Booking the Club Crane or a Club Boat Online

You need the crane on a Saturday morning to lift your boat out, or you would like to take one of the club dinghies out on Wednesday evening. If your club offers online bookings, you can book the club crane or boat from the club website yourself, pay by card, and see every booking you have made in one place. This guide walks through what you click, what you see and what arrives in your inbox.

Every club sets its resources up differently, so some of what follows depends on your club's settings: the price, how long each slot is, how far ahead you can book, how many bookings you can hold at once and whether someone on the committee has to approve your request. Where that is the case, we say so.

Finding the resource you want

Bookable resources live on the club website's bookings page, headed Book Resources. Resources are grouped into categories, such as boats or facilities, and each category card shows how many resources are available in it.

Pick a category, then a resource. Each resource card tells you three things before you go any further:

• Slot length: a full day, or slots of so many hours or minutes.
• Price: the cost per slot, or "Free".
• Members only: shown as a badge if the club has restricted the resource to members. If you are not signed in, you will be asked to sign in before you can book it.

On the resource's own page you will also see a Requires approval badge if a committee member has to approve each booking.

Booking the club crane or boat: choosing a date and slot

The resource page shows a calendar. Days you can book have a small dot under them. Days are greyed out if they are in the past, if every slot is already taken, if the club has blocked that date (for a maintenance day or an event, say), or if they are further ahead than the club allows bookings to be made. If a whole month has nothing free, the calendar says so and suggests trying the next month.

1. Choose a day on the calendar.
2. Under Available times, choose a slot. Slots that are already booked are struck through, and earlier slots on today's date cannot be chosen.
3. Check the summary under Book this slot: the date, time and price.
4. Add anything the club should know in Notes (optional), such as the boat you are lifting.
5. Press Book Now, or Request Booking if the resource needs approval.

You book one slot at a time. If you need two slots back to back, book the first and then repeat the steps for the second.

If your club has set a limit on how many bookings each member can hold for a resource, and you have reached it, you will see a message telling you the maximum number of active bookings allowed. Past and cancelled bookings do not count towards that limit, so once one of your bookings has happened you can book again.

On a busy weekend two people can occasionally pick the same slot at the same moment. If someone else confirms it first, you will be told the slot has just been booked and asked to choose a different time.

Paying for your booking

What happens next depends on the price and whether approval is needed.

• Free, no approval needed. The booking is confirmed straight away and you receive a "Booking Confirmed" email.
• Paid, no approval needed. You are taken to a secure Stripe card payment page. Once you have paid you land on a Payment Confirmed page and receive a "Booking Confirmed" email with a receipt attached.
• Approval needed. Your request is sent to the club and nothing is charged yet. See the next section.

Payment is by card only. If you close the card payment page without paying, the booking is released and no payment is taken, so start again from the resource page when you are ready. A booking that is still unpaid 72 hours after you made it is cancelled automatically so the slot can go to someone else.

When the club has to approve your booking

Some clubs want a person to check each crane lift or each use of a club boat, for example to make sure a qualified operator is available. For those resources you will see the message "Booking request submitted — awaiting approval", and the booking appears in My Bookings as Pending Approval. The club is emailed about your request; you do not get an email at this stage.

When the committee has looked at it:

• If it is approved and the resource is free, you receive a "Booking Confirmed" email and the booking shows as Confirmed.
• If it is approved and there is a charge, you receive a "Payment Required" email with the invoice attached, and the booking shows as Awaiting Payment. Go to My Bookings and press the Pay button on that booking. Pay promptly: the 72-hour clock for unpaid bookings runs from when you first made the request, not from when it was approved.
• If the club cannot accommodate it, the booking is cancelled and you receive a "Booking Cancelled" email with the reason.

Seeing, changing and cancelling your bookings

My Bookings, in the members area, lists everything you have booked under Upcoming and Past & Cancelled. Each booking shows its date, time, price and status: Pending Approval, Awaiting Payment, Confirmed, Cancelled or Completed. If your club has switched on bookings, there is also a bookings card on your members dashboard.

To cancel an upcoming booking that you have not paid for yet, including a free booking or a request still waiting for approval, press the cross on the booking, add a reason if you like, and confirm with Cancel Booking. You will receive a "Booking Cancelled" email.

Once a booking has been paid for, you cannot cancel it online. Contact the club instead: whether you get a full refund, a partial refund or none is up to the club, and the committee member handling it will cancel and refund the booking from their side. You will receive an email confirming the cancellation, which says so if a refund has been issued.

Sometimes the club needs to move a booking, for instance if the crane is out of action for a morning. If that happens you will receive an email headed "Your booking has been moved", with the new date and time and any note from the club, and the change shows in My Bookings.

There is no automatic reminder before a resource booking, so put the date in your own diary.

Booking as a guest

If your club opens a resource to non-members, the Members only badge will not appear and anyone can book it from the website without an account. Guests enter their name, their email address (twice, to avoid typos) and optionally a phone number, then choose a slot in the same way.

A guest booking a paid resource that does not need approval pays by card straight away. If the resource needs approval, the guest receives a "Payment Required" email once the club approves it, containing a secure payment link. That link opens a page showing a booking summary and the total to pay, with a button to pay securely by card. It stops working if the booking is cancelled, including when it goes unpaid for 72 hours.

Guest bookings are kept separate from member accounts. If you are a member, sign in before you book so the booking appears in your own My Bookings list.

Common questions

How far ahead can I book? Your club sets this per resource. The calendar simply stops offering dates beyond it.

Can I pay by bank transfer? Resource bookings are paid by card. If you have an arrangement with the club, speak to them; any other invoices you have are covered in paying your club subscription online.

Where does my money go? Card payments go to your club's own Stripe account, not to us.

Where to go next

If you are a committee member wondering how these resources are set up in the first place, read setting up bookable club resources. New to the members area? Start with joining your club online. For an overview of everything members can do once they are signed in, see the member portal, the resource booking feature page and the full list of features.