Fill every day of your school-holiday sports camp

Bex runs a holiday sports camp out of a park in New Lynn. Touch rugby, cricket, a bit of soccer, and a capture-the-flag game at the end of the day that the kids talk about for weeks. The camp itself she has down cold. It was the bookings that used to undo her. Every school holidays the same mess landed on her kitchen table: a spreadsheet, a stack of texts, two parents who'd paid twice, and one who swore she'd paid and hadn't.

A camp day is just a booking

Here is the shift that made it click for Bex. Each day of camp is one thing parents book and pay for online, ahead of time. Monday the 7th is its own listing. Tuesday the 8th is another one. A parent picks the days that suit their week, pays for them right there, and they are in. No holding a spot on trust, no waiting on a reply.

Every day carries the details that used to live only in Bex's head, all on the one card:

• The date and start time, so there's no muddle about which morning is which.
• The park it runs at, with its street address and a directions link.
• The price per child, paid online at the moment they book.
• How many spots are left, ticking down as families sign up.

Let the spots do the door work

Bex caps each day at twenty-four kids. That is what she can coach properly with the helpers she has. So each day online has a limit of twenty-four, and once it is full it closes itself. No more "is there still room?" texts at ten at night. No accidentally taking a twenty-sixth child and having to walk it back with an awkward phone call.

The first July she ran it this way, the Wednesday sold out by Sunday night. She woke up to a full day and a couple of messages asking if she would open a second one. That is a good problem to have, and a long way from chasing people for numbers on the Friday before.

The weather question, answered before they ask

Camp is outdoors, so the weather question never really stops. It used to arrive as a slow drip of texts the night before. Will it still be on if it rains? What's the forecast looking like for Thursday? Bex would end up forwarding weather screenshots from the couch at nine o'clock.

Now the forecast for each day sits right on the booking card. A parent looking at Thursday can see Thursday's outlook while they decide. It does not stop the rain, but it heads off half the questions. People book with their eyes open instead of hoping for the best.

When the sky opens anyway

Some mornings the rain simply wins. One Thursday last winter it came down sideways from dawn and the park was a swamp by seven. Bex called it off. In the old days that meant a whole morning of refunds and sorry-about-this messages, one parent at a time, while she should have been drying out her cones and her gear.

Calling off a day is a single step now. Everyone booked onto it is credited automatically and emailed to say so. Parents can drop that credit straight onto another day that same week, or simply hold it for next time. Bex still sends a short note of her own on top, because that is who she is, but the money side is sorted before she has finished her coffee.

For the kid who wants extra

Every so often a kid catches the bug properly. Last summer it was a nine-year-old named Theo who wanted to work on his goal-kicking over and over, long after the others had wandered off to lunch. His mum asked whether Bex ever did one-on-one sessions.

She does, and those work a little differently. A private lesson is not a fixed camp day with a crowd around it. It is a single appointment at a time that suits the two of them. Same booking page, so Theo's mum grabbed a Tuesday afternoon without a phone call. Camp days for the group, and quieter one-on-ones for the kids like Theo who want more.

The parents end up doing your marketing

The best advertising Bex gets is a parent at the school gate telling another parent their kid had the best week of the whole holidays. She leans right into that. Every family who books gets a link they can pass on to friends, and when a new family books through it, both sides get a little something back off their next run of days. The camp fills faster, and the parents who love it feel looked after for spreading the word.

The camp was never the hard part. I love the coaching. It was the Friday nights doing refunds by hand that nearly put me off running the whole thing again.

Getting your first day up

If your holidays are coming up and the thought of the sign-up scramble is already tightening your shoulders, start with one day. Put next Monday's camp online, set the cap at whatever you can coach well, add the park and the price, and send the link to the families who came last time.

Watch that one day fill, then build the rest of the week out behind it. The kids will still remember the capture-the-flag game either way. This just gives you your Friday nights back.