Handing over a club website when the committee changes

Most club websites do not die dramatically. They fade. The person who built it takes a job in another city, or steps down as secretary, or simply gets tired, and with them goes the only login, the only copy of the photos and the memory of where the domain name is registered. Six months later the AGM notice is a year out of date, the "latest news" is from the last committee, and nobody can change it.

This is the single-admin problem, and it is entirely avoidable. This post covers how to set a site up so it survives a change of committee, what to do on handover day, and what to do if you are already in the mess.

Why it happens

Clubs run on volunteers whose roles change every year or two. Websites, however, are usually set up by one enthusiastic person on one afternoon, using their own email address and often their own payment card. Everything is registered in their name because that was the quickest way to get started.

That is fine until it is not. The usual failure points are:

• The site is registered to a personal email address. Password resets go to someone who no longer reads that inbox.
• The domain name is in a personal account. The renewal comes out of someone's card; one expired card and the web address stops working.
• Nobody knows what is connected. The contact form goes to one person's email, the mailing list sits in another tool, and the photos are only on a phone.
• The knowledge is in one head. There is no note of what was done or why.

Principle 1: the club owns it, not a person

Everything should be registered to the club, in a way that survives any individual leaving. In practice that means three things.

Use a role-based email address. Create something like webmaster@ or secretary@ (a free mailbox is fine if you do not have your own domain yet) and use it, and only it, to sign up for the website, the domain registrar and any other tool. Give two or three committee members access to that mailbox, using the provider's own sharing or delegation features where they exist. When someone leaves, you remove their access to the mailbox; you do not have to change every account.

Pay from a club account. Whether it is a £7 monthly subscription or a £12 annual domain renewal, the card or bank account should belong to the club. If a treasurer pays personally and claims it back, make sure the receipts are in the club's name.

Record the legal owner of the domain. If you buy a domain, the registrant should be the club (or its legal entity), not a member. Some registrars let anyone be listed as owner without checks, and sorting it out later is a nuisance.

Principle 2: more than one person can get in

The cleanest answer is a platform that lets you add several administrators to one site. If your tool does that, add at least two people and review the list at every AGM.

Where a tool ties a site to a single account, which is how Natterio works at the moment (each site belongs to one account), the equivalent is the shared role-based email. Natterio signs you in with an emailed link or with a Google account, so anyone who can open the club's shared mailbox can sign in as the site owner. That makes the mailbox the real key, and it is worth treating as one: use a strong password, switch on two-step verification, and keep the recovery details somewhere the committee can reach.

This is a trade-off, not a perfect answer. A shared login means you cannot tell who changed what, and it only works while you trust everyone with mailbox access. If your club needs separate named editors with different permissions, check that your platform offers that before you commit.

Principle 3: write it down

A one-page handover note beats any amount of goodwill. Keep it in the club's shared drive, not on a laptop. It should list:

1. Where the website lives (platform name, plan, web address) and the login email.
2. Where the domain is registered, when it renews, and who pays.
3. Where enquiries go: which email address the contact form sends to.
4. What else is connected: mailing list tool, payment links, social accounts, analytics, Google Business Profile.
5. Where the original files are: logo, photos, constitution PDFs, kit designs.
6. How to make the common changes: update the fixtures, post a notice, change training times.
7. When things need updating: start of season, AGM, when subs change.
8. Who to ask for help: the platform's support address and the previous webmaster, if they are happy to be contacted.

Do not put passwords in this document. Use a shared password manager, or a sealed envelope held by the chair for the truly old-fashioned.

Handover day checklist

When a webmaster, secretary or chair steps down:

• Confirm the site and domain are registered to the club's role-based email, not the outgoing person's.
• Add the incoming person to the shared mailbox and password manager.
• Remove the outgoing person's access, including from any social accounts they administered.
• Change the passwords, or re-set the sign-in on the shared mailbox.
• Update the "who to contact" page and any personal names on the site.
• Walk the new person through making one real change (post a notice, change a time) while the old person is watching.
• Update the handover note and put the date in it.
• Set a diary reminder for the domain renewal.

If your site includes member data, make sure the outgoing person does not keep a copy of the membership list. This matters under UK data protection law: a former officer holding personal data on their own devices is a risk the club is responsible for. Our guide to GDPR for small clubs and charities covers the basics.

If you are already stuck

Perhaps the former webmaster has gone quiet and the committee cannot get in. In order of effort:

1. Ask politely and give them a way out. Most people are relieved to hand it over. Send a short email asking for a credentials reset or for them to add the club's address.
2. Use the platform's account recovery. If you can access the email address the site was registered with, a password reset is usually enough.
3. Contact the platform's support with proof that you represent the club, such as minutes appointing the new officer. Be patient; support teams have to be careful not to give a site to the wrong person.
4. Check the domain separately. Search the domain's registration details, or ask the registrar. Without control of the domain you cannot point it elsewhere.
5. Rebuild if you have to. If the old site is unrecoverable, a fresh one with the club's own login can be live in an afternoon, and the old content can be copied from the public pages. It is less painful than it sounds, and you will have a note for next time.

Keep an export

Whatever you use, keep a copy of your own content. Photos, text, committee documents and any lists should exist somewhere that is not the website itself. Natterio lets you request an export of what you have added, but the habit matters more than the tool: once a year, at the AGM, check that the club could rebuild the site from what it holds.

Making it routine

The simplest fix is to put website handover on the committee's calendar:

• At every AGM, review who has access to what, and update the handover note.
• At every election, make "sort the website login" a named action for the incoming officer.
• Once a year, check the domain renewal date and the payment method.

If you are choosing a platform now, it is worth asking early: how would a new volunteer take this over? If the answer is "they would need my password", that is the thing to fix. If you are starting out, a simple site built on the club's own shared email avoids most of the problem. You can start free on Natterio with a club mailbox, or see pricing for what each plan includes.