Guidelines for Club Registrars

Registration Form

Central Council are implementing an optional new Excel Spreadsheet based Registration process for 2008.

Do not assume that your players are Registered and/or Insured simply because you have emailed the Form – payment is still needed before processing commences and the Registration and payment has to be forwarded to Provincial and Central before being complete.

The spreadsheet is designed specifically for Microsoft Excel and is compatible with all Excel versions from 1993 to 2007 running on Microsoft Windows, XP or Vista. It is anticipated that completed forms will be eMailed as attachments to County / Provincial or Central Council as appropriate.

The purpose of this document is to explain how the spreadsheet Registration Form should be completed.

In all cases I recommend creating a Folder on a known location on your computer so that you can easily find the spreadsheets in the future and include them in any backup routine you may have. Perhaps create a Folder on your Desktop called Registrations and always be sure to ‘navigate’ into that folder when completing the ‘Save As’ instructions below. Otherwise Excel may just store your Registration Forms in its default location.

Note – a Sample of a completed Registration Form is included as the 2nd worksheet in the Spreadsheet. View the Sample Form by clicking on the tab called ‘Sample Form’ in the bottom left of the Excel window. Return to the Registration Form by clicking on the 1st worksheet tab called ‘Registration Form’ in the bottom left of the Excel window.

Preparation For Distribution

1. Open the spreadsheet and type in their club name in the Ainm An Club space on the Form in the white space on the top line.

2. Complete Chairperson Name and Chairperson Address, Secretary Name, Secretary Telephone Number and Secretary Address spaces in the top section.

3. Complete the Club Registrar (name), Address (eMail) and Telephone number in the white spaces on the bottom left of the form in the section above the County Registrars contact information.

4. Use the Save As menu option to save the Spreadsheet under a NEW name, such as RegForm2008-LEINSTER-DUBLIN-FoxCabGAA. This then becomes a personalised form ‘template’ for their Club for them to use for all subsequent Registrations.

a. The basic idea is that each time the Club Registrar completes a new Form they should save it with a NEW name based on an incrementing number appended to the end of the spreadsheet name, such as RegForm2008-LEINSTER-DUBLIN-FoxCabGAA-001 for the 1st Form they complete and RegForm2008-LEINSTER-DUBLIN-FoxCabGAA-002 for the second Form they complete etc.

b. This gives each individual Form a unique file name and will greatly assist with subsequent storage, retrieval and processing.

c. Care should be taken to change the Form name each time as this will guarantee that the Club Registrar doesn’t accidentally overwrite a previously completed and saved Form.

5. Email the individual completed spreadsheet Forms to your County Registrar using the eMail address provided on the Form.

6. It is recommended to print a copy of each Form to be sent with the Payment to their County Registrar as a Remittance Advice. Each Form is already setup to print on an A4 page in landscape.

Registering Players, Mentors & Officials

The spreadsheet Form is very similar, practically identical, to the paper form previously used. If the Club Registrar followed the Preparation steps above then they already have a template prepared with all the standard answers already entered into the spaces provided.

All that is missing is the entry of any Affiliation Fees and Players (etc) Details.

1. Continuing to use the naming convention outlined above, lstart by opening the template previously saved, RegForm2008-LEINSTER-DUBLIN-FoxCabGAA. The very first thing to do is to SAVE AS a new name, let’s say RegForm2008-LEINSTER-DUBLIN-FoxCabGAA-001 (this will prevent us accidentally overwriting our template Form).

2. If this particular Registration Form is to include Affiliation Fees then enter the monetary amount in the spaces provided for County / Provincial / Central amounts. Type in the appropriate amount, eg 25.00 – then the total of the monetary amounts entered here will be automatically included in the total cost of the Registration (and will appear as a total amount in the ‘Plus Affiliation Fee’ space).

3. The main body of the Form allows personal details for 15 Players / Mentors / Officials to be entered. For each person to be registered, type in their Firstname (Ciara), Surname (MacKenna), Address (12 River Avenue, Finglas, Dublin 11) in the spaces provided.

4. Click in the space under Status for this person you will notice that a little downward pointing arrow appears on a small grey square to the right of the space. This means that you must click on the arrow to display a menu of the choices you have for the Status. The choices are Juvenile Player, Adult Player, Manager / Mentor, Official / Officer, Referee – you should click on the Status that is appropriate for the person (eg Juvenile Player). Only these Status are allowed. That Status will then be displayed in the space when you move onto the next data space (Date of Birth).

5. If the person is a Juvenile Player then you are required to enter their date of birth. Dates should be entered in a specific format (eg 12 Jun 1994). The Date of Birth will be validated and it must be between 01 Jan 1989 and 31 Dec 2007.

6. After completing Date of Birth for a Juvenile Player (or leaving it blank for a non Juvenile Player) you may now enter in the monetary amount for County Board and Provincial Council registration as appropriate for the Status and Registration Fee Scheme currently in use for your County & Province.

7. The spaces for Central Council Registration AND Injury Fund are controlled by a similar drop down menu (like that used for the Status space). The valid values for Central Council Registration are 16.00 or the word Registered (meaning payment has already been made for this person and this is an update to that previously paid registration – such as for a change of address or corrected date of birth etc). The valid values for Injury Fund are 0.00, 5.00, 10.00, 25.00 or the word Registered.

As these values are entered they are added together and automatically included in the Totals section towards the bottom right of the Form.

8. Continue to add information for up to 15 people per form.

9. When all personal information has been entered the Club Registrar should enter the date they complete the Form in the DATE space to the right of their Telephone number in the bottom left section of the form.

10. It is recommended to print out a copy of the completed Registration Form to have a hard copy backup (always useful to have a legible paper copy to hand to handle queries from team managers etc during the year).

11. Any monetary amounts you enter will be added to any Affiliation Fees you entered and the Total Payable will be displayed in the Grand Total space on the form. The Grand Total is the amount that needs to be sent to the County Registrar for them to process this Registration Form.

12. While the County Registrar will receive this form by eMail they will, most likely, wait on your Club cheque to arrive as payment before processing the Form. Do not assume that your players are Registered and/or Insured simply because you have emailed the Form – payment is still needed before processing commences and the Registration has to be forwarded to Provincial and Central before being complete.

13. If you have more that 15 players to register then you need another empty Form to continue entering their personal information. Load up your template and save it as the next number up, eg RegForm2008-LEINSTER-DUBLIN-FoxCabGAA-002.

14. Take care with your naming of files so as not to overwrite a previous file. If you are ‘re-using’ a previously completed Form remember to delete Affiliation Fees and any Registration Fees that were previously entered as they will be included in the Grand Total unless you do so.

15. Once you have completed your Form or Forms for the set of Registrations you want to process you can Save and Exit Excel and go into your eMail program.

16. Compose an eMail addressed to the County Registrar and use the Attach option to browse to and select the particular Registration Forms you want to forward on. It is a good idea to state in your email text, the names of the Forms you are sending and the Grand Total of each Form plus the Overall Grand Total for the batch of Forms you are sending.

17. This Overall Grand Total is the amount of the payment you will need to provide by normal means. This will make it easier for the County Registrar to process your Registration quickly and efficiently.