How to run a club (properly)

Many of us own clubs that are either starting off or had been around for some time, but however the club could run into the many issues of small or large clubs which is truly a pain to deal with and can cause a lot of high tensions 

the problems for both small and large clubs

Inviting- I can relate with this struggle  you invite a few members and expect them to join but 10 invites turn up only two members instead

here is what you should do

when you invite members, A -Start off with friends they are more likely to join and they could help you grow the club later on. B - make sure that the members you invite are either active in the notes or active in chess if your club is more on the chess side, this way you can get more members that bring up the activity (both vote chess and daily matches are good for chess clubs with some members in them)

there are more issues with clubs both small and large

how to keep the members around?

this is hard if you don't know what you are doing

A - make the club interesting like a theme that would stand out, there are many different types of clubs

I am going to use my own club as a example for this

The theme here is clearly Tigers and this club is a conservation/casual club at first glance

many popular clubs  tend to have a theme that makes them stand out from many clubs and a reason why you should join such a club is usually said in the public description but many clubs are either public or private for many reasons and it may require a join request for the ones that are private

second off a good staff team that can work together

you cannot have a good club without some good members as admins, coord etc but you need to make sure that you have a system of promotion, in the club that I already used as a example

there is a forum over it which is located in the sidebar (more over the sidebar later)

In that forum you can request to join based on the roles that are given (this can change and gives the owner the flexibility to change it without notice)

and when you choose a person as admin, please make sure that they are trustworthy and able to do the job, you don't want a bad person to have super admin after all (it turns out to be a mess if that is the case) I would check the members that are applying and think about three things

Are they trustworthy? if not then there is no reason to accept it

Could they handle this work? if they tend to slack off then don't consider their promotion

Are they able to communicate well? if not then you are going to be having a hard time sorting out things if they go wrong, I wouldn't promote them in that case

The usage of both sidebar and landing page

you might seen a club sidebar and wonder why people use it

a sidebar is very useful and many clubs use it as a way to talk to their members

with some coding experience you could either make a sidebar look something like this or keep it simple

Now let's move to the landing page 

I get this question a lot, why use a landing page for your club?

well it is helpful for two reasons

If you have a new friend who isn't in Chess.com and you want them to quickly be able to join the club then you would give the link that is shown in the landing page to be able to quickly join the club after they sign up (cool right?)

the other reason for this is the fact that you can reach a larger group of people if you use this link in your socials outside of Chess.com but remember to follow all rules in regards to links in social media platforms.

What if you are still having issues with gaining members?

in this case I would think about inviting more and get your club in some vote chess and daily matches, make sure the members are contributing to the general well being of the club and try to focus on meaningful partnerships (I will explain this in a min)  remember that it will take time to reach the amount of the members that you want, a good club owner has patience and is willing to work with their members even if there are some rough times.

Last but not least partnerships 

A partnership requires both clubs to contribute something like creating more team matches and Vote Chess against each other or bringing more members into the club that you partnered with but however this is a dangerous thing, if your club is larger than the other or something reversed you might end up losing members or gaining many of the old members from that club, also there should be a limit on the partnerships that you make, Too many and you will be suffering from the lack of members or getting less activity in your club overall but too little and you might be getting less members joining the club from the partnerships, I would partner with a another 100+ club using the example, why? It keeps both clubs alive and there isn't any issues when it comes to vote chess and daily matches because there are equal members and chances to play against or for the club that you are in (I am not the best at explaining all of this)

A club requires time and hard work to maintain and keep alive and going, my own advice is rely on people that you trust to help you on your journey as a club owner, If you are looking for a club that is helpful for both large and small clubs to grow, you may dm me about it!

From Akito Yama The Ruler Of The Shadows 

(Ps I am sorry for using my club that much but I need a example after all)