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A club secretary signs up for a grant portal using their personal Gmail. They correspond with the council, the insurance broker, and the state sporting body from that same address. They save documents to their personal Google Drive. They keep a contacts list in their phone.
Eighteen months later, they step down. Everything they knew, every email thread, every saved document, every contact - gone. The new secretary starts from zero. They don't even know what they don't know.
This happens at roughly 60% of community clubs every time a committee turns over. It is the single most preventable governance failure in community sport.
Here's how to set it up properly. It takes about two hours. Those two hours will save the next committee hundreds.
Step 1: Get a club domain
If your club email is `sunburyfc@gmail.com`, you're one forgotten password away from losing access forever.
Register a domain. `sunburyfc.org.au` costs about $20 per year. Google Workspace for Nonprofits is free for eligible organisations - that gives you email, Drive, Calendar, and admin controls. Microsoft 365 for Nonprofits is also free.
If you're a registered not-for-profit, you almost certainly qualify. The application takes 15 minutes and approval usually comes within a week.
Step 2: Create role-based email addresses
Do not create `john.smith@sunburyfc.org.au`. Create:
- `president@sunburyfc.org.au`
- `secretary@sunburyfc.org.au`
- `treasurer@sunburyfc.org.au`
- `registrar@sunburyfc.org.au`
- `info@sunburyfc.org.au` (general enquiries, forwarded to the secretary)
When John steps down as president, you change the password and hand it to the next president. The email history, the contacts, the sent items - they all stay with the role, not the person.
This is the single most important thing in this article. If you do nothing else, do this.
Step 3: Set up a shared drive
Every document the club creates should live in a shared space that the committee can access. Not in someone's personal Dropbox. Not as email attachments.
Create a folder structure that makes sense:
References
- Google Workspace for Nonprofits - Free email, Drive, and Calendar for eligible not-for-profit organisations
- Microsoft 365 for Nonprofits - Free Office 365 and cloud storage for registered nonprofits
- TidyHQ - Club management platform with role-based access and committee transition tools
- Australian Sports Commission - Club governance resources including committee handover checklists
- Volunteering Australia - Research on volunteer turnover and knowledge loss in community organisations
Header image: Classico 5 by Robert Ryman, via WikiArt
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