Why your sailing club needs a digital officer, and what the role involves

If your sailing club manages a website, takes money online for memberships, courses and events, holds members' details in a database, or uses more than one system to run itself, it very likely needs someone whose job is to look after all of it. In most businesses that job belongs to an IT manager or a CTO: someone who understands how the systems fit together, makes sure the organisation gets value from what it pays for, and deals with the suppliers. Very few sailing clubs have anyone doing that, and the role that fills that gap is a digital officer. It isn't the same job as "the website person", and it doesn't necessarily need someone highly technical.

Why does the role matter?

For a club run by volunteers, good digital systems are one of the few ways to get more done without asking more of the same few people. When memberships, renewals, bookings and payments run smoothly online, the treasurer isn't chasing cheques, the membership secretary isn't retyping forms, and the race officer isn't spending Sunday evening getting results onto the website. Every hour the systems save is an hour a volunteer can spend on the water or with members rather than on admin.

The systems are also, increasingly, the club's front door. Someone thinking about learning to sail will usually find the club online long before they see the clubhouse, and their first impression comes from the website, the booking form and how quickly anyone replies to their message. Existing members form their view of the club in the same way when they renew, book a course or try to find out whether racing is on. If those moments are awkward or confusing, the club can lose people without ever knowing it had the chance to keep them.

That's why the role matters as much as the systems. Tools don't join themselves up, keep themselves current or notice when something has stopped working. Somebody has to look after them on the club's behalf, and when that responsibility belongs to nobody in particular, the systems gradually drift out of step with what the club and its members need. A digital officer gives that responsibility a home.

Why isn't the website person enough?

Most clubs have someone who looks after the website, often the same person who handles the club's marketing and social media. They usually inherited the job, often have another role on the committee as well, and are doing it because nobody else understands the website or is willing to take it on.

The trouble is that the website is only one piece of what makes a club tick. Alongside it sit the membership system, the service that takes payments online, the club email addresses, the WhatsApp groups, the Facebook page, the domain name, race results, course bookings, event management and the data the club holds on every member. Each has a different owner, or no owner at all. Decisions about which tools to use are made one at a time, often by whoever is available that week to look at them, and the way the pieces fit together is easily missed or never properly understood.

The RYA publishes template committee role descriptions for the commodore, the vice and rear commodores, the treasurer and the volunteer co-ordinator. They're certainly useful, but none of them is a digital role, and there isn't one for marketing or communications either, even though that function is responsible for the very important task of recruiting and retaining members. The nearest the RYA's descriptions come to technology is a line in the treasurer's role about oversight of the IT system, and in most clubs that one line is doing a great deal of work.

What does a digital officer actually do?

In short, the digital officer looks after the club's entire technology ecosystem, so that everyone else can get on with their own jobs. In practice that means:

• Understanding how everything fits together. Where members' details live, how money gets from a booking to the bank, what feeds the website, and what else is affected when information changes.
• Making sure the club gets value from its tools. Knowing what each tool costs, what it's used for and when it renews, and spotting the ones the club is paying for twice or no longer needs.
• Managing the relationship with suppliers. Acting as the club's point of contact with the companies behind its systems, raising problems, checking renewal terms and reviewing the alternatives when something isn't working.
• Keeping the club in control of its logins. Making sure the domain name, email addresses, website and social media are registered to the club rather than to one volunteer, with more than one person able to get in.
• Looking after members' data. Who can see what, how long it's kept, and removing access when someone stands down.
• Advising the committee on changes. When someone proposes a new system, looking at how it would fit with everything else and bringing a recommendation, so the committee isn't deciding without the facts.
• Supporting the other volunteers. Helping the membership secretary, the race officers and whoever sends the newsletter to have tools that work for them, and to know how to use them.

What doesn't the role do?

It doesn't do everyone else's job. The membership secretary still runs membership, the treasurer still manages the money, and the sailing secretary still organises the calendar. The digital officer is there to make sure they're able to do those jobs using digital tools that help them rather than hinder them.

How much time does it take?

For most clubs it's a few hours a month, with busier spells around renewals, the start of the season and any change of system. If it's regularly taking much more than that, it's usually a sign that the club has too many tools, or tools that create work rather than save it.

Who makes a good digital officer?

The best person is someone who's organised and comfortable trying new things, and it naturally helps if they enjoy using technology and working out how to get the best from it. They don't need to be an expert. Often, it's a member who works with systems in their day job and would rather do this than the bar rota.

Ideally the role has a seat on the committee. If it doesn't, the digital officer should at least be in the room whenever technology is on the agenda, because that's where the decisions are made.

How do you create the role?

I spent six years on the committee of my local sailing club, and technology questions came round every year. The clubs that get it right tend to follow much the same order:

1. Agree the role before you look for a person. Put a one-page outline on the committee agenda setting out what the role covers, what it doesn't and roughly how much time it takes. It's much easier to fill a job the committee has already agreed exists.
2. Agree what the digital officer can decide on their own. For example, changes that cost nothing and don't affect members, as opposed to anything that costs money or changes how members join, pay or hear from the club.
3. Start with a stocktake. List every tool and every login, who has access to each, and what each costs, then move anything registered to a personal email address into the club's name. There's more on this in Who holds the passwords?
4. Review the role at the AGM alongside every other role, so that it survives when the people change.

When the digital officer needs something agreed, Getting a technology decision through committee sets out what the commodore and treasurer will want to see.

Where to start

If you'd like a role description written for your club, and a plan for what the digital officer should tackle first, both are part of the Digital Review. You keep them whatever you decide afterwards.