Supporting a growing athletics club without losing the community feel

Stronger foundations for a growing club

Swindon Harriers has been part of the local athletics community since 1996, bringing together runners and athletes of all ages across Swindon.

Today, the club supports more than 450 members aged from seven to 77, with opportunities across track and field athletics, cross country and road running. Like so many grassroots clubs, it is powered by volunteers who give up their time week in, week out to keep everything moving.

As the club evolved over the years, keeping everything organised became more difficult for the volunteers supporting the club behind the scenes. Wanting to create stronger foundations for the future while protecting the community feel at the heart of the club, Swindon Harriers began using Thrive4Grassroots to help make day-to-day operations feel more manageable.

When grassroots clubs outgrow old ways of working

Growth is a brilliant sign for any grassroots club. More members means more people enjoying sport, stronger community connections and more opportunities for athletes to develop.

But growth can also highlight areas where clubs have simply outgrown the ways they have operated for years.

For Swindon Harriers, managing memberships, renewals and payments was becoming increasingly difficult to stay on top of as the club expanded.

Treasurer Ray Bell explained, “We had a paper-based membership system. We needed to monitor annual membership renewals, annual and monthly subscriptions requiring logging circa 300 payments a month, and had to identify non or late payments.” - Ray Bell, Treasurer of Swindon Harriers

Like many volunteer-led clubs, more and more time was being spent trying to keep track of everything behind the scenes, leaving less capacity to focus on the wider club experience and long-term development.

Creating stronger foundations for the future

Wanting to make things feel more sustainable long term, Swindon Harriers looked at ways to create more visibility and structure across the club.

By bringing memberships, payments and club information into one place, the committee was able to feel more organised and reduce some of the pressure on volunteers throughout the season.

“Monitoring has been substantially reduced as we now have visibility of those who have not paid without having to check all the receipts.”

For many grassroots clubs, it is not about becoming overly formal or “corporate”. It is about creating stronger foundations that support volunteers, help clubs plan ahead more confidently and make growth feel manageable as participation increases.

More confidence heading into the future

With clearer structures in place, Swindon Harriers has been able to spend less time trying to keep everything moving behind the scenes and more time focusing on the people that make the club what it is.

The committee now feels in a much stronger position heading into future membership seasons, with more confidence in how the club can continue supporting its athletes, volunteers and wider community as it grows.

For grassroots clubs, creating that breathing space can make a huge difference. It gives volunteers more time to focus on developing athletes, supporting families and building the kind of club environment people want to stay part of long term.