How to Streamline Your Registration Process for Summer Camps

Wade Jacques

Customer Success

"Renee estimates that Communal reduced her workload for managing camp registrations from 30 hours to 5 hours. With Communal automating manual processes that once inhibited growth, North Glenmore was able to double the size of their camps."

Introduction

The North Glenmore Park Community Association is a not-for-profit organization with the goal of connecting residents through programs and events for all ages. Since 2017, they have been running various summer camps that provide hundreds of kids with an exciting opportunity to make new friends and learn new skills.

Renee, the office administrator, was looking for a way to simplify the registration process for parents. She was having a hard time finding the right solution since the summer camps were only available to members of their association. They wanted to move to an online solution, but they couldn't find something that could also handle their membership needs.

She chose Communal as it eliminated her manual tasks and made it easy to require membership for registration, set age requirements, manage online waivers, and implement waitlist capabilities.

The Situation Before Communal

North Glenmore Park's summer camps were becoming increasingly popular, and the organization needed a way to reduce the administrative burden that was impeding their ability to expand the program.

Prior to implementing Communal, the North Glenmore team relied on downloadable PDF forms available on their website. Parents would complete these forms manually and send them back to the admin team.

“Once the forms were received from parents, we had to process the payment on our POS terminal, receive the payment in our accounting software to get a receipt, email a confirmation and receipt to registrants, and track the registrations and wait lists on a printed list or spreadsheet. It wasn’t a sustainable solution”

Overall, the registration process took the North Glenmore team over 30 hours to complete. The extensive list of manual tasks was causing significant stress for their team and frustration for parents.

Solution with Communal

Communal streamlined the administrative manual processes that were once trivial, allowing the North Glenmore team to focus on growth.

No more manual data entry:

Instead of manually entering registration details in a spreadsheet or list for each registration, Communal automatically captures and associates parent and child information with the correct summer camp.

“Previously, we had to manually and continually update spreadsheets/lists with registration and wait list information. Occasional human error occurred after receiving applications and not adding them to registration lists, therefore overselling camps. This problem was completely solved with Communal.”

Online member-only registrations:

Previously, the North Glenmore staff had to manually check if a registering parent was a member of the association and manually process payments. Communal allows the entire member-only registration process to be moved online, automatically checking if a parent is a member and triggering the purchase of a membership if necessary.

“Because all our payments were manual, we also had privacy issues with parents emailing credit card and personal information. This risk was removed with Communal. They also make it easy to require a membership to register.”

Drastic workload reduction:

“Communal solved all our problems. The amount of staff time saved with Communal was a huge win, but the amount of pressure it takes off the staff is also noteworthy. Communal makes it easy to require a membership to register, to require a certain age for registration, and to easily join the waitlist when camps are full.”

Looking Forward

As North Glenmore Park continues to grow its summer camps and other program offerings, it's excited to have an all-in-one system that perfectly matches its needs. With administrative tasks, payments, and communications streamlined, Renee and her team can focus on growing their impact in the community.

“With our ever-growing demand for our summer camp programs, we simply would not be able to handle registrations without Communal”