Three weeks to go, and nobody knows who won what
Every club has an end-of-season presentation: for juniors, often an afternoon at the clubhouse with medals for every child and trophies for players' player and most improved; for seniors, a dinner with awards and speeches. It is one of the best days of the club's year.
Organising it is a different story. The event volunteer sells tickets by bank transfer and cash, keeping a list. Coaches are asked for their award winners. Some reply at once, some reply with a nickname, some reply two days before the engraving deadline. The trophy supplier needs names spelt correctly and a list in their format. Medals need counting per team. On the night, the running order is scribbled on the back of a menu, and a child's name is read out wrong on stage.
Why presentation night is harder than it looks
- Tickets are sold by several people through several payment methods.
- Award winners come from every coach, in different formats, with deadlines missed.
- Names are misspelt, which only shows up on the engraved trophy.
- Medal and trophy counts per team are worked out by hand.
- The running order, the engraving list and the certificates are built separately from the same information.
What the chaos costs
Unpaid tickets and a hole in the event budget. Re-engraving, which costs money and time. A misspelt name on a child's first trophy, which parents remember. And an event volunteer who is exhausted before the night starts, when the whole point is for everyone to enjoy it.
Junior presentations carry extra weight. Every child in a squad expects a medal, and a seven-year-old who is missed out, because their name was not on a coach's list or a medal ran short, goes home upset in front of the whole club. Parents photograph trophies and post them, so a misspelt name is seen by grandparents across the country. And coaches, who have given up every Saturday for a season, feel the awkwardness when the award they nominated is read out wrong.
Seniors bring their own complications: dinner menus and dietary requirements, guest tickets for partners, a vice-presidents' table, and the club's own awards (clubman of the year, the long-service tankard) that need the committee's decision, not a coach's.
One set-up for tickets, awards and engraving
Ticketing apps and club apps can sell tickets; we use one if it suits you. What usually needs joining up is the awards side, and that we set up simply.
- Tickets are sold online with card payment through Stripe or a ticketing tool you already use, with ticket types (adult, junior, free for players) and dietary requirements for dinners.
- Coaches get a form listing their squad, pulled from your registration data, and pick award winners from the list, so names are spelt as registered.
- The form has a deadline and reminds coaches who have not submitted.
- An engraving list is produced in the trophy supplier's format: trophy, wording, name, team, season.
- Medal counts per team come from the squad lists.
- The running order and certificates are generated from the same award list, so what is read out matches what is engraved.
| Item | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Tickets | Cash and transfers, a handwritten list | Online with payment, one list |
| Award winners | Messages from coaches, nicknames | Picked from the registered squad |
| Engraving | Typed up for the supplier | Exported in the supplier's format |
| Medals | Counted by hand | Counted from squad lists |
| Running order | Scribbled on the night | Generated from the award list |
The next presentation
Tickets go on sale with a link in every team's channel. Coaches pick winners from their squad by the deadline; the few who have not are reminded. The engraving list goes to the supplier in one email. On the night, the compere reads from a running order with names spelt the same as on the trophies. And the event volunteer gets to enjoy the evening.
Does your presentation night look like this?
- Tickets are paid for in cash and by bank transfer.
- Coaches send award winners late or in odd formats.
- Trophies have been engraved with misspelt names.
- Medal counts are worked out by hand.
- The running order is put together at the last minute.