Online versus Onsite Registration

On This Page:

• Payment of Fees for Players
• Proof of Age
• Recruitment of Volunteers
• What about signed forms?
• Summary

Many question whether going to online registration will loose the chance to recruit volunteers. Many regions in Section 2, Area A have been doing 100% online for many years and not found this to be the case. Here are the trade-offs in doing online versus on-site registration and there experiences. This applies to player and volunteer registration as usually both are done together when on-site.

Payment of Fees for Players

AYSO does not allow credit card processing and payment in general. But online registration can be setup to allow and use it. Many of our regions found requiring paper checks was a large hassle for everyone involved — treasurers and registrars alike. This because checks would still bounce (and incur fees), you had to be prepared to make change and handle cash, and checks had to be totaled, tallied and deposited. With credit card processing, everything is kept electronic and deposits are automatic. The registrar still has to verify each online payment and then go in and indicate the payment has been received. But this has to happen whether check or credit card. For those who do not want to pay by credit card, they can use a Paypal account or mail in a paper check.

Proof of Age

Player proof of age is not photo ID like for volunteers. So they are never being matched up in person. But you do want to help parents protect the child's identity. So we setup a secure fax line via one of the online fax services. We receive the fax via secure email / webpost. Once the age is verified for a new player, we shred the electronic paperwork. Be careful about accepting the documents via email. Most email is totally unsecure. But if the parent does not care about sending the birth certificate copy via email after being warned, you could accept it that way as well. The fall back is to have parents US Mail the copy to the registrar.

Recruitment of Volunteers

Our experience shows that the number of active, solid volunteers has not dropped since going online. In fact, it has dramatically reduced the time commitment of our existing volunteers thus leading to them being able to do more productive work. While registration events can be big team building exercises, we find our parents and volunteers just too busy these days. They get the team building via school functions and the like. And in fact, outside of board meetings, most recruiting really happens at school events or other places the parents of children meet up (scouts, other sports, PTA, music, etc). So it still relies on face to face eventually.

We found that gauntlet during onsite registration led to many commitments that were not followed through on. People would simply check boxes to get out of there or sign up a spouse. Then someone had to sort all the paperwork, give it to another board member for each specific job (possibly make copies as more than one box was checked), and then manually phone call the person assuming they wrote the correct phone number.

As part of our online registration system (Web Youth Soccer, not eAYSO), we have the electronic equivalent of the volunteer gauntlet. We have a list of all the hundreds of volunteer jobs. Included is a description of the job and how many spots are available. Only those jobs still available appear. So this is an incentive for people to register early to get the better jobs before they fill up. We also put all the courses there so coaches and referees can sign up for their training. When people login to WYS, the jobs they volunteered for appear right at the home page of the screen after logging in. The person overseeing the volunteers has a list of authenticated volunteers that they can simply email or call from data that comes from the player / volunteer registration form. So they can simply blast email all the volunteers who signed up. (Works great for instructors as this is still not supported in eAYSO course roster system.) Web Youth Soccer also supports showing for each team which parents have volunteered for what. So we can incorporate commitments into team balancing like refereeing, coaching and the like. We generally do not list _Team Parent_ as a job because (a) everyone choses it, (b) as teams are not formed, no one knows who will be on what team yet, and (c) we let the coach chose his team-level volunteer jobs at the first practice and make it clear that team parent is not one of the ways to get through the volunteer "committment" (not a requirement but strongly encouraged).

What about signed forms?

For player forms, we do not need a signed form until the player actually participates. When registration happens in April or May but the first practice is after summer vacation in August, that is a long time to store, sort and redistribute a form that has not really yet been needed. So we simply tell the coaches (and parents) they need to sign 2 or 3 forms at the first practice. No signed form, no participation. We distribute the problem out to the coaches and greatly reduce the collection, sorting and redistribution problem. We then collect a signed form from the coaches for the registrar to keep. The coach gets as many signed forms done as he needs to give a set to each assistant coach or co-coach — this differs with each team.

For volunteers, they must receive training every year. Either a job specific or a continuing education course. So we collect the forms and check ID's then. Especially with the (finally) recent update to http://aysotraining.org/ to allow volunteer applicants to take online training before they are registered. So now volunteers can become applicants (formerly called pre-registered), take their certification (BASIC or Safe Haven) and then come to the training with their signed, paper registration form and certification class certificate in hand. Although we are using an online registration process, we do not accept the new esign signature at this time for various reasons.

Summary

Our busy parents greatly appreciate the convenience of online payment and registration. It saves our registrar and treasurer a lot of time, not to mention the rest of the board. We still have to do as much work recruiting but can start with the online "recruitment" list now. We do not loose paperwork as it is not shuffled around and re-handed out. We still get all the paperwork needed in time for when needed. Pretty much all region records and season information is all online so all board members can collaborate and manage the region effectively with emails and rarely have to handle any paper what so ever. Player registration happens quicker and easier now. We can more easily remind parents of their volunteer commitment via blast emails and when they login to see the status of their child's registration and team placement. Overall, we would never go back.

---