Wetherby Bridge Club started using Pianola in 2013. The club has over 300 members and we play five times a week.

Before Pianola, we used to manage our membership list and membership renewals with Excel spreadsheets.

Our main challenge was that the spreadsheets never really tallied up to each other or with the BridgeWebs database. As a consequence, it was difficult to keep track of membership renewals.

Pianola makes our lives a lot easier in so many ways

A friend from a neighbouring bridge club spoke to us about their positive experience with Pianola and we decided to give it a go, to improve our membership management system.

Initially when we decided to try Pianola we were apprehensive, because we were not IT literate. We were scared of trying things that were different from what we were used to doing. However, we found Pianola really easy, because it is intuitive. We have shown to all committee members how to use it and they have not had any problems or difficulties.

The club secretary brought the idea of trying Pianola to the club committee. The person responsible for IT at the club gave a demonstration of its functions and the committee members had a chance to ask their questions. After that, we agreed to try Pianola on a fixed-term trial. We sent Pianola our spreadsheets and the Pianola team uploaded all the data for us; this meant that we did not have to do any conversion and that it came to us ready to use.

"Without Pianola...no way! I would resign my post!"

At the end of the trial, the process of buying Pianola was straightforward. The majority of committee members, led by the secretary and the person responsible for IT, were its main supporters. A couple of our older members were wary to start with, but after they had seen Pianola in action, they were immediately convinced.

The committee had a discussion about BridgeWebs, because some members wondered whether there was going to be any duplication. In the end we decided to keep both tools, because they are both useful, but in different ways.

We like how Pianola makes our lives a lot easier in so many ways. The main benefit of using Pianola for us is knowing that the members' data are accurate, secure, and stored in one single place. The database is also efficiently linked with the EBU.

Most of all, our members enjoy seeing the results quickly, the possibility of analysing their performance and the Pianola partner finder. This feature brings more people to the club, which helps pay for Pianola!

"Without Pianola...no way! I would resign my post!" Liz Welborn (Membership Secretary) and Anne Kimberley (Club IT Manager) Wetherby Bridge Club