Workspace by BMABA

Running a martial arts club means juggling a lot. Student records, grading syllabi, insurance documents, lesson plans, safeguarding policies, instructor schedules — the list goes on. Most of this ends up scattered across email attachments, WhatsApp groups, personal Dropbox accounts, or just... lost.

Club Workspace brings everything together in one place. It's a private, secure space where you and your team can store documents, plan sessions, track what needs doing, and actually find things when you need them.

If you've ever used tools like Notion or Google Docs, some of this will feel familiar. But we've built this specifically for clubs — it's simpler where it needs to be, and it's designed around how martial arts organisations actually operate.

You can access your Workspace here, or from the 'The Hub' link on the submenu, as well as the yourBMABA menu (under membership resources).

We kept hearing the same frustrations from club owners:

"I can't find that document" — Insurance certificates buried in email threads. DBS copies on someone's personal phone. Risk assessments that definitely exist... somewhere.

"My instructors don't know what's happening" — Important updates lost in WhatsApp noise. New team members starting without access to key information.

"I'm the only one who knows how anything works" — All the knowledge stuck in one person's head. No handover when instructors move on.

Club Workspace fixes this. Everything lives in one place. Your team can access what they need. Knowledge gets documented instead of forgotten. And when someone new joins, they can actually get up to speed.

When you first open Club Workspace, you'll land on your Dashboard. Think of this as your home screen — a quick overview of what's happening and what needs attention.

Your dashboard shows you:

Upcoming tasks — Things you've marked as to-dos with approaching deadlines

Active projects — Work in progress that you're tracking

Upcoming meetings — Sessions and appointments coming up

Recent wiki updates — The latest changes to your club's knowledge base

Upcoming events — Calendar events across all your workspaces

Recent files — Documents that have been uploaded recently

You can customise which sections appear and even change their colours to suit your preferences. Drag sections to reorder them however works best for you.

The left sidebar is your navigation. At the top, you'll see your personal sections:

Favourites — Pages you've starred for quick access

Private — Your personal pages that only you can see

Click the + button next to "Private" to create a new page. Every page starts simple — just a title and an empty canvas. From there, you can:

• Write notes, plans, or documentation

• Add to-do lists and track completion

• Create tables to organise information

• Embed links and references

Pages can be nested inside other pages, so you can build out a structure that makes sense for your club. For example, you might have a "Gradings" page with sub-pages for each belt level.

Click "My Files" in the sidebar to access your personal file storage. This is your private document repository — think of it like a secure Dropbox just for you.

You can upload files in two ways:

• Click the "Upload File" button and select files from your device

• Drag and drop files directly onto the drop zone

We accept PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, CSVs, and images (PNG, JPG, GIF, BMP). Each file can be up to 20MB.

Click "New Folder" to create folders and organise your files. You can nest folders inside each other to build whatever structure works for you. The breadcrumb navigation at the top always shows you where you are and lets you jump back up the folder tree.

This is where Club Workspace really shines. A shared workspace is a collaborative space where your whole team can work together.

Scroll down in the sidebar and click "Create Workspace". Give it a name — this might be your club name, or something specific like "Instructor Team" or "Competition Squad".

Once you've created a workspace, you can invite others to join. Click on the workspace settings and add team members by their email address. They'll receive an invitation and can accept to join.

Team members can then see everything in that workspace — pages, files, wiki articles, calendar events, and forum discussions.

Each shared workspace includes:

Forum — A place for discussions, organised into channels

Wiki — Your club's knowledge base

Calendar — Shared events and scheduling

Files — Shared document storage

Pages — Collaborative documents and notes

We'll go through each of these in detail.

Every shared workspace has a built-in forum. This is where your team can have discussions without things getting lost in WhatsApp or email.

The forum is organised into channels — think of these as different conversation topics. You might have:

• #general — Day-to-day chat and updates

• #gradings — Discussion about upcoming gradings

• #safeguarding — Sensitive topics that need documenting

• #events — Planning competitions and seminars

Click on a channel to see the conversations happening there. Start a new topic by clicking "New Topic" and giving it a title.

Group chats are great for quick messages, but important information gets buried fast. In the forum:

• Discussions are organised by topic, not just chronological

• New team members can read the history and get context

• You can search for past conversations

• Nothing disappears when someone leaves the group

The wiki is your club's knowledge base — a place to document everything that someone might need to know.

Think about the questions new instructors ask, or the things only you know how to do:

• How to open up the venue and set up mats

• The grading syllabus for each belt level

• Emergency procedures and first aid protocols

• How to register new students

• Equipment maintenance schedules

• Contact details for key people

If you've ever thought "I should write this down somewhere", the wiki is that somewhere.

Click on "Wiki" in your workspace's sidebar, then click "New Article". Give it a clear title that describes what it covers. Write the content as if you're explaining it to someone new.

Wiki articles can be nested, so you can create a hierarchy. For example, "Safeguarding" might contain articles on "DBS Checks", "Reporting Concerns", and "Code of Conduct".

A wiki is only useful if it's current. When processes change, update the relevant articles. The dashboard shows recent wiki updates, so your team can see what's been changed.

Each workspace has its own calendar for scheduling events that the whole team needs to know about.

Click "Calendar" in your workspace sidebar to open the month view. Click on any day to create a new event. You can set:

• Event title and description

• Whether it's an all-day event or has specific times

• A colour to help categorise different types of events

This isn't meant to replace your regular class timetable. Use it for:

• Gradings and assessments

• Competitions and tournaments

• Instructor meetings

• Seminars and guest instructors

• Venue closures and holidays

• Insurance and certification renewal dates

Events from all your workspaces appear on your dashboard, so you get a unified view of what's coming up.

Just like your personal "My Files", each workspace has its own file storage that everyone in the workspace can access.

This is the place for documents your team needs to access:

• Insurance certificates

• Venue hire agreements

• Risk assessments

• Safeguarding policies

• Instructor qualifications and DBS certificates

• Promotional materials and logos

• Blank forms and templates

Files are only accessible to workspace members. They're not publicly accessible and can't be found through search engines. When someone downloads a file, they have to be logged in and we verify they have permission before serving it.

Workspaces can also have shared pages, just like your personal pages. These appear in the sidebar under the workspace.

This can feel a bit confusing at first. Here's a simple way to think about it:

Wiki articles are for reference information that doesn't change often — how things work, policies, procedures.

Pages are for working documents — meeting notes, project plans, to-do lists, things that are actively being updated.

The wiki is your club's manual. Pages are your club's notebook.

Click the search icon in the sidebar (or press Ctrl/Cmd + K) to search across everything — pages, wiki articles, files, and more.

Search looks at titles and content, so you can find things even if you don't remember exactly what you called them.

Don't try to set up everything at once. What's the one thing that causes you the most headaches? Documents you can never find? Information that's stuck in your head? Start there and expand gradually.

A workspace is only useful if people actually use it. Invite your instructors, explain why you're doing this, and give them specific things to contribute. "Can you write up the warm-up routine you use?" is better than "Go add stuff to the wiki".

The worst outcome is having some information in the workspace, some in email, some in WhatsApp. Commit to putting everything in one place. When someone asks a question, point them to the workspace rather than just answering in chat.

Set a reminder to review your workspace every few months. Archive old pages, update outdated wiki articles, clean up files you no longer need. A tidy workspace is a useful workspace.

It's tempting to create elaborate folder structures and categorisation systems. Resist this urge, at least initially. Start simple and add structure only when you feel the need for it. A flat list of 20 well-named files is easier to navigate than 10 folders with 2 files each.

If you get stuck or have questions, we're here to help. You can reach us through the chat widget — just click the icon in the bottom right corner.

We're genuinely interested in making this better, so if something's confusing or you wish it worked differently, let us know. Your feedback shapes what we build next.