing date scores nothing for either player.
7. The winner reports the score the same day.

The ball matters more than it sounds. The double yellow dot ball is the standard for most club players, but a box of newer players will have longer rallies and more fun with a faster ball. Let the lower boxes choose.

Score by games, and every game in the box league matters.

Promotion and relegation between boxes

At the end of each round the winner of each box goes up one box and the last player goes down one. With seven or eight in a box, many clubs move two each way. Everyone else stays where they are.

New members join at the bottom box, or in the box that matches their standard if you know it.

Keeping the box league going

The first round always goes well. Rounds drift when one or two matches in a box are never played, so:

• Send a reminder halfway through each round, naming the matches not yet played.
• Publish the table as results come in. A table that moves is a reason to book a court.
• Close the round on the day you said, and start the next one straight away. A gap between rounds is where players drift off.

The difference is almost entirely in the layout. This post covers what a box league spreadsheet needs, how to set it up so the table works itself out, and the mistakes that break one. If you would rather not build it, the free box league spreadsheet is all of this, ready to type into.

What a box league spreadsheet needs

• The players in each box, typed once.
• A results grid: the players down the side and across the top, with one cell where each pair meets.
• A result in each cell from a fixed list, so a mistyped score cannot break the table.
• The table: played, won, lost, sets and points, worked out from the grid.
• The order, worked out too, so nobody sorts the table by hand.
• The points, and how many go up and down, in one place, so changing them changes every box.

For how to choose box sizes, points and tie-breaks in the first place, see how to run a tennis box league and the box league rules template.

A results grid, one tab per box

Every box league sheet a club pins on the noticeboard is a grid, and a spreadsheet should be too. Put each box on its own tab, with the names down the side and the same names across the top. Where two players meet, that cell holds their result.

Each match has two cells, one either side of the diagonal. Make the cells above the diagonal the ones you type into, from the row player’s side. Let the ones below fill themselves in with the same result turned round. A 2-1 for Priya against Jo above the diagonal is a 1-2 for Jo against Priya below it.

If each pair plays twice, both halves become places to type: the first match above the diagonal and the second below it, each from the row player’s side.

Type each name once, in the column down the side, and let the names across the top refer to it. Type “Sam” once and he cannot become “Sam “ or “sam” somewhere else and be counted as two people.

A drop-down for every result

Most broken box league spreadsheets were broken by a typed score: “6-4 6-2” in one cell, “2 sets to 1” in the next, “W” in a third. No formula can count all three.

The answer is data validation, which every spreadsheet has. Give each result cell a drop-down of the results there are, such as 2-0, 2-1, 1-2, 0-2 and a walkover either way, and refuse anything else. The cell then holds one of six values, and a formula can count each of them.

Colour them too, with conditional formatting: a win green, a loss having won a set amber, a loss red. A glance at the grid then shows who is having a good round.

Let the table work itself out

Every number in the table is a count along the player’s row of the grid:

• Played is the number of cells in the row with a result in them.
• Won is the number that start with a 2, plus walkovers won.
• Points are wins times the points for a win, plus losses having won a set times theirs, plus the other losses.
• Sets add up from the same cells: a 2-1 is two sets won and one lost.

Then the order. Give each player a key made of their points, then their wins over the players level with them, then their set difference. Work out each player’s place from the keys. A second table can then read the players out in place order, so the table sorts itself. Nobody ever sorts it by hand, which matters because of the first mistake below.

The mistakes that break a box league spreadsheet

Sorting the table by hand. It moves the rows, and every formula that pointed at a row now points at somebody else. Let a formula put the table in order instead.

The same name typed twice. “Jo Smith” in the names and “Jo smith” in a match is two different players to a spreadsheet. Type names once and refer to them.

Merged cells. They look tidy and break formulas, filters and copying. Use a bold heading instead.

A file nobody else can open. A spreadsheet on one laptop is a league that stops when that laptop is away. Keep it in Google Sheets or a shared folder, with a second organiser who can edit it.

Everybody able to edit everything. Players who can type their own scores can also delete the table. Share a view-only link with the players, and keep editing to the organisers.

No copy of last round. Before you start the next round, save a copy with the date in its name. It is the record of who went up and who went down, and the only way back if something goes wrong.

Sharing it with the players

A table nobody sees does not get matches played. Post a picture of each box in the league’s group chat every week or two, or share a view-only link to the file. Name the matches still to play, kindly, and they will get booked. How to level up your tennis box league has more on keeping the tables in front of people.

A spreadsheet runs a league well until one person typing every score becomes the job.

When the spreadsheet stops being enough

A spreadsheet works while one organiser can comfortably type every score. The signs it has stopped working are usually the same:

• The league passes forty or fifty players, and updating it takes an evening a week.
• Players ask whether their score has gone in yet. The table is only as current as the last time somebody typed.
• The league stops when the organiser goes on holiday.
• Arranging matches happens somewhere else, in a dozen private messages nobody can see.
• Promotion and relegation takes a whole evening at the end of every round.

None of these is the spreadsheet’s fault. It cannot let players enter their own scores without letting them change everything else.

Getting the free template

The free box league spreadsheet has four boxes of up to eight players, each a results grid with a drop-down for every result. The table sorts itself, says who goes up and who goes down, and one Settings tab sets the points for every box. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice. There is no sign-up and nothing to install.

Would rather not use a spreadsheet at all? The Sheet is the same box league as a free page that works in a phone’s browser, even offline. And when the league outgrows both, Clayside runs it. Players arrange their own matches and enter their own scores, and every table is live for the whole club.

Work out the size of the draw

A knockout draw halves at every round, so its size is a power of two. Use the smallest one that holds every entry.

One seed for every four places in the draw is the usual rule. With fewer entries than that suggests, seed fewer players: a seed nobody would recognise as one helps nobody.

How many byes there are

The byes are the size of the draw minus the entries. Eleven entries in a draw of sixteen leaves five byes.

A bye is an empty line in the first round. The player beside it goes straight through to the second round. Byes only ever happen in the first round: after that, every line has a player on it.

Choose the seeds before you draw

Seeds keep the strongest players apart until the later rounds, so the final is not decided in the first week. Choose them from last year’s results, the club ladder or the committee’s judgement, and write the order down before the draw is made.

Where the seeds go

1. Seed 1 goes on the top line of the draw.
2. Seed 2 goes on the bottom line.
3. Seeds 3 and 4 are drawn by lot. One goes on the top line of the second quarter, the other on the bottom line of the third quarter. Toss a coin for which.
4. In a draw of 32 or more, the next four seeds are drawn by lot, one into each quarter. No two seeds can then meet before the quarter-finals.

Give out the byes

Byes go to the seeds first, in seed order. Seed 1’s first opponent is a bye, then seed 2’s, then seed 3’s, and so on until the byes or the seeds run out.

If there are more byes than seeds, spread the rest as evenly as they will go: between the two halves first, then between the quarters. One half of the draw should not get an easy first round.

Draw the rest of the names

Put every unseeded name in a hat and draw them onto the empty lines from the top down. Do it in front of somebody, or on a club night. A draw people watched being made is a draw nobody questions.

A worked example: eleven entries

Eleven players enter. The draw is sixteen, so there are five byes, and there are four seeds.

• Seed 1 goes on line 1, with a bye on line 2.
• Seed 2 goes on line 16, with a bye on line 15.
• Seed 3 is drawn onto line 12, with a bye on line 11.
• Seed 4 is drawn onto line 5, with a bye on line 6.
• The fifth bye goes in the bottom half, on line 14, beside whoever is drawn onto line 13.
• The other seven names come out of the hat onto lines 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 13.

That leaves three first-round matches, and eight players in the quarter-finals.

Dates, withdrawals and a plate

Give every round a date to be played by, and print them on the draw. A round with no date is the round that drags on for a month.

If somebody withdraws after the draw is made, their opponent goes through on a walkover. Do not make the draw again: everybody has already seen it.

The free tournament draw generator applies these rules for you. Type the entries with the seeds first, and it places the seeds and byes and draws the rest by lot. For choosing the seeds in the first place, see how to seed and draw your club championships.

Four rules and a hat, and nobody can say the draw was fixed.

Many clubs run a plate for everybody who loses their first match, so nobody’s championship is one match long. Count a player’s first match played, not their first line: a seed who had a bye and then lost belongs in the plate too.

Start from what the club costs to run

Add up a year’s running costs: the courts, the lights, the clubhouse, insurance, your governing body’s affiliation fee, and a sum set aside every year towards resurfacing. Leave coaching out if your coach runs it as their own business.

Then estimate how many adult members you will have, counting each junior as about a quarter of an adult. The running costs divided by that number is the adult rate that pays its way. Court fees, events and sponsorship then pay for improvements rather than for keeping the lights on.

The membership categories most clubs need

Price every other category against the adult rate. A list built that way makes sense at a glance, and moves together when the adult rate does.

These are a common starting point, not a rule. Move them to suit your members, and keep the list short enough to read on a phone.

Family membership

A family membership pays for itself in the members it keeps. Without one, a family of four pays for four memberships and usually decides one of them is enough.

Write down who counts: two adults living at the same address and their children under 18 is usual. Cap the price, at about twice the adult rate, so a third or fourth child costs nothing more.

Off-peak and daytime members

Retired members, shift workers and parents of young children play when the courts are quiet. An off-peak category asks less of them and fills courts that would otherwise sit empty. The rule is simple: courts booked on weekdays before 5pm.

First-year and returning members

A joining fee is the first thing a newcomer sees, and many clubs have dropped theirs. A first-year rate does more: a reduced price for a member’s first year, to try the club before paying in full. A returning rate does the same for a member who left and wants to come back.

Somebody joining part way through the year pays for the months left. How to collect club subs on time has the sum.

If your club is a CASC

A Community Amateur Sports Club has to stay open to the whole community. HMRC’s guidance sets a level of fees above which the club must show that cost is not a barrier, usually with concessions or a way to pay in instalments. Check the current figure in HMRC’s guidance before you set the adult rate.

The price list decides who joins.

A price list members can read

Put the whole list on one page, with the monthly price beside the yearly one wherever members can pay monthly. Change the words in brackets:

[Club name] membership for the year from [date]

• Adult (26 and over): [amount] a year, or [amount] a month
• Young adult (18 to 25): [amount] a year, or [amount] a month
• Student (in full-time education): [amount] a year
• Junior (under 18): [amount] a year
• Family (two adults and their children under 18): [amount] a year, or [amount] a month
• Off-peak (weekdays before 5pm): [amount] a year
• Social (events, no court time): [amount] a year

Joining part way through the year? You pay for the months left.

Review it once a year

Before renewals, look at who joined and who left in each category. A category with nobody in it can go. A category where members keep leaving may be priced wrong, or may be missing something they need.

At its best, a box league is about community and friendly competition. Players get a regular match against people of their own standard, and a reason to talk to members they would never otherwise have met. The rules below matter, but they are there to keep it friendly.

What is a box league?

A box league is a club competition in which players are split into small groups, called boxes, of a similar standard. Everyone in a box plays everyone else once before a closing date. Then the top of each box moves up a box, the bottom moves down, and the next round starts.

How does a box league work?

1. Rank your players and split them into boxes of five to eight.
2. Set a closing date for the round.
3. Players arrange their own matches and play everyone in their box.
4. Results go on the table as they are played.
5. At the closing date, the top of each box goes up and the bottom goes down.
6. The next round starts straight away.

A box league runs all year like this, round after round, and a new member can join at the start of any round.

How many players to put in each box

Five to eight. Every player in a box plays every other, so the size decides how many matches each player owes and how long the round needs.

You will often read that boxes of four to six are best. Five to eight works better for most clubs. A box of four gives each player only three matches, and if one player drops out the box barely runs. The LTA’s own guide to running internal club competitions suggests six to eight.

Group players by standard. For the first round, use whatever you already know: last year’s championship results, the club’s own grading, or your best guess. It does not need to be right. Promotion and relegation will sort the order out within two or three rounds.

How long each round should run

A week per match is a fair rule, and the LTA guide suggests the same: one match a week, or one every other week. Members with families or shift work can fit one match a week. Two a week is where matches start going unplayed.

Give every round a fixed closing date and say it when the round opens. Shorter than the table above, and the busy players cannot fit their matches in. Longer, and people forget there is a match to arrange until the last week, when every court is taken.

Start the next round as soon as the last one closes. A gap of a fortnight between rounds is where box leagues lose their players.

Match formats for a box league

Pick a format that fits the court booking. A match that runs past the hour is a match somebody cannot book.

Timings from the LTA’s guide. Two sets with a ten-point match tiebreak in place of the third is the most common format in club box leagues. FAST4 sets are first to four games, with a tiebreak at three all and no advantage at deuce; the LTA publishes the full FAST4 rules.

Box league rules to agree before the first round

Most arguments in a box league are about the same five things, and every one of them is easier to settle before it happens:

1. The match format. One from the table above, the same for every box.
2. Who arranges the match. Either player may, and the one who is asked offers at least three dates, a few days apart.
3. What a no-show costs. A player who turns down three dates and offers none of their own loses the match on a walkover. So does a player more than thirty minutes late.
4. Who books the court and brings the balls. Usually the player who arranged the match books, and the other brings balls.
5. How the box is ranked. Points first, then the result between the two players, then sets, then games.

Put the rules where every player can read them, and point to them when somebody asks. You stop being the referee when the answer is written down. For a full set of rules to copy and change, use the box league rules template.

Box league scoring

Keep it simple enough that players can work out the table themselves. This scheme rewards turning up and a close loss as well as a win:

Clubs use several other schemes. Each one rewards something slightly different:

Whatever you choose, use the same scheme in every box and every round.

When players finish level on points, the result of the match between them decides. If three are level, the matches between those three decide. If that still does not, sets won minus sets lost does, then games won minus games lost.

A worked example: one box of five

Priya, Sam, Jo, Alex and Tom play a round under the scheme above. Ten matches, four each. This is the final table:

Sam, Jo and Alex finish level on seven, so the matches between those three decide. Sam beat both, Jo beat Alex, and that is the order. Priya goes up a box, Tom goes down, and the other three stay.

Promotion and relegation between boxes

At the end of each round the winner of each box goes up one box and the last player goes down one. With seven or eight in a box, many clubs move two each way. Everyone else stays where they are.

Many clubs add one condition: a player must play at least two or three matches to go up. It stops somebody winning a box by playing once.

When things go wrong

A player drops out part way through a round. Either keep the matches they played and count the rest as not played, or remove all their results so nobody in the box is helped or harmed. Removing them is fairer. Pick one, and write it down.

A player plays nothing. They go down a box at the end of the round. After two rounds with no matches, take them out of the league until they ask to come back.

A match is stopped by rain or bad light. Finish it from the same score another day, before the closing date.

A player retires injured. The match goes to their opponent, and the score at the time counts for sets and games.

The numbers do not divide. Twenty-three players do not make even boxes. Run some boxes of six and some of five, and keep the smaller ones at the bottom.

Doubles box leagues

Two ways work. With fixed pairs, each pair is one entry in the box and plays every other pair, exactly like singles. With rotating partners, everyone in the box partners everyone else once, and each player scores their own points. Fixed pairs suit established partnerships. Rotating partners suit a club night crowd, and need a box size the rotation divides into, such as four or eight.

Juniors

Match the format to the ball. Younger players on red and orange balls play short formats, such as best of three tiebreaks. Green and yellow ball players can play the same format as the adults. Parents usually arrange the matches, so ask them for consent to share a contact number when their child enters.

Placing new players

A new player joins the bottom box, or the box that matches their standard if you know it. Never place a newcomer above an existing player at that player’s expense: put them in the box, and let the results decide. A player’s World Tennis Number is a fair guide to which box to start them in.

How to keep a box league going past the second round

The first round always goes well. The second round is where box leagues drift, usually because one or two matches in each box are never played and the players in them lose interest.

The best box leagues are well organised, and they celebrate the wins, the upsets and the newcomers.

Four things keep a league busy and friendly:

• A group chat for the league. A WhatsApp group where players arrange matches, post their scores and congratulate each other does more than any rule. It shares phone numbers, so ask everyone before you add them.
• The tables, posted often. Post every box’s table every week or two, not just at the end. Name the players who have not played yet, kindly, and they will get matches booked.
• Something to celebrate. Make a fuss of the box winners, the upset when somebody beats a player a box above, and a newcomer’s first win. People come back to a league that notices them.
• The closing date, kept. Close the round on the day you said. Extending it once teaches everyone the deadline is not real.

Start every round with one clear message. Change the words in brackets and send it to each box:

Round [4] starts today and closes on [day and date]. You are in Box [2] with:

• [Sam]
• [Jo]
• [Alex]
• [Tom]

That is [four] matches each. Arrange them yourselves, and offer at least three dates when you ask. Scores go on the table the day you play.

Then, halfway through, name the matches still to play:

Round [4] closes on [day and date]. We are halfway, and these matches in Box [2] are still to be played:

• [Sam v Jo]
• [Alex v Tom]

If you have not offered dates yet, please offer three this week. A match not played by the closing date scores nothing for either player.

Some members will never send a match request, however clear the reminder. Others would rather choose their own opponents. If that sounds like part of your club, read ladder or box league: which suits your club, and the ladder rules for a tennis club.

Running a league with many boxes

Once a league has more than four or five boxes, one organiser cannot chase every match. Give each box a box manager. That is a player in the box who keeps an eye on its matches, nudges the slow ones and reports the results to the organiser.

The organiser then deals with a handful of box managers instead of forty players. It also spreads the friendly part of the job: every box has somebody who knows everyone in it.

Once the league is running, how to level up your tennis box league covers what to add next. That means live tables, easier arranging, results worth celebrating and a level for every player.

Running it without the spreadsheet

Most box leagues start on a spreadsheet and a group chat, and that works for a while. It stops working when the organiser goes on holiday. It also stops when the league grows past forty players and the Sunday evening spent updating the table becomes the job. Starting on a spreadsheet? The free box league spreadsheet works its own table out. A box league spreadsheet template for your club covers the mistakes that break one.

A system like Clayside makes the tables, the arranging and the key results visible to everyone. Players arrange their matches and put in their own scores, every box’s table updates as they do, and the wins and upsets show for the whole club. Each box manager looks after their own box, and the organiser sees all of them.

Three steps, and you press every one. The top of the Money screen shows Set up, Ask and Collect, and how many people each is about. Nothing on it happens by itself.

Most members do nothing. Everybody who held a membership last year gets their own link. Last year’s Direct Debit collects this year untouched. Where one has stopped, the link offers a fresh one there and then.

Leaving takes one press. A member who is not coming back says so on their link. Their category is carried across by name rather than picked, so nobody can renew themselves as a junior.

Check before you send. Check and send lists the jobs down one side. Pick one and the people it is about sit beside it, a row each, with every gap on that person on one line.

Who the send reaches. The screen says, for every member, whether we can write to them. For somebody with no address at all, copy their link and hand it over.

One reminder, to the right people. Home tells you how many have not answered. Send a reminder goes to them alone, and nobody is reminded twice.

Your first year. Nobody held a membership last year, so the button is Ask the rest to pay. It goes to everybody given a subscription for this year who still owes for it.

Where to find it

On a club plan, open Money and press Start next year. Check and send and Send renewal notices are on the same screen.

Your sides, in the app. A team is your club’s side in a competition somebody else runs, like the county league. Teams is on a club plan. The opposition is a name you type, and we never contact the other club.

The fixture list goes in once. Add fixtures takes a paste straight off the league’s email or website, one fixture a line. You see what we made of it before anything is saved. A line we cannot read comes back with its text, so nothing is quietly dropped.

Asking who can play. There is no squad list to keep. Whoever played last time is ticked for the next fixture, and you can tick anybody else in the club. They tap yes, no or maybe in the app, or straight from the email.

Several dates, one question. Three sides out on one Saturday is one message, not three. Ask who can play can cover every fixture date you tick in the coming weeks, and the Answers tab reads them back.

Picking the side. Fill with the strongest yeses puts a side on the sheet, and you move names if you want to. Anybody in the club can be picked, asked or not. Whoever is picked is told, and so is a reserve.

The courts look after themselves. A home fixture holds its courts, named for the match. Move the fixture and they move with it. Nobody who already booked is ever cancelled.

Captains run their own sides. Captain is a job you hand out from Club, then Roles, naming which sides. A captain can find people on the club list but sees nobody’s phone number or email address.

Where to find it

Open Play, then Teams. Hand out the captain job under Club, then Roles.

Who coaches here. The Coaching screen lists everybody who coaches at your club, with a line about them and what they charge. Coaches set their own prices: one lesson, a block or a group.

Asking for an hour. A member suggests up to six times they could play, with an optional line on what they want to work on. It works like arranging a match.

One coach, or all of them. Ask any coach goes to everybody who teaches at your club, and the first to answer takes it. Nobody’s phone number changes hands.

The coach answers in one press. A request comes up under Waiting for your answer. The coach presses one of the times and it is agreed. If none of them work, they say so and the member can ask again.

Groups that fill themselves. A coach puts a group on with a day, a time and a number of places. Members press Join to take a place and Leave to give it back.

No money through the app. You decide once whether the coach takes the money or it goes on the member’s club tab, and what your club’s share is. Members see how to pay before they book, when the lesson is agreed and on the morning.

One figure to settle on. Work it out shows every lesson taught and not yet squared up, both ways round. When you have settled with a coach, press Squared up. It records that you did, and no money moves.

Where to find it

On a club plan, open Coaching, then Coaches and money, and pick somebody off your register. Tick Visiting for a coach who is not a member.

Box league and ladder side by side

How a box league works

Players are split into boxes of five to eight of a similar standard. Everyone in a box plays everyone else before a fixed date. At the end of the round the top of each box moves up, the bottom moves down, and the next round starts.

The organiser decides who plays whom. Each player gets a short, fixed list of matches and a date to play them by. The full set-up, from box sizes to scoring, is in how to run a box league.

How a ladder works

Ladder. One ranked list of players that runs all season. You play people near you on the list, and winning moves you up. On some ladders the winner takes the loser's place; on others each result moves a rating, by more when the result is a surprise. There are no rounds, and anybody can join at any time.

The organiser sets up the list and the rules, then mostly steps back. Players decide who to challenge and when. A ladder has no rounds, so it runs all season and a new member can join at any time.

The difference that matters most

In a box league, somebody tells you who to play. On a ladder, you choose. That one difference decides most of what follows:

• Box leagues get the quieter members playing. A member who would never send a challenge will play the names on their list, because the list makes it normal to get in touch.
• Ladders suit the keen and the busy. A member with an unpredictable week can play when they are free, without a closing date hanging over them.
• Box leagues produce more matches per player. Every player owes a set number each round. On a ladder, some players play every week and some never challenge anyone.
• Ladders need less organising. There is no draw to make and no round to close.

A fixed list gets the quiet members playing. A free choice keeps the keen ones busy.

Which suits your club

Start with a box league if your aim is more members playing regularly, especially members who do not enter competitions now. The fixed list and the closing date do the work a friendly nudge would otherwise have to.

Start with a ladder if your keen players want something running all year, or if your members’ weeks are too unpredictable for a round with a closing date.

Running both

Many clubs end up with both: a box league through the busiest part of the season, and a ladder running all year beside it. The same member can be in each. The ladder keeps the keen players busy between rounds, and the box league brings in everyone else.

If you run both, write the rules for each down separately. A ladder’s challenge rules and a box league’s no-show rules answer different questions, and mixing them is how arguments start.

The rules a ladder needs

A ladder needs a page of rules before anybody plays. They say how far up players may challenge, how long they have to reply and to play, and what happens to a player who stops. Tennis ladder rules sets them out, with a version to copy that works for any racket sport.

Ladder. One ranked list of players that runs all season. You play people near you on the list, and winning moves you up. On some ladders the winner takes the loser's place; on others each result moves a rating, by more when the result is a surprise. There are no rounds, and anybody can join at any time.

Choose the kind of ladder

There are two, and the rules differ slightly between them.

• A place-swapping ladder. You challenge somebody above you. If you win, you take their place and everybody between moves down one. It is simple to explain and easy to see.
• A rating ladder. Every result moves both players’ ratings, and the order follows the ratings. A win over a stronger player moves you further than a win over a weaker one, so there is less arguing about who should be where.

How far up a player may challenge

Three or four places is usual. Allow more and the top of the ladder spends every week answering challenges from the bottom. Allow fewer and players near the bottom can take months to climb.

Let anybody challenge downwards too, if they want a game. It costs the lower player nothing and keeps people playing.

How long players have to reply and to play

Two time limits keep a ladder moving:

1. A week to reply. A challenged player offers dates within seven days.
2. A fortnight to play. The match is played within fourteen days of the challenge.

A challenge refused, or not replied to within the week, is a walkover to the challenger. So is a match the challenged player keeps putting off. Without that rule, the top of a ladder can simply stop answering.

To stop two players swapping places every week, a player may not challenge the same opponent again until both have played somebody else.

The match format

Two sets with a championship tiebreak in place of the third suits most clubs: a weekday evening match finishes inside an hour and a half. A busy ladder may prefer a single set with a tiebreak at six all.

The challenger books the court and brings new balls. Write that down too: it is the question asked most often.

A ladder with complicated rules is a ladder nobody plays.

Players who stop playing

A ladder only means something if the people at the top still play. A player who has not played a match for four weeks drops a few places, or gives up the place to the next active player below.

Allow a pause for injury and holidays: a player can mark themselves as resting, and the drop does not apply while they are.

New players and the starting order

For the first ladder, seed it from last year’s championship results or the committee’s judgement. It does not need to be right: two or three weeks of challenges will sort it out.

After that, new players join at the bottom, or at a place the organiser chooses from their standard. A newcomer who can challenge six places up for their first month climbs quickly to where they belong.

Reporting results and settling disputes

The winner reports the result the same day. Disputes go to one named person, whose decision is final. Most disputes are about a walkover, and most of those are settled by the reply and play time limits above.

Tennis ladder rules to copy

Change the numbers in brackets to suit your club:

1. You may challenge any player up to [four] places above you, and anybody below you.
2. A challenged player offers dates within [seven] days. A match is played within [fourteen] days of the challenge.
3. A challenge refused, unanswered or not played in time is a walkover to the challenger.
4. Matches are [two sets with a championship tiebreak in place of the third].
5. The challenger books the court and brings new balls.
6. You may not challenge the same player again until you have both played somebody else.
7. A player who has not played for [four] weeks drops [three] places, unless they have marked themselves as resting.
8. New players join at the bottom of the ladder.
9. The winner reports the result the same day. Disputes go to [the ladder organiser], whose decision is final.

If you are still deciding between a ladder and a box league, or thinking of running both, ladder or box league: which suits your club compares the two.

One screen for the meeting. Stats counts your own register and your own subscriptions, year by year, on a club plan. Nothing on it can be changed, and nobody is named anywhere on it.

The answer in words. Under each chart is a sentence ready to read out at the AGM, so nobody has to turn a chart into a sentence on the night.

Who stays, and why the rest went. Those who did not come back are three numbers: they told you, they never took up the subscription they were sent, or they never answered. The last is usually the biggest, and the only one a phone call fixes.

Who plays, and whether it keeps them. How many members played in a competition. Then the one worth reading twice: how many came back, split by whether they played at all.

Take it away. Download gives you one spreadsheet of the whole screen, a tab for each part, for the committee papers. Everything on it is a count, so there are no names, phone numbers or addresses.

A first year counts in months. Until your second membership year opens, the screen counts in months. A part that needs more history waits at the foot of the screen, naming the month it arrives.

Where to find it

Open Club, then Stats, beside Money. Whoever runs the club sees it, and so do the secretary, treasurer and committee.

A way in for somebody new. Your club’s page used to offer a sign-in and nothing else. Where your club collects its subs here, on a club plan, it now has a Join the club button.

They join and pay in one go. They pick from your categories and prices, say who is joining, and set up the Direct Debit. A family applies once. The same form is behind your joining link, which names nobody and is safe on a poster.

It waits for you. Each application sits at the top of the Money screen, under Waiting for you. A stranger typed it, so the club decides. The row shows anything not settled yet, such as a transfer they say they made or an email not confirmed.

Put it right, then say yes. If they picked the wrong membership, Change it moves them first, priced for the day they applied. Accept, and they are members. Decline cancels any Direct Debit they set up. They are not told, so if they should hear from anybody, it is you.

Nobody is entered twice. When you accept, each name is set against your register. Say it is somebody you already have, and the application is linked to their record rather than making a second one.

Looking back. What you have already decided, under the queue, lists every application you accepted or declined.

Where to find it

The button appears on your club’s page once you have a membership year open with prices in it. Applications wait under Club, then Money, and the joining link is under Club, then Invite.

One renewal date for the whole club

Clubs that let each member renew on the anniversary of joining have a renewal running every week of the year. Nobody, including the treasurer, knows who is due.

Pick one date for the whole club. The start of your playing season is the usual choice, because it is when members are thinking about the club anyway.

A member who joins part way through the year pays for the months left, then renews with everyone else. The sum is the year’s subs divided by twelve, times the whole months left. Someone joining with five months to go pays five twelfths.

The notices that make subs arrive on time

Send the first notice a month before the renewal date to every member. Send the second a week before, only to whoever has not paid. A notice that arrives before the date reads as information. One that arrives after it reads as chasing.

The first notice says three things plainly: how much, by when, and how to pay. Change the words in brackets:

Subject: Your [club name] subs are due on [date]

Your membership renews on [date]. Adult membership is [amount] for the year, or [amount] a month by Direct Debit. Juniors and families are [amounts].

To pay, [how to pay]. If you pay monthly, nothing more is needed once the Direct Debit is set up.

If you are not renewing this year, a one-line reply tells us and we will stop reminding you.

The last line matters more than it looks. A member who says no early saves you three reminders, and tells you something about the club worth knowing.

A lapse rule everyone knows

This is the decision most clubs avoid, and it is the one that makes the rest work. Decide three things and put them in the club’s rules: the date a membership lapses, what a lapsed member loses, and how they come back.

1. Membership runs for a year from [the renewal date].
2. A member who has not paid by [one month after the renewal date] is lapsed. A lapsed member may not book courts, enter club competitions or play for club teams.
3. A lapsed member rejoins by paying the year’s subs in full.

Then apply it to everyone, including the committee’s friends. A lapse rule that bends for some members stops working for all of them.

Most late subs are not refusals. They are members who never felt the deadline was real.

Paying subs monthly or yearly

A year’s subs in one payment is a large amount for a family, and asking for it in one go is a common reason members leave. Offering monthly payments by Direct Debit keeps those members, and the money arrives on its own each month.

Keep the yearly option too. Many members would rather pay once and forget about it, and some prefer to pay by bank transfer.

If you offer both, keep the total the same or close to it. A large discount for paying yearly pushes members back to the payment they can least afford.

One list of who has paid

Most chasing happens because nobody is sure who has paid. The treasurer has a bank statement, the membership secretary has a spreadsheet, and the two disagree about the member who paid in cash at the bar.

Keep one list, updated as payments arrive, that the treasurer and the membership secretary both read. When somebody asks whether they have paid, the answer should take one look.

Chasing the members who still forget

After the second notice, a short personal message from someone they know at the club works far better than another general reminder. Most will pay the same day. The few who do not have usually decided not to renew. It is better to know that before the season than to find out halfway through it.

Three taps to a court. Pick the day, pick a start time, and check one screen. You do not choose a court first. The first free court is chosen for you, and any other free one is a tap away.

The sheet says what the court is for. A member can mark a booking as a league, ladder or tournament match and pick which one. Their opponent is told where they are playing, and the sheet shows the match rather than one name. A league match does not count against how many courts a member may hold.

Names on a booking, not invitations. Doubles, or three of you having a hit? Put their names on it. They are told they are down to play, and there is nothing for them to answer. Nobody hands over a phone number.

An agreed match finds its court. When somebody takes one of the times a member suggested, the member is offered the free courts at that time. One tap books it and both players are told. It never books one on its own.

You set it up once. Name your courts, set the opening hours and peak times, and say how far ahead the sheet goes and how many bookings one member may hold. A change to hours or peak times starts the next day, so nobody already on court is affected.

Club night and coaching without moving anybody. Take out as many courts as you like and name what it is for, and it reads that way on the sheet. If somebody is already on one of them, you get their name and a conversation, and nobody is cancelled.

The committee’s three questions, answered. History shows whether the courts are busy, when they are busy and what is being played on them. It downloads as a spreadsheet with one row per booking, and no phone number or email address in it.

Where to find it

Court booking is on a club plan. Courts is under Book, beside Coaching. Whoever runs the club presses Set up on the Courts screen to name the courts and set the hours, and History sits beside it.

What a court booking policy has to answer

Most clubs’ policies cover the first two questions and skip the rest. The arguments come from the ones that were skipped.

1. How far ahead can members book? A week is common. Further ahead, and the keenest members take every peak evening slot.
2. How many bookings can one member hold? Usually one or two future bookings at a time, and one at peak times.
3. What happens if nobody turns up? Most clubs release a court after ten or fifteen minutes.
4. How much notice does a cancellation need? Enough for somebody else to use the court.
5. Which courts are held for coaching, teams and club nights? And on which days and times.
6. Who can bring a guest, and how often?
7. Can juniors book on their own? And from what age.

Peak and off-peak rules

Weekday evenings and weekend mornings are where nearly every booking dispute happens. Rules that are fair at two in the afternoon can be unfair at seven in the evening, so many clubs tighten them for peak times only.

Change the hours to match when your courts are actually full. A peak window that covers the whole week is just a stricter policy.

What happens when nobody turns up

A no-show is a court somebody else could have used. Most clubs do two things. A court not claimed ten minutes after the start is free for anyone. And a member who keeps booking and not coming hears about it, in steps:

Most members need the second step once, and never reach the third.

The member who booked a court at seven should get it at seven, without a word in the car park.

Courts held for coaching, teams and club nights

Write down which courts are held, and when, for coaching, team matches and club nights, and publish it before the season starts. Members accept courts being held when they knew in advance. They do not accept finding them blocked on the evening.

Review these blocks once a season with your head coach and your team captains. A block that made sense last year may now be sitting empty.

A court booking policy template

Change the numbers and the courts to suit your club, and keep the wording plain.

Booking. Members may book up to [seven] days ahead, and hold up to [two] future bookings at a time.

Peak times. Between [6pm and 9pm on weekdays] and [9am and 1pm at weekends], members may hold [one] booking at a time, for up to [one hour].

Turning up. A court not claimed within [ten] minutes of the start may be used by any member.

Cancelling. Cancel at least [four] hours before, so somebody else can use the court. A member who books and does not come three times in a season loses peak bookings for [two] weeks.

Held courts. Courts [1 and 2] are held for coaching on [weekday afternoons], and courts [3 and 4] for club night on [Wednesdays from 7pm].

Guests. A member may bring a guest up to [six] times a year, and books the court as usual.

Juniors. Juniors aged [12] and over may book in their own name. Younger juniors play with an adult member on court, except in junior coaching.

Put it where members book

A policy in the club handbook is read once, by the committee. Put it next to where members actually book, keep it to one screen on a phone, and link to it when somebody asks.

One evening, one table, and no draw. Everybody enters on their own, and the night keeps a running total for each of them. There is nothing to seed and no play-by dates.

Three ways to deal it. An americano gives you a new partner every round, and you play with everybody before you play with anybody twice. A mexicano deals each round after the first off the table, top four on court one, so the games get closer as the night goes on. Fixed pairs stay together all night, and a singles night works too.

You score what your side won. A round that ends 15-9 adds 15 to both players on one side and 9 to both on the other. A round can end level, and 12-12 is a real round with both sides keeping their twelve.

Scores from the court or the desk. The players on each court can put their own scores in, or you keep it to the desk. Fixing a wrong score moves the table and never deals again a round already played.

The bench goes round the room. When the numbers do not divide, somebody sits, and the sitting is spread evenly. Somebody going home early or arriving late? Take them off or put them on, and deal the next round.

A night with its own date, time and link. The start time goes on the invitation, and anybody entered can add the night to their calendar. Invite the club tells your members, and gives you a link that names nobody, ready for the group chat.

End on a final, or just stop. Deal the final puts the top of the table on court one, and whoever wins it wins the night. End the night closes it whenever you like.

Where to find it

Press Run a social night on the Tournaments tab. Enter everybody who has turned up and press Deal the first round.