How Gymnastique Québec centralized the management of 100+ clubs without forcing anyone to switch tools

If you run a sports federation, you know the headache: Excel files arriving by email, databases that don't talk to each other, and clubs that no longer know what information they've sent you. Here's how Gymnastique Québec got out of it.

100+

Affiliated clubs managed in a single platform

7

Disciplines managed in one tool

1 click

To remind every club that hasn't completed its affiliation

9/10

The score Alexandra gives Activity Messenger

“We've really centralized almost everything in Activity Messenger. It's made a big difference.” – Alexandra Castonguay, Director of Operations and Communications, Gymnastique Québec Introduction Gymnastique Québec is the federation that oversees gymnastics across the province: more than 100 clubs, tens of thousands of members and several disciplines, from artistic gymnastics to trampoline, that aren't all managed the same way.

Just three years ago, affiliations and competition registrations ran through an Access database, Excel files and a lot, a lot of emails. Today, almost everything runs through Activity Messenger: affiliations, registrations, events, training, forms and newsletters. And no club was forced to change software.

The Situation

The federation's database used to live in Access, available only to the Gymnastique Québec team. To affiliate their members or register them for a competition, clubs filled out an Excel file and sent it by email, then the federation team imported the data themselves. “The number of emails we could receive in a year, for affiliations as well as registrations, was really high.” The workload was heavy, but the real problem was errors. Data was copied and pasted by hand. When an athlete changed category mid-season, the information didn't update in every database. A club would send one file, then a second one… Every error set off a new chain of emails on both sides. And the clubs never saw the information the federation had on file. “Those were the biggest pain points: time and errors.” Switching tools was anything but obvious. More than ten years earlier, the federation had tried another platform and imposed it on every club. It failed, and Gymnastique Québec went back to Access, a tool it kept control of. As Alexandra puts it, Access wasn't completely inefficient: “It was slow, but it worked.” The federation needed a solution that would fix the errors without repeating the missteps of the past. The Solution Starting small to build trust The federation didn't move everything over at once. It first used Activity Messenger to replace two tools: its newsletter tool and its forms tool. When the time came to replace Access, the team already knew how Activity Messenger worked and how quickly the platform adapted to its requests. Gymnastique Québec laid out its needs, and the solution was built together, piece by piece. “We told ourselves: if it works for Gymnastique Québec, with all its particularities and several sports managed differently, it should work for everyone else.” A transition prepared with the clubs, not imposed on them Alexandra set herself one goal: make this transition go smoothly. Before launch, the team: Held many meetings to configure the platform to its needs; Picked test clubs to validate the experience on their end; Created a step-by-step video guide for each affiliation form, plus illustrated digital guides; Gave clubs a heads-up before the setup was even finalized. The most important message fit in a single sentence: “You'll keep using whatever software you want in your clubs. You don't need to use Activity Messenger to affiliate with the federation.” A club that uses another software, or even a simple Excel file, exports its data, and the import into Activity Messenger takes a few clicks. For clubs, it takes almost no extra time. But they now have full ownership of their data. In their portal, they can see at any time whether an athlete or coach is affiliated in the right category. No more blind back-and-forth. Automatic reminders in a single click “We used to go into an Excel file to check off whether every club had done it, then send another email to everyone who hadn't. Now, the automation lets us just say: resend to everyone who hasn't done it.” No more checking off a list by hand, or risking forgetting the seventh club that was checked off by mistake. The system checks who hasn't completed their affiliation and sends them the reminder. Follow-ups and approval chains are automatic too: when a form comes in, the right email goes out on its own. The feature that changed everything: bulk registration With bulk registration, the federation creates a form that pulls information directly from each club's portal. The club selects its members from a list and registers them for a competition or event in a few clicks, without ever seeing other clubs' information. For competitions, it's the end of Excel files sent by email, then sent again because someone was missing. Clubs draw on their own up-to-date database, and the risk of error drops accordingly. The Results “Access barely exists anymore. We've really centralized almost everything in Activity Messenger.” Today, Access is only used to manage online results. Affiliations, registrations, competitions, events, forms, newsletters: everything else is centralized in Activity Messenger. And because the platform is simpler to use and configure, several people on the team can now manage affiliations and registrations, instead of just one. For Alexandra, the goal goes beyond time saved. With fewer errors and fewer emails to handle, the team can focus on what really matters: improving its programs and offering better service to its members. The clubs have seen the federation's efficiency up close. Dozens of them now use Activity Messenger for their own registrations, and others come to the team asking to set up something similar for their club. Support that keeps up, in French “When we write to you and there's a bug, it gets fixed really quickly.” For a federation that entrusts its entire database to a platform, service matters as much as the tool. Alexandra highlights three things: a Quebec company, service in French and the same time zone. She also points to the platform's ability to adapt to very different disciplines. What works for women's artistic gymnastics also has to work for trampoline. So why not 10 out of 10? “I'll give it a 9, just because I'd like our training platform to be on Activity Messenger.” That 10th point? It's one of the next development phases at Activity Messenger. More on that very soon. If you run a sports federation, Gymnastique Québec's story shows you can modernize your management without pushing your clubs around. The secret? Centralize everything on the federation's side, and let each club work its own way. Watch the full interview (in French): Sports federation: switching software without pushing your clubs around

What Gymnastique Québec uses

Almost all of the federation's management now runs through Activity Messenger.

Club and member affiliations

Bulk registration by clubs

Surveys

Automations

Newsletters (email marketing)

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