A curling club site should show leagues by night and level, learn-to-curl dates and what to wear, rental and bonspiel booking, membership fees in full, and a calendar someone actually keeps current.

What the site is actually for

In mid-winter a curling club is at its busiest. Leagues are into the second half of the season, bonspiels fill the weekends, and the lounge is full on league nights.

The website serves very different visitors at once. A member checks Thursday's draw. An adult who has watched curling on television wonders whether a beginner can simply turn up.

An office manager wants a staff party with a difference. A team from another town is choosing which bonspiel to enter.

Most of them look on a phone and want one fact: when, how much, or how to sign up, without phoning a lounge that is staffed only on league nights.

Who looks, and what each needs

The second group is the one most clubs let down. A beginner who cannot find a date or a price within a minute rarely phones a club they have never visited to ask.

Learn to curl, explained for a stranger

A first-timer has questions members stopped noticing years ago: what to wear, whether to bring anything, how cold the building is, and whether they are likely to fall.

Answer each one plainly. Warm layers and loose pants, clean flat-soled shoes that have not been worn outside, and gloves. Brooms and sliders provided. Head protection recommended or available to borrow, if that is your club's practice.

Then give the dates, the times, the price, the number of sessions, and what comes next: a beginners' league, a drop-in night or a first-year membership.

Let people reserve a place online, or at least send a request. The decision to try curling tends to be made on the couch in the evening, when nobody is at the club to answer.

Leagues with space in them

List every league by night, time, level and format: men's, women's, mixed, open, seniors, daytime, stick curling, juniors, and any social or beginner league.

Say which leagues have space, which take spares, and when registration opens for next season. A league that is full now may have places in the fall.

A spares list deserves its own form. Players miss games for travel, work and colds every week, and a list of willing spares with phone numbers saves the skip, the team's captain, an evening of calls.

Rentals and private events

Ice rentals for office parties, birthdays and family reunions bring in income outside league fees, and the people enquiring have often never set foot in a curling club.

Show what a rental includes: how many sheets, how many people each holds, the length of the booking, instruction from a club member, equipment, and whether the lounge and bar are available.

Give a price or a clear range, the times that work around league play, and a short form asking for the date, group size and contact details. Then make sure somebody answers it within a day.

Bonspiels

Each bonspiel needs its own page: dates, format, entry fee, what the fee includes such as guaranteed games and meals, the entry deadline, and how to enter and pay.

Publish the draw as a page that reads on a phone, not only as a scanned printout. Teams check it in the parking lot and between games.

Afterwards, results and a few photographs belong on the site the same week, while the people in them are still looking.

A worked example

A four-sheet curling club in a small Interior town runs on volunteers, with a part-time ice technician and a lounge open on league nights.

Its website was built by a member who has since moved to the coast. The calendar showed last season's bonspiels, the fees page last year's prices, and the learn-to-curl clinic appeared only in a Facebook post.

Rental enquiries went to the phone in the lounge. Outside league nights nobody answered it, and by December its voicemail box was full.

The board asked two volunteers to share the site.

They gave each kind of visitor a page, put league times and fees in text, moved the calendar to one both could edit, and sent the rental form to both of them.

Each bonspiel now has its own page, with the draw posted the night before and results the morning after.

Fees without the arithmetic

Curling fees are often a combination: a club membership, a fee for each league, an association fee, and sometimes a locker.

Show each type of membership with its full price and what it covers, then give worked totals: one adult in one league, a couple, a junior, a second-half membership starting in January.

Say how fees can be paid and by when. A member who has to phone the treasurer to find out what they owe will find out late.

A calendar someone owns

An out-of-date calendar does more harm than none. A member who drives over for a cancelled draw trusts the next date a little less.

Give the calendar an owner and a second person who can update it. Volunteers change every year, so the logins should belong to the club rather than to whoever served last.

Post closures as soon as they are known: ice maintenance, bonspiel weekends when leagues do not play, holidays, and the date the ice comes out in spring.

The counter-case

A small club with full leagues, a waiting list and no rentals needs less to begin with: league times, fees, the draw and a phone number that is answered.

Online payment, booking forms and a page for every bonspiel can follow as volunteers find time and as the questions people ask show where the gaps are.

At any size, the site must be current. Last season's dates and prices do more damage than a short site that is right this week.

What to build first

  1. Publish learn-to-curl dates and what to wear.
  2. List every league by night, level and space.
  3. Set out fees with worked totals.
  4. Add a rental page with prices and a form.
  5. Give each bonspiel a page with its draw.
  6. Start a spares list members can join.
  7. Name two people who keep the calendar current.

Step seven is the one the others depend on. Every page on the list goes stale within a season unless two named people own the dates.

Bonspiel results posted the same week follow the habit described in the project write-up done the week the job ends.

Frequently asked questions

What should a curling club website show first?

Learn-to-curl dates and what to wear, leagues by night and level, fees, rentals and bonspiels, all readable on a phone, plus a calendar someone keeps current.

What do beginners need to know?

What to wear, whether to bring anything, how cold it is, the dates, times and price of sessions, and what comes next, such as a beginners' league.

How should leagues be listed?

By night, time, level and format, saying which have space, which take spares, and when registration opens. A spares form saves skips an evening of phone calls.

What does a rental page need?

What a rental includes, how many people each sheet holds, a price or range, available times around league play, and a short enquiry form somebody answers within a day.

How should fees be shown?

Each membership type with its full price and what it covers, plus worked totals such as one adult in one league, and how and when to pay.

Who should keep the calendar current?

Two named people, with logins that belong to the club. Volunteers change every year, and a calendar with one keeper goes stale when that person steps down.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Club calendar still showing last season?

Send us your league times and fees. We will build the pages a first-time curler looks for before booking.

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