Shooting Club Case Study: How SSAA Newcastle Automated Training & Admin

SSAA Newcastle is a branch of the national body, Sporting Shooters Association of Australia. SSAA Newcastle is an authorised hunting and target shooting club that operates a range facility at Seaham, NSW. In addition to providing facilities for target practice, they offer firearm training, safety courses and host target-shooting competitions.

SSAA Newcastle has been using the Member Jungle system for just over 18 months, so we caught up with them to see how it has been going and what they think of it. 

SSAA Newcastle Logo

Modernising SSAA Newcastle: Moving Beyond Spreadsheets and Manual Email Lists

Unlike most organisations that use Member Jungle, SSAA Newcastle doesn’t have to manage its own membership renewals; the national body handles those. However, with over 7,500 local members, the branch still faced a massive administrative burden.

The Secretary for SSAA Newcastle explains that they reached a breaking point with their manual processes.

“What took us to Member Jungle was the need to communicate with our members through single-touch emails without using email lists. Obviously, having 7,500 members, it's very difficult to copy and paste a database from a spreadsheet into a BCC field.
 
“We also had a need to streamline training bookings and the administration related to providing training for our members. It was a significant manual process that was making contact with people through emails rather than just automated booking and ticket selling.” 
 

With a lot of manual processes and administrative work to do, SSAA Newcastle began looking for a better way to do things. 

Choosing an All-in-One Platform for Shooting Club Training and Communications

Before choosing Member Jungle, SSAA Newcastle, like so many membership organisations, was using a hodgepodge of different services and systems to run their club, including an Old MS script website and the email service Mailchimp.  

“When we looked at our web hosting, we looked at all of the comparable components that we had, combined them all into one. Member Jungle did it all and its price comparison was very similar to what we were spending on the total sum of the other offerings that we had,” the Secretary explained.  

Beyond that, the Secretary and Public Officer for SSAA Newcastle had already seen the benefits of Member Jungle firsthand through another shooting club. This personal experience as a member meant he knew exactly what the system was capable of before SSAA Newcastle made its decision.

“I actually had exposure to Member Jungle with another shooting club,” the Secretary explains. “I’d been a member of an organisation that was using Member Jungle, and had facilitated the administration in my own membership through the Member Jungle system and the app with those guys.”

SSAA Newcastle realised they could replace all their existing systems with Member Jungle for the same price and with less work for the admin team. On top of that, Member Jungle would help them run events and manage visits to their range, which their existing systems didn’t. So, they took the plunge and signed up with Member Jungle. 

The Results: Automated Firearm Safety Training and Range Pass Management

Since starting with Member Jungle, the SSAA Newcastle has seen a massive reduction in administration time as they continue to find more ways to utilise the system.

“It's cut down the administration of training by two-thirds,” the Secretary explains, “and it's also streamlined the communications with our member group.”

By using the system’s built-in tools, the branch has replaced manual back-and-forth emails with a self-service model for their members.

“We're basically running our training like an event on our page through the Events Module,” says the Secretary. “People can book into training, and the automated emails give them all of the information. You can cap your ticket numbers and just run your participant list and turn up at your training session.”

Beyond standard events, SSAA Newcastle has found that they can use Member Jungle to handle a wider range of operations than they originally thought. 

“We charge per visit at our range, so we use the membership function of Member Jungle to be able to sell a ticket or a membership for an annual pass to the range. We were able to look at existing components and adapt them for our individual needs without having to pay development costs,” SSAA’s Secretary explained. 

On top of these operational wins, SSAA Newcastle was able to move away from their outdated website and launch a site that actually worked for them.

“Member Jungle provided us with a significant opportunity to upgrade our website and make our website more interactive and easier to maintain and update with news and the like.”

As they look toward the future, the branch continues to find new ways to leverage the platform to simplify its workload.

“We're forever looking at different ways to explore what Member Jungle can do for us. We expect it to solve heaps of different administrative needs that we have.”

While those have been the major benefits for SSAA Newcastle over the last year and a bit, the decision has proven to be incredibly well-timed. Recent legislative reforms to Australian Firearm laws mean that almost all firearm owners who aren't Primary Producers must now join a registered club to maintain their license.

“That will certainly increase membership of all clubs everywhere that are registered,” said the Secretary.

Because they had already spent nearly 18 months centralising their operations, SSAA Newcastle was already prepared for this influx of new members, while other clubs were still struggling with manual spreadsheets.

The Verdict: SSAA Newcastle’s Advice for Other Shooting and Hunting Clubs

Finally, the Secretary and Public Officer for SSAA Newcastle gave his verdict on whether he would recommend Member Jungle to other gun and sports shooting clubs that are looking to manage their operations better and deal with the incoming membership spike due to recent law changes. 

“Don’t hesitate. The onboarding process is seamless, and it’s a true user-friendly system,” says the Secretary. “Using the back-end is easy. Like getting in and scheduling an event or getting in and scheduling an email to go out in 12 hours, all of that stuff’s quite easy to use.”

Ultimately, for SSAA Newcastle, the switch to Member Jungle was about more than just a new website; it was about creating a sustainable future for the branch and its volunteers.

“We certainly don’t regret the decision in joining Member Jungle and switching across from the numerous offerings. Centralising our administrative needs with one business was a smart decision and we don’t regret it.”