Run your retention round

At the end of each season the club decides which players it is keeping, and every family deserves a clear answer, delivered with care, before they start looking elsewhere. Retention in your programme sidebar is where the whole round runs: your coaches' recommendations, the club's decisions, the phone calls and offers, the deposits, and the shape of next season's squads.

• Retention appears in the programme sidebar once your club has switched it on. If you can't see it, ask your club administrator.
• The deposit and how long families have to accept are set club-wide under Settings, in Payments. You'll see the exact figures again before anything is sent, so agree them with your club before the round opens.
• The letters families receive are your club's own wording, under Settings, in Offers & Release Messaging. Read them before your first round, and ask your club administrator if the wording needs changing.
• Your coaches record their recommendations from their phones. Let them know the round is coming (see below).

Your coaches see these players every week, so their view comes in before yours. Each squad's coaches mark every player Retain, Unsure or Release, with a note, while the coach recommendation window is open. Their side is covered in Recommend who to keep.

The window opens by itself once the final review block of the season begins, but opening it that way doesn't notify anyone, so tell your coaches yourself. If you'd rather open it now, pick an optional Auto-close date at the top of the board and select Open window. Clubhouse asks first: Open the recommendation window? lists the coaches it will notify under each squad and shows the notification word for word. Your coaches hear nothing until you select Open window and notify, which counts them, for example Open window and notify 12 coaches. Not yet leaves the window as it was.

Once the window has closed, Reopen window appears only while some players are still waiting on a recommendation. It asks in the same way (Reopen the recommendation window?), says how many players are still waiting, and notifies the coaches again only when you select Reopen window and notify.

Each coach's notification reads:

Retention recommendations are open Share your Boys Youth retention recommendations — they guide the club's decisions for next season.

Tapping it opens their Retention tab:

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Once the window is open, the board keeps count under the four steps described below, for example "27 players still waiting on a coach recommendation", until it reads "All 76 coach recommendations in".

dashboard.clubhouseapp.com.au

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Across the top, the round reads as four steps: Decided, Offers out, Awaiting reply and Secured. Select any of them to narrow the list to those players, and select it again to see everyone.

• Decided shows a fraction, such as 16/76, with a 60 to decide reminder under it while decisions are outstanding. That reminder is your to-do list.
• Anything that needs you appears under the step it belongs to: 2 calls to log or retained players who still need a squad under Decided, 3 expired under Offers out, and offers expiring within 48 hours under Awaiting reply.
• When the list is narrowed, a button beside the search box says so, for example Showing still to decide. Select it to see everyone again. It's the quickest way back on a phone, where the four steps have scrolled out of view.

Each player's Coach rec column shows how many of their coaches have recorded a view, such as 1 of 1 voted, but not what they said. On a phone, each player is a card instead, with the same Coach rec, Next season and Progress labels and the player's next step at the bottom right.

Select Decide on a player's row. The Record retention form opens with the reminder "Decisions are private to staff. Families never see this record."

1. Under Decision, choose Retain (offer a place for next season) or Release (not offered a place next season).
2. For a retained player, Kept for sets their squad next season. It's usually the next age group up, already suggested for you.
3. Tick any Reasons that apply, such as Development on track, Attendance concerns or Playing up an age group.
4. Add a Private note for context your colleagues will need, such as a conversation with the family.
5. Select Save decision.

You decide before you see what your coaches said. Until you save, the form lists each coach under Coach recommendations are hidden, marked Recorded or Not yet. When you save, the confirmation ("Nothing has been sent. Decisions go out when you send them to the whole squad.") shows What your coaches recommended, with each coach's call and note. That order is deliberate: the club's decision shouldn't be anchored by the room. If their view changes your mind, select Change decision. You can change any decision until the squad is confirmed.

Kept for matters more than it looks. It's the squad the offer letter names, it decides what the family pays (a senior place has no fee), and it's where the player appears in next season's planning. A retained player without one blocks the squad: the row shows Set squad in place of the offer button.

When every player in a squad has a decision and every retained player has a squad for next season, the squad heading shows Ready to confirm. Select Confirm decisions.

Confirming sends nothing to families. It locks the squad's decisions and your coaches' recommendations, and makes Send… available. Until the squad is sent, Reopen undoes the confirmation. Once it has been sent, it can't be reopened.

Confirming a squad is the last step on this page. What comes next has its own pages:

1. Tell the families. Call the released families first, then send the squad's offers and releases in one checked step: Tell families your retention decisions. That page also shows the offer exactly as a family receives it.
2. Follow up. Deposits paid at the club, families who need more time, an offer for the wrong squad and offers that expire are all handled from Manage on the player's row: Follow up retention offers.

The board lists offers. To see next season's squads, go to the programme's Squads page and set Season to next year, for example 2027 (planning). Every offer appears under the age group the player is being kept for, and each group counts how many are confirmed and how many are still awaiting a reply.

That view is provisional: it's built from the offers, so it's always current, but next season's squads aren't created until the club changes over. See Build your squads.

• All 76 coach recommendations in shows under the four steps before you start deciding.
• Every squad heading reads Ready to confirm, then confirmed, with every retained player kept for a squad next season.
• Next season's Squads page, set to the planning season, shows each offer under the age group the player is kept for.