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How-To Guides 27 May 2026 · 6 min read

Creating Your First Volunteer Roster: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough

From your first role to your first published shift — here's exactly how to set up roles, build a roster, create shift templates and add shifts in Club Volunteer, screen by screen.

There are four building blocks in Club Volunteer: Roles (the jobs you need filled), Rosters (the events or seasons you're organising), Templates (reusable shift patterns) and Shifts (the actual slots volunteers sign up for). Set them up in that order and your first roster takes about 15 minutes.

Here's exactly what to click.

Step 1: Create your roles

Go to Roles in the sidebar and click Add Role. Give it a name your members already recognise — Gate Duty, Canteen, Ground Setup, Scorer, Timekeeper — and an optional description that volunteers will see when they're choosing a shift.

Repeat this for every job your club needs covered. You only do this once — roles carry over season after season, and you can switch any role to Inactive later without deleting it if you retire a position.

Tip: if you already have a list of roles in a spreadsheet, use Import CSV on the Roles page instead of adding them one by one — a single column called role_name is all it needs.

Step 2: Create a roster

Go to Rosters and click Add Roster. A roster is the container your shifts sit under — usually a season ("2026 Home Games") or a single event ("Presentation Night"). Give it a name and, if it's useful for your committee, a short description.

Most clubs only need one or two active rosters running at a time — one for the season, maybe another for a one-off event like a gala day.

Step 3: Build a shift template

Go to Templates and click Add Template. A template is a shift pattern you'll reuse every week, so you define it once instead of re-entering the same details for every round:

Create one template per shift your typical game day or event needs. For a home game that might be three or four templates: Ground Setup, Gate Duty, Canteen Morning, Canteen Afternoon.

Step 4: Add your first shifts

Go to Club Roster and click Add Shifts. This is where your templates turn into real, date-specific shifts. The modal walks through three steps:

  1. Select Date(s) — click every date you want these shifts to run on. You can select an entire season's worth of home games in one go.
  2. Roster — choose which roster these shifts belong to.
  3. Role Templates — tick the templates that apply. Each one shows its role, name, time and volunteers required so you can confirm before saving.

Click Save Shifts and every ticked template is created on every date you selected. Set up a full 22-round season in the same amount of time it takes to set up one round.

Two shortcuts worth knowing: if you only need a single one-off shift, skip templates entirely and use Role Entry mode to define it manually. And if next week looks identical to this week, use Copy a Day to duplicate an entire day's shifts onto new dates instead of rebuilding them.

Step 5: Share your volunteer link

As soon as you've saved your first shift, your public volunteer page is live. Share it with your members through your newsletter, club Facebook page or committee group chat. Volunteers pick a shift, enter their name and email, and they're registered — no account required on their end.

Adjusting shifts after they're live

Made a mistake, or need to change a start time for one specific date? Click Edit on any shift in Club Roster to update its name, volunteers required, start/finish time, roster or active status — without touching the template it was built from.

What you've actually built

Four roles, one roster, a handful of templates, and a season's worth of shifts — all in around 15 minutes, and all reusable next season with a few clicks instead of a rebuild from scratch.

Build your first roster today

Roles, rosters, templates and shifts — set up your whole season in about 15 minutes. 30-day free trial.

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