A christening booked on cup final day
Your clubhouse is a good space: a bar, a function room, a kitchen and plenty of parking. Local families hire it for birthday parties, christenings and wakes, and the income matters. Enquiries arrive every way possible: a Facebook message, a call to the bar, a chat with a committee member at the school gate. The bookings go into a diary behind the bar, when someone remembers.
Then a family books a christening for a Sunday in May. Nobody checked the fixtures. That Sunday is the junior cup final, and the club has already promised the clubhouse to the league for the presentation. Two committee members spend a week apologising and trying to find a solution.
Why clubhouse hire clashes happen
- Enquiries go to whoever the enquirer knows, with no single place to record them.
- The hire diary does not show fixtures, training or club events.
- Dates are held on a promise, with no deposit, so some hirers vanish.
- Terms (hours, bar arrangements, cleaning, damage) are explained verbally, differently each time.
- Bar staff for the event are arranged separately, sometimes at the last minute.
Anything about licensed hours, the bar at private events or the terms of hire is for your committee, premises licence holder and adviser to set. We make sure the terms you set reach every hirer.
What the muddle costs
Clashes with fixtures that upset members and hirers. Dates held for people who never confirm, which could have gone to someone else. Disputes about cleaning, damage or finishing times, because the terms were never written down. And committee members fielding calls in their own time for a job that should be simple.
Hire income is often the easiest money a club can raise, because the building is empty much of the week. Weekday evenings and Sunday afternoons outside the season sit unused, not because nobody wants them but because nobody can easily find out whether they are free, and the club has no simple way to say yes. A family looking for a venue for a first birthday party will book whichever place replies first with a date and a price.
Then there is the day itself. Who is opening up? Who has the key for the store cupboard with the extra tables? Is the bar being staffed, and by whom? When those details are agreed in passing, the hirer turns up to a locked door on a Saturday morning, and the committee member whose number they have is at an away game.
A hire calendar that knows about the club
We build a clubhouse hire calendar that sits alongside the club's own fixtures and events.
- The calendar pulls in home fixtures, training nights and club events from your fixture list or club calendar, and marks those times as unavailable or limited.
- Enquiries come through a form on your website or Facebook page, asking the date, event type, numbers and whether the bar is needed.
- The bookings volunteer sees the enquiry against the calendar and replies with availability and your terms.
- A date is held once a deposit is paid by card through Stripe; unpaid holds expire after a set time.
- The hirer gets the written terms, the arrival and finish times, and a checklist (bar request, cleaning, keys).
- Bar volunteers or staff for the event are requested through your bar rota, and the balance and deposit refund are tracked after the event.
| Booking stage | What the hirer gets | What the club sees |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiry | Automatic acknowledgement | Enquiry against the calendar |
| Offer | Availability and terms | Date provisionally held |
| Deposit paid | Confirmation and checklist | Date confirmed |
| Event week | Reminder with arrival details | Bar and key arrangements |
| After the event | Deposit returned or explained | Any damage or cleaning noted |
A season of hires, afterwards
Enquiries arrive in one place. The bookings volunteer can see at a glance that the Sunday in May is cup final day, and offers the family another date. Deposits hold dates properly. Hirers know the rules before they arrive. The committee knows how much the clubhouse earns from hire, and which weekends could take more.
Does your clubhouse diary look like this?
- Hire enquiries come through several people and channels.
- The hire diary does not show fixtures or club events.
- Dates are held without a deposit.
- Hire terms are explained verbally.
- You have had a clash between a hire and a club event.