Season planning checklist

Twelve weeks out: decide and budget

• Confirm which programmes and divisions you are running, and roughly how many athletes you expect in each
• Book venues. This is the item that constrains everything else and the one with the least flexibility
• Total your season costs and set your registration fee
• Decide your hardship and scholarship policy, and how it is funded
• Confirm insurance and governing body affiliation for the coming season
• Identify which coaching and volunteer roles are unfilled

Ten weeks out: build the registration

• Build the registration form — keep it short
• Set capacity per division, and decide what happens when one fills
• Attach the waiver so it must be accepted before submission
• Set up payment, including instalments if you offer them
• Decide whether processing is absorbed or added at checkout, and write the sentence explaining it
• Test the whole flow on a phone, as a parent, end to end

Eight weeks out: open registration

• Open it, and announce it to last season’s families first — they are your highest-converting audience
• Start background checks on new coaches and volunteers now; they take longer than you expect
• Begin recruiting the volunteer roles you identified, asking specific people for specific tasks
• Approach sponsors while budgets are being set, not in January

Six weeks out: chase and confirm

• Send a reminder to families who have not registered. Most non-registrations are forgetfulness, not a decision
• Confirm venue bookings in writing. Verbal bookings become other people’s bookings
• Order uniforms and equipment, allowing for delivery being late
• Check background check status for everyone who will have contact with athletes

Four weeks out: teams and fixtures

• Close registration, or move to a waitlist
• Run tryouts or placements if you use them
• Build the rosters
• Build the fixture list and check it against venue availability
• Assign officials
• Publish the schedule to families

Two weeks out: people and logistics

• Confirm every coach has the access they need, and can actually log in
• Train whoever is scoring games — on the screen they will use, not on the admin panel
• Distribute uniforms and record who has what
• Send families everything they need for week one: time, venue, parking, what to bring
• Confirm first aid provision and that someone qualified will be present

Week one

• Check attendance at every session — it is your first read on whether registrations turned into attendance
• Chase outstanding payments now, while goodwill is high
• Collect the nice-to-have information you deliberately left off the registration form
• Ask one coach what went wrong, and fix it before week two

Mid-season: the check nobody does

• Are attendance patterns showing anyone drifting away? Act while you still can
• What is outstanding financially, and who needs a quiet conversation?
• Is any volunteer visibly doing too much? That is your next resignation
• Book next season’s venues. Yes, now — this is when they get taken

End of season: before you forget

• Collect equipment back and record what did not come back
• Thank sponsors specifically, with evidence of what they got, and ask about renewal
• Thank volunteers by name for specific things
• Reconcile the finances and compare against the budget you set twelve weeks before the season started
• Write down what went wrong while it is fresh. Next season’s committee will not remember, and may not be you

How this works in Ligue

Most of this sequence lives in one place: registration and payments, Schedule Manager for venues and fixtures, background checks alongside staff roles, attendance from week one, and financial reporting to close the season against the budget you started with.

Season planning: common questions