A hobby club website that answers when, where and how to join
A club website has two audiences. Newcomers want to know whether they'd fit in, when you meet and how to turn up. Members want this month's fixtures and where to pay their subs. Anticode builds a site for both: the meeting details and joining form up front, fixtures in a CMS collection the secretary can update, and subs paid through a link from the club's own payment account.
What a newcomer needs to see
Joining a club is a small act of nerve. Someone who's been meaning to try the chess club, the camera club or the local astronomy society reads the website looking for permission to turn up. The questions are nearly always the same:
- When and where do you meet? Day, time, venue with its full address, and how often.
- Can I just come along? Say plainly whether newcomers can drop in, need to email first, or should come to a particular kind of night.
- What's it like? A few lines on a typical evening, with a photo of a real meeting.
- Do I need to be good at it, or own kit? Beginners' questions answered without jargon.
- What does it cost? Visitor fees, annual subs, any concessions.
- Who do I talk to? A named contact, through a form rather than a published personal email.
Put all of this on the home page of the hobby club website. A newcomer shouldn't have to click through to a constitution to find out what night you meet.
What members come back for
Members return for the programme: talks, matches, outings, competitions, the AGM. That's the part that changes every month, and the part most club sites let go stale because only one person knows how to edit it.
In Anticode, keep the programme as a CMS collection called something like fixtures, with typed fields edited in the dashboard: date, title, venue, a short description, and who's leading it. The collection appears as a listing at /fixtures/ and a page per event at /fixtures/<slug>, which gives each match or talk a link to share in the club chat. Adding next month's programme is a matter of filling in a few entries, not redesigning a page.
- Book club
- Collection of books: title, author, meeting date, who's hosting, a line on why it was picked.
- Walking or cycling club
- Collection of routes: date, start point, distance, pace, leader.
- Camera club
- Collection of meetings and competitions, with set subjects and entry deadlines.
- Board game or wargames society
- Collection of sessions and campaigns, plus a list of games the club owns.
Joining, and where the forms go
A joining form should ask little: name, email, phone if you text members, and how they heard about the club. The built-in contact form asks for a name, email and message, so separate fields like these mean a custom form tied to a site function (up to 30 plain-text fields). Each submission is saved to the project, sealed at rest, and can be emailed straight to the membership secretary. If the committee shares the work, send each one on through a connector:
- Google Sheets, for a membership list the treasurer can also see.
- A Discord or Slack channel, if the committee talks there.
- Mailchimp or Kit, for a newsletter sign-up kept separate from joining (newsletter sign-ups only).
Free sites show 100 submissions a month by default and hold the rest until you upgrade, which is plenty for most clubs. The community group membership sign-ups workflow covers what to do once someone has joined.
Collecting subs
The site doesn't hold a payment system of its own. Create a checkout link in the club's own account with Stripe Payment Links or PayPal (or Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Shopify or Whop if one of those suits you better). There's one payment link per account, so every button opens the same checkout; set it up at the provider to offer each fee type (full membership, concession, visitor night), and write the amounts on the joining page. Payments go to the club's account, and the treasurer reconciles them against the joining forms.
Sharing the work
Club websites die when the one person who could edit them steps down. A Team workspace lets the secretary, the programme organiser and the treasurer each have their own access; members of a workspace can edit but can't delete the project or take the site down. Recent saves are kept in version history, so a mistaken edit can be undone. Write a three-line note in the committee handbook on where the site lives and who has access.
Limits
- No members-only pages. Minutes, phone lists and anything confidential stay out of the site; share them by email.
- No automatic renewal reminders. Use your payment provider or email tool for annual subs.
- No event sign-up limits. A form can't close itself when an outing is full.
- No forum or comments. Most clubs use a chat group for discussion and the website for facts.
Questions people ask
Can members log in to see a members' area?
No. Published Anticode sites have no member logins, so keep private material off the site.
Can I list our fixtures from a spreadsheet?
Fixtures are entered as CMS entries in the dashboard. Form submissions can go to a spreadsheet, but the site doesn't read fixtures from one.
Do we need our own domain?
Not to start. A free anticode.dev address works, with a small "Made with Anticode" badge. A custom domain needs a paid plan; see pricing.