The Boys and Girls Club of Seymour is improving its security, efficiency and ability to communicate with parents, donors and volunteers by implementing a new club management system.
MyClubHub is being piloted at the Seymour club and will go live Monday.
Club director Ryon Wheeler said the system gives staff a better way to track how kids are spending their time while at the facility and provides valuable functions to streamline processes and creates data to fuel improvements.
"We are the very first boys and girls club in the country to pilot this, so we are club number one out of 4,000 clubs in the country," he said.
Features of the system include front desk check-in and check-out capabilities, surveys and assessments, dashboards and reporting, email and text communications, management of donors, events, fees, incidents, volunteers, programs, staff, sports leagues and other functions.
Wheeler was on the planning committee that helped build the system.
Instead of having separate systems for each function, all of them will be included in MyClubHub and they can be customized, Wheeler said.
The system will even provide website hosting and a new club website will be launched Monday too.
"That will save us money, because we currently pay a monthly fee to host a website," Wheeler said.
Right now, MyClubHub isn’t costing the Seymour Boys and Girls Club and it will use a grant from the Community Foundation of Jackson County to upgrade its technology and pay a coordinator.
After the first year, it will cost around $1,400 a year to maintain, which will end up being cheaper than what the club is currently paying for software, Wheeler said.
The system allows staff to have more time working with youth than completing administrative duties and paperwork, Wheeler said.
Time spent filling out paper enrollments and entering that data into the system is eliminated.
"It takes us out of the dark ages with pen and paper," Wheeler said.
It also provides a better interface with parents and club members through an online portal, he added.
Parents will be able to receive a text or email notification that their child has checked in or out of the club and they also will receive alerts if there is an emergency at the club. They also will be able to pay memberships and donors will be able to make donations through the new system. It also will track volunteer hours and staff schedules.
Jacky Noden, director of client success with MyClubHub of Boys and Girls Clubs of America, said the Seymour Boys and Girls Club will be the first one to use the system. It is being built by clubs for clubs, she said.
Staff from the national organization have been on site this month helping train Seymour’s staff and prepare for the launch. That support will continue to be available to the club to work out any problems or issues.
All current club members already will have a MyClubHub account created for them using the club’s existing database, Noden said.
If they haven’t already, members will be issued new club cards.
"Parents will need to go in and update their records," she said. "We want to make sure we have good, current contact information."
The goal has always been to take away administrative duties so staff can spend more time working with kids, Noden said.
"Anything we can do to make their lives easier so that they are spending time and making a difference with kids," she said.