How to start a club in 7 steps

There's a version of "starting a club" that sounds enormous - a name, a logo, a committee, a constitution, a plan for the next five years - and it puts a lot of people off before they've begun. Forget most of that. Nearly every club I've come across started with a few people who wanted the same thing on the same evening and decided to just make it happen, and everything that looks organised about it now got added later, once there was actually something to organise. So if you've got an idea for a club rattling around and a nagging feeling you're not "ready", here's the honest news: you're readier than you think. A club is really just a regular reason for the same handful of people to turn up and do a thing together, and you can start that this month.

This is the light, get-going version, aimed at an informal hobby or sports club. If what you're building is bigger - something that'll grow into a proper organisation with real money, contracts, maybe staff one day - the longer guide on starting a membership organisation covers the governance side properly, and you'll want that eventually. But you almost certainly don't need it to start. Let me carry one example the whole way through to keep this concrete: the Kenari Badminton Club, a casual weekly badminton group you're thinking of starting in Bekasi because the courts near you sit half-empty on weeknights and you're tired of rounding up players over WhatsApp one match at a time. We'll come back to Kenari at every step.

Step 1 - work out what it's actually for

Before anything else, say in one plain sentence what the club is for and who it's for - a sentence a normal person would actually say out loud, not a mission statement stuffed with "community" and "empowering". For Kenari that's something like "a friendly weekly badminton night in Bekasi for working adults who want a regular hit, whatever their level". That's the whole thing. It quietly tells you who you're for (working adults, any level - so not a competitive squad chasing tournaments, not a kids' coaching programme), when you'll meet (weekly, evenings), and by implication what you're not. Get this one sentence right and a surprising number of later decisions answer themselves, because whenever you're unsure about something you can just ask whether it fits the sentence.

Keep it small on purpose. The temptation is to promise a bit of everything - coaching, tournaments, socials, a league - so it sounds impressive. Don't. A club that does one thing reliably beats one that does five things badly, and you can always add later once the core is humming. One good night a week that people can count on is plenty to be going on with.

Step 2 - round up the first few people before you build a single thing

This is where a lot of good ideas quietly die: someone spends three weekends making a logo and a sign-up form and a fancy group, then goes looking for members and finds there were only ever four genuinely interested and two have gone quiet. Do it the other way round. Go and find your first handful of players while the club is still just an idea in your head, because if you can't get eight or ten people actually keen before you've built anything, more building won't rescue it - it usually means the idea needs a small tweak, or the timing's off, and it's far cheaper to learn that now.

For Kenari that's a few messages in the right WhatsApp groups, a word with the two mates you already play with, maybe a quick ask in a neighbourhood or office chat. You're not selling anything - you're just watching for the difference between "oh nice, when's the first one?" and polite silence. For a badminton night you want enough for proper games, so aim for a core of eight to twelve who say yes, knowing a few will melt away. Don't hold out for fifty. A dozen keen people is a club; fifty lukewarm names on a list is not.

Step 3 - decide what members actually get

Once you know a few people are in, sort out the small set of things a member can expect - and keep the list honest and short. For Kenari that's the weekly court and games, a lively WhatsApp group so nobody's chasing players one by one, and maybe, down the track, the odd friendly match against another club or a shared order of decent shuttlecocks at a better price. That's genuinely enough. You don't need a membership card, a member handbook, or a tiered "silver and gold" scheme for a badminton night, and reaching for that stuff early is a classic way of feeling busy while the actual club hasn't happened yet.

The thing members are really paying for (in money or just in showing up) is a good, reliable night among people they like. Everything else is trimming. So be plain with yourself about what the value actually is - for a hobby club it's almost always the regular gathering and the people, not the perks - and make sure that core keeps showing up week after week. Perks are nice; a court that's always booked and a group that's always alive are the point.

Step 4 - set simple dues, small and easy to understand

A badminton club has a real, recurring cost the day it starts - the court - so unlike a club that can run free for a while, you'll want to sort out money early. But keep it dead simple. Work out roughly what a session costs, divide it across the people who turn up, and add a little slack. For Kenari, court hire might run Rp 60,000 - 80,000 an hour and you're booking two hours, so call it Rp 120,000 - 160,000 a night; add a tube of shuttlecocks at Rp 90,000 - 130,000 and you're at roughly Rp 210,000 - 290,000 a session. If sixteen people usually show, that's about Rp 15,000 - 18,000 each - so you might set monthly dues at Rp 50,000 - 70,000, or just take a flat Rp 20,000 at the door each week and not overthink it.

Which model you pick matters less than being open about the maths. Show people the sum - "court plus kok is about 250 ribu a night, split between us it's twenty each" - and nobody feels squeezed, because they can see exactly where their money goes. Start on the low side; you can nudge dues up later if costs climb, and that's a far easier conversation than starting too high and having people quietly decide it's not worth it. If you get to the point of setting proper annual dues and want to think it through properly, there's a whole piece on working out what to charge - but for a weekly hit, honest arithmetic and a round number will do you fine.

Step 5 - pick a simple way to collect the money and track who's in

You need two humble things here: a way to collect dues without chasing cash around a sweaty court, and a way to know who's actually a member and who's paid. At the very start, a QRIS code taped to your phone case and a spreadsheet (or honestly just a note in your phone) will carry a small club a long way, and there's no shame in that - don't buy or build anything clever for a dozen people. The WhatsApp group doubles as your comms channel, so that box is already ticked.

Where the spreadsheet starts to hurt is when you're squinting at it every week trying to remember who's paid this month, re-typing the same names, and quietly covering the shortfall yourself when three regulars "forgot". For a club collecting dues every week that ache tends to arrive early - somewhere around the 20 - 30 member mark, or the second month of doing it by hand. That's when a proper membership tool earns its place, because it does the remembering and the collecting for you and you get your evening back. Anggota is built for exactly that moment and it's free to start, but the honest advice is the same as for any tool: reach for it when the manual version becomes a genuine hassle, not before. If the spreadsheet's still comfortable, stay on the spreadsheet - the club is the badminton, not the admin.

Step 6 - just run the first one

Now book the court and play. This is the step people put off longest, waiting for everything to feel ready, and it never quite does, so book a date, tell your keen dozen exactly what to expect - where, when, what to bring, roughly how much - and run it. The first night doesn't need to be slick, it needs to happen and to feel friendly, because the people at that first session are the ones who'll bring the next lot along. Get the games flowing, make sure nobody's standing awkwardly on the sideline all night, and you've done the important part.

Do give everyone a proper welcome, especially anyone who came alone or new to the group - a quick introduction, a "come partner with me for a game", a genuine glad-you-came. It costs nothing and it's the difference between someone coming back and someone quietly deciding it wasn't for them. That first impression sets the tone for how the whole club feels, and it's worth a bit of thought - if you want the fuller version of getting newcomers to stick, there's a guide on welcoming new members that goes deeper. Then, plainly, ask people to bring a friend next week. Word of mouth is how nearly every small club grows, far more than any poster or post.

Step 7 - keep it going, which is the unglamorous bit that actually matters

Starting a club is the easy part - a burst of enthusiasm carries you through the first few weeks. Keeping it going once the novelty fades is the real work, and it's mostly about being boringly reliable: same court, same night, the games happen whether or not you feel like organising them. People build their week around a club they can count on, and they drift away from one that's on-again-off-again. So protect the regular slot fiercely in the early months, even on the weeks when only six people show and you're wondering whether it's worth it. That wobble is completely normal - most clubs go through a patch of thin turnouts before they settle - and it is not a sign you've failed.

The other thing that keeps a club alive is spreading the load, and the sooner the better. If everything - booking, collecting, chasing, remembering the shuttlecocks - lives with you alone, you'll burn out by month four and the club goes with you. Hand small jobs to people early: someone who books the court, someone who keeps the group buzzing, someone who does the dues. People stay where they feel some ownership, so a member with a little job is far more likely to still be there next year than one who's only ever turned up and hit. Beyond that, don't obsess over the finer points - a website, a logo, matching shirts, a proper league. Those are nice, and they're also the last 10%; a club lives or dies on whether the night is any good, not on whether the logo is. Get the basics steady - people turning up, having a laugh, coming back - and let the rest arrive slowly, if it arrives at all….

Once the club's going and it's the tracking and collecting that's eating your evenings rather than the badminton, that's the bit Anggota is built to take off your hands - members, dues, payments and the group all in one place, free to start. But plenty of good clubs run happily on a QRIS code and a spreadsheet for a long while first, so start with whatever's simplest and only upgrade when the admin, not the ambition, tells you it's time. The ideas here hold whatever you run it on. Above all, good luck with it - your area could do with one more regular night where the same friendly faces turn up to do the thing they love, and somebody has to be the one who finally starts it.