Basketball England is pleased to announce our new membership portal will be launched at 10:00am on Tuesday 30th July. From that point on, members will be able to register for the 2019/20 season.
Our current membership portal is 15 years old, and the world has moved on a lot since the mid-2000s! The expectations of our members have changed, and we want to be able to do more to service you in order to get the most from Basketball England and the sport you love. Our new portal will reduce administration time and make sure your experience is the best it can be when registering each year and interacting with our staff.
The current portal had limitations in how it integrated with the other platforms we use (competition management “game day”, referee deployment “Assignr”, DBS checking, safeguarding etc.), the new portal will give us greater scope to add new features and functionality. As our membership portal is a key tool to our organisation, it needs to stay up-to-date and flexible, and help every person and club comply with the GDPR requirements. Each year we will take further feedback on refining the system and adding services that can be available to you 24/7.
For the first time, our membership portal will also give users a snapshot of all of your key information in one place. With a “Single Customer View”, you will be able see your membership information, a record of your qualification, achievements and CPD.
We have scoped the membership system so it is capable of registering all our variations of membership, including players, coaches and officials to then assign to clubs and local leagues through a protected online registration process. It has been designed to help every individual and club comply with the GDPR regulations and to accept payments simply online. We have also built in documentation uploading and checks for qualifications and safeguarding assurance.
It is very specific to basketball, meaning a lot of complex decisions have had to be made to accommodate the way the sport is run. We have also had to plan how and when we could add in the other sections of our online platform to keep the portal evolving. This hasn’t been easy!
We’ve researched best practice and new membership portals at other National Governing Bodies (NGBs) to look closely at how they have improved the member experience. Sport England, as a key funder of sport, also want to see NGBs modernise and engage all their members effectively. Many NGBs are now adopting digital improvements to member registration just like we are now.
Finally, we have engaged a number of our clubs to provide us with feedback. That has been invaluable, as has the information we’ve received from regional road shows where we showcased the portal across the country to clubs, members and local associations. A big thanks to everyone involved!
Aside from some of the new additions mentioned above, the main difference for the new portal features individual registrations, rather than having a club secretary or registrar sign up multiple people. This means every individual who wishes to be a Basketball England member will be required to sign on to the membership portal.
The new membership portal also provides additional opportunities for us to improve our Safeguarding procedures. We take our Duty of Care very seriously and for the upcoming season, we’ll be introducing DBS checks & Safeguarding training for registered Bench Personnel. We’ll have more on this in the coming weeks.
The look and feel of the new portal is very different, with a modern user interface. Here's a quick look at "My Locker" the main landing area for users when you get started on our new portal.
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Umbraco.Web.PublishedContentExtensions.Value[T](IPublishedContent content, String alias, String culture, String segment, Fallback fallback, T defaultValue) in D:\a\1\s\src\Umbraco.Web\PublishedContentExtensions.cs:line 165 at ASP._Page_Views_Partials_grid_editors_mosquito_Media_cshtml.Execute() in E:\webs\basketballengland.co.uk\htdocs\Views\Partials\grid\editors\mosquito\Media.cshtml:line 7 at System.Web.WebPages.WebPageBase.ExecutePageHierarchy() at System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage.ExecutePageHierarchy() at System.Web.WebPages.WebPageBase.ExecutePageHierarchy(WebPageContext pageContext, TextWriter writer, WebPageRenderingBase startPage) at Umbraco.Web.Mvc.ProfilingView.Render(ViewContext viewContext, TextWriter writer) in D:\a\1\s\src\Umbraco.Web\Mvc\ProfilingView.cs:line 25 at System.Web.Mvc.Html.PartialExtensions.Partial(HtmlHelper htmlHelper, String partialViewName, Object model, ViewDataDictionary viewData) at ASP._Page_Views_Partials_grid_editors_mosquito_Base_cshtml.Execute() in E:\webs\basketballengland.co.uk\htdocs\Views\Partials\grid\editors\mosquito\Base.cshtml:line 19
In short, we want to improve the efficiency of registration, strengthen the ownership and security of your data and ensure our information is as accurate as possible.
It is very important that we protect your personal data. By asking our members to register themselves, sensitive information and documents can be provided directly to us. This cuts down on administration and creates ownership of the personal data that you as a member hold. Also, if your information changes in any way, you can quickly and easily log into the portal and make an adjustment.
Our members have also told us they want better communication and a direct relationship with Basketball England. Being able to contact you and keep every member up to date with rules, regulations, advice, new opportunities and services will really help everyone get more from the game. By moving to a new system, we will have added functionality and we can’t wait to engage with so many more of our members.
Of course! We’ll be sure to help all our members once the new system launches and we also have a lot of assistance planned between now and the end of July.
We’ve already created some helpful tools to get our members up to speed. There will be:
Once the portal goes live, we will be hitting the road across the country in August, hosting drop-in sessions for people who want face-to-face assistance with registering, or for anyone who wants to find out more about the system on behalf of their club.
At this stage we would like as many members as possible to be aware of the improvements we’ve made with our new portal. It would be really helpful if you could share this first communication with members of your club, league or association, including anybody with parental responsibility for young members, as there will be a need for every member to sign on to the membership system in 2019/20. Members under the age of 18 will need to be registered by a person with parental responsibility.
Next, we’ll be providing more specific information on our tools to help people register, including dates that the member “test site” will be available for you to get familiar with the way to register. We will also share when and where regional drop-in sessions are going to be held.
We’re sure you will have plenty of questions on the new portal and how it will work, and we’ll aim to answer all of them in the communications that are planned between now and the end of July. If you do have a question that hasn’t been covered by us though, simply contact us using the button below and we’ll be happy to help.
