Whether your bowls club runs on BIAS, a stack of spreadsheets or a drawer of paper forms — the members come across in one go, and nothing about trying it needs a committee vote.
The membership list is the whole switching cost. Bowlside takes it in any of three ways, and the rest of the club builds itself around it.
Import the export file directly. It keeps both phone numbers for members who have two, and creates any membership categories the file mentions — Full, Social, Life — so nobody arrives uncategorised.
A CSV with an email column is enough; names, member numbers, gender and phone numbers come along if they're there. Two hundred members arrive in the time it takes to make the tea.
Add names as you go and invite by email. Some clubs load the committee first, run a fixture through, then bring everyone else over once they've seen it work.
A bowls club migration isn't two hundred people signing up on launch night. It's a slow trickle over weeks — and the invite flow is built for exactly that.
Links that email scanners can't spend
Corporate mail filters open links before people do. A Bowlside invite is only used when the member presses the button, so it survives the scanners.
Links that wait
An invite can sit unread for weeks and still work. Nobody has to be re-invited because they were on holiday when the email went round.
Invite everyone in one press
Bulk-invite every member with an email address, then watch the list: who's in, who's invited, who hasn't been invited yet — and whose email address is bouncing.
Members who never join in still count
A member with no email, or no interest in apps, lives in the directory like everyone else — selectable, printable, phoneable. The clubhouse screens and print pack carry them.
Import complete · 187 members
Signed up
Invited, not yet joined
Not invited yet
Email bouncing
No email address
A full year of Club, free
No card, no contract, no AGM motion required to have a look. Set it up over the quiet season and walk into the new one sorted.
Your data comes back out
Member lists and fixtures export to CSV any time, and cancelling never deletes your club's data. If Bowlside isn't for you, you leave with everything.
After the free year, your choice
Keep everything on Club, or move to the free Starter plan forever — unlimited members, fixtures and availability, one competition, one green, one league.
Send us your BIAS export or spreadsheet and we'll set the club up together — members in, categories mapped, first fixtures loaded — usually inside a day. Bowlside is built alongside working bowls clubs, and getting a club live before its season starts is the bit we care about most.
Talk to us about movingStart free today, bring the list over, and open the new season with availability, rinks and the leagues already running.