Controlling Meet Nominations
Decide whether active membership is required, recommended, or optional when parents nominate swimmers for a meet.
What You'll Accomplish
You'll learn how to set the Membership Requirement on each meet, understand what parents and admins see under each setting, and know when to use each option.
Each meet has a Membership Requirement setting that controls whether a swimmer needs an active club membership to be nominated for events. You can set this per meet — useful if you run different types of meets with different rules.
Setting the Membership Requirement
The Membership Requirement is found in the meet's settings, not during initial meet creation. Here's how to set it:
Open the Meet Details screen
From the meets list, tap the meet card you want to configure. You'll see the meet summary with event counts, nominations, and the Nominations toggle.
Tap Edit
Tap the Edit button at the top of the Meet Details screen. This opens the full set of meet properties.
Tap Membership Requirement
Scroll to find Membership Requirement. The default value is No Restrictions. Tap it to open the selection dialog.
Choose your setting and tap OK
Select one of the three options and tap OK. Then tap Save at the top of the Edit Meet screen to apply the change.
The Three Options
No Restrictions
Anyone can nominate swimmers without membership checks.
No membership check is performed when a parent or admin nominates a swimmer. Membership status is ignored entirely for this meet. This is the default for all new meets.
Best for:
- Casual or trial meets open to all swimmers
- Multi-club invitationals where you don't want to enforce your own club's membership rules on visiting swimmers
- Meets held before your club has set up Registration Dues
- End-of-season or fun meets where membership has lapsed
Warn if No Membership
Show a warning but allow nominations to continue.
When a swimmer without an active membership is selected, a warning dialog appears. Both parents and admins see the warning and can choose to continue or cancel. The nomination is not blocked — it's the parent's or admin's decision whether to proceed.
Best for:
- Transition periods when your club is migrating to the app and not all members are registered yet
- Meets where membership is strongly encouraged but not strictly enforced
- Giving parents a nudge to register without turning them away
Membership Required
Parents cannot nominate without active membership. Admins can override.
When a swimmer without an active membership is selected, parents are blocked with an "Unable to Nominate" message and cannot proceed. Club admins see a different dialog and have the option to nominate the swimmer anyway.
Best for:
- Regular season meets where paid membership is a condition of participation
- Enforcing your club's membership policy automatically without manual checking
- Any meet where you want the app to do the membership gatekeeping for you
What Parents and Admins See
The experience differs between parents and club admins, and also depends on the swimmer's specific membership situation.
Warn if No Membership
| Who | What they see | Can they proceed? |
|---|---|---|
| Parent | "Membership Warning" dialog — explains the swimmer has no membership or an expired one, notes that membership is encouraged but not required. Options: Continue Anyway or Cancel. | Warning Yes, if they tap Continue Anyway |
| Admin | Same "Membership Warning" dialog with the same options. | Warning Yes, if they tap Continue Anyway |
Membership Required
| Who | What they see | Can they proceed? |
|---|---|---|
| Parent | "Unable to Nominate" dialog — explains the swimmer has no membership, an expired membership, or an inactive membership. Tells them to contact their club admin. No option to continue. | Blocked No |
| Admin | "Swimmer is not a member" dialog — same explanation but with a Nominate Anyway button alongside Cancel. | Override available Yes, via Nominate Anyway |
The dialogs don't just say "no membership" — they tell you exactly what the situation is: the swimmer has never registered, their membership has expired (and shows the expiry date and how many days ago), or their membership exists but is not currently active. This makes it easy for parents to understand what they need to do.
Important Things to Know
If your meet has more than one invited club, membership checks are skipped entirely regardless of the Membership Requirement setting. This is intentional — you can't enforce your own club's membership rules on swimmers from visiting clubs.
Swimmers who have been manually registered by a club admin have an active membership for the purposes of meet nominations. They will pass the membership check the same as a parent who paid online through the app.
Each meet has its own Membership Requirement. You can have some meets open to all swimmers and others restricted to members only. This is useful if you run both club-only training meets and open invitationals.
Every new meet starts with No Restrictions. If your club policy requires membership for meet participation, remember to update this setting each time you create a meet.
Recommended Setup for Most Clubs
If your club requires paid membership to compete, here's the approach that works well for most clubs:
- Set up your Registration Dues and open registration to parents
- Use Warn if No Membership for your first few meets of the season while parents are still registering
- Switch to Membership Required once registration has settled and most members are registered
- Use Manual Registration to add any members who paid through another mechanism so they can nominate without issue
Common Questions
Head back to Registrations & Payments for an overview of all the admin tools available to you.
Need Help?
If you need assistance with meet nominations or membership requirements:
- Contact form: swimclubconnect.com/contact-us
- Email: ad***@*************ct.com
- Facebook: facebook.com/swimclubconnect — video tutorials and community support
- Include: Your club name, the meet name, and a description of what you're seeing