Climbing club: from Google Sheet to Kreneau
A climbing club in Paris with around a hundred members, ten slots a week, and a Google Sheet to know who was coming to which session. A very common setup, which worked for a while, and then ended up costing more than it returned.
The starting point
The principle was simple: a shared spreadsheet in which members wrote their name next to the sessions. For a club of that size, it is the natural reflex. Everybody knows the tool, it is free, and it is shared with a link.
The problem was not visible at first. It appeared with use, week after week.
What the spreadsheet actually cost
Time, every week. The following week had to be prepared: copying the slots across, putting the formatting back in order, checking that the dates matched the right days. At least ten minutes a week, more than forty minutes a month, for work that produced nothing new.
Formatting to maintain. A spreadsheet open to a hundred people does not stay tidy on its own: one moved cell or one row inserted in the wrong place is enough to make the sheet less readable for everybody else. It has to be straightened out regularly.
A risk of getting dates wrong. In a spreadsheet, nothing guarantees that "Tuesday 14th" really falls on a Tuesday, or that last week's date was not copied across. That kind of mistake can go unnoticed until somebody turns up at the wrong session.
Members who could no longer open the sheet. This is the point that made the club switch. The link did give everyone the right to edit the table. Yet the club's inbox regularly received requests for "editor" access from members who were locked out. Some had to copy the link by hand every time to open the file, which had not been the case before. Others could not open it from the app on their phone, while everything worked on a computer. Nobody ever found out what was blocking it.
The only thing that worked: creating a new sheet and resharing the new link everywhere. In the club's WhatsApp group, on its website, and with the partner associations allowed to climb on certain days. After yet another episode of this kind, the club decided to change tools.
What was set up
The club recreated its slots on a Kreneau sign-up sheet.
Roles inside the slots. Sessions distinguish coaches from climbers. Each person picks their role while signing up, and the sheet shows directly whether a session has its coaching, without having to count names again.
A template for the ordinary week. The ten weekly slots were described once and saved as a template. Preparing the following weeks is no longer a matter of copying a table across: you pick the starting week, the number of weeks, and the slots are generated, empty of sign-ups.
"Every week, I spent at least ten minutes redoing the table, putting the formatting back and double-checking the dates. Now the template is ready: three clicks and the month is online."
The club's calendar manager
Dates that can no longer be wrong. On the sheet, days are picked in a calendar and the day of the week is computed from the date. A "Tuesday 14th" showing on a Wednesday is simply no longer possible.
A link that no longer changes. It opens as it is, with no account and no access request, on a phone as well as a computer. And it stays the same from one month to the next, since the new weeks are generated in the same sheet. The link published in the group, on the website and with partners no longer needs replacing.
What changed for members
The club reports better attendance and fewer unreported absences at sessions.
The explanation it gives is simple: the tool is easy to use, so members no longer baulk at signing up, nor above all at cancelling. Finding your row in a spreadsheet to delete your name took an effort many did not make. On the sheet, removing yourself from a slot takes two clicks.
The result: the sign-up sheet matches reality better. The number of sign-ups shown is closer to the number of climbers actually there, and coaches prepare the session on more reliable information.
The limits, put plainly
A Kreneau sheet has no access rights: anyone who has the link can edit it or remove a sign-up.
For the club, that is not a loss: the link to its Google Sheet already gave everyone the right to edit, and the table was not being used to control who changed what. A structure that genuinely needs to restrict who changes what, or to keep a trace of every modification, will have to choose another tool.
The sheet does not handle dues, licences or medical certificates either, and sends no reminder before sessions. Those subjects still have to be dealt with separately.
What other clubs can take from it
- Measure the real time spent on the spreadsheet. Ten minutes a week looks trivial, until you add it up over a season.
- Look at how easy cancelling is, not just signing up. That is what decides whether the list reflects who actually turns up.
- Make coaching visible. A "coach" role with a minimum saves you from discovering the problem at the door of the gym.
- Prepare month by month. A sheet covers 42 upcoming days: generating one month at a time matches a club's natural rhythm.
The full method, step by step, is set out in the guide to organising sign-ups for a sports club. If your club is still hesitating between a sign-up sheet and a date poll, the comparison with Doodle and Framadate explains why they are not the same tools.
Another organisation made a comparable move for different reasons: a charity that left Framacalc, because its volunteers could not sign up from their phones.
Want to see what a sheet with climbing slots looks like? Try the one below, then create your club's own. And for the general structure of a sheet, it is described here.