Problem
Fragmented admin made joining, payments, member records and league organisation difficult.
CASE STUDY / KNIGHTS OF ÉANNA
Knights of Éanna Digital Platform
Modernising a chess club’s website, membership payments and internal admin workflows.
Decision
Created a website and CRM for online membership, payments, consent and committee workflows.
Outcome
More members joined online, payments improved, and committee admin became clearer, faster and more reliable.
Observed Patterns
Joining was dependent on manual follow-up
Prospective members did not have a clear route from interest to joining.
Payments were disconnected from membership admin
Membership payment relied on chasing and informal reminders.
Member data was more relational than individual
Households, juniors, guardians and consent made a simple member list insufficient.
League organisation depended on committee knowledge
Setting up teams and contacting players required manual coordination.
DECISION 01
Make joining public and self-serve
I created a clearer public website so prospective members could understand the club and join online without relying on manual enquiry handling.
DECISION 02
Treat membership as households and relationships
The CRM needed to support adults, juniors, guardians and household relationships, not just a flat list of individual members.
DECISION 03
Make payment part of the membership journey
Membership payment needed to be connected to joining and renewal workflows, rather than handled as a separate follow-up task.
DECISION 04
Keep admin tools simple enough for real committee use
I avoided overbuilding complex self-service or merge tooling too early, and prioritised practical admin workflows that committee members could manage.
DECISION 05
Build consent and privacy into the system
Because the club includes junior members, consent and provisional records needed to be treated as part of the product workflow, not as an afterthought.
What I Built
Public website
A clear public-facing website for club information, prospective members and online joining.
Online membership flow
A simpler joining route connecting membership details, payment and committee follow-up.
Club CRM
An internal system for managing members, households, guardians, renewals, consent, reporting and admin workflows.
League team administration
A simpler workflow for setting up league teams and contacting players.
AI-assisted Development
I used AI-assisted development workflows to move quickly from operational problem to working product.
AI helped speed up implementation support, iteration and validation, while the product decisions stayed grounded in the club's real workflows, data responsibilities and privacy needs.
I did not automate judgement-heavy admin decisions. Any AI support stayed read-only and constrained around membership, household, renewal and consent data.
Results
The clearest gains showed up in payment completion, new member enquiries and day-to-day committee workflows.
21%
increase in membership fee payment
400%
increase in new membership enquiries
- Membership increased after people could join online.
- Membership payment completion improved significantly.
- Committee admin became simpler and more reliable.
- League team setup and player contact became much easier.
- The club moved from fragmented manual workflows toward a structured digital operating system.
This project shows how I turn messy real-world operations into clearer digital systems.
It combines product judgement, UX thinking, delivery fluency, AI-assisted development, privacy awareness and practical delivery decisions.
It is intentionally different from a polished concept project: it is a working system shaped around real users, real constraints and real organisational change.