Founded in 1932, Idrottsklubben-32 (IK-32) has evolved over the years from a general sports club into one of Finland’s largest cycling clubs. The club brings together cyclists ranging from schoolchildren to recreational riders and elite athletes.

The long-established club aims for steady growth

IK-32 offers recreational and competitive activities in several cycling disciplines, including road cycling, mountain biking, gravel riding and cyclocross. The club’s members include recreational riders as well as competitive and elite athletes, and everyone can pursue their own sporting goals.

– We organise open group rides that give people a chance to get to know the club and its members before joining, says the club’s chair, Harri Salminen.

The club’s active youth programme has also contributed to this growth. Membership has grown steadily in recent years, and this summer the club reached its target of 300 members.

– I’d like to give the club the title of Finland’s largest cycling club as a gift for its 95th anniversary, Salminen says.

Growth revealed the limitations of old practices

IK-32’s board assessed the club’s current situation and set out its goals for the coming years in a development plan. These growth targets also prompted the club to review the administrative practices it had developed over the years.

– When we broke the goal down into specific tasks, we quickly realised that maintaining the membership register and managing other administrative processes supporting our core activities were taking up too much time. They involved a lot of manual steps, Salminen explains.

The board was also not receiving clear, regular reports on membership trends at its meetings. Up-to-date information was needed to track progress towards the growth targets.

– We couldn’t grow in a way that meant our administrative workload increased at the same rate as our membership, Salminen says.

Suomisport brought the club’s key processes together

IK-32 was already familiar with Suomisport through cycling competition licences. After considering different options for managing its membership register, the club decided to expand its use of Suomisport. The membership register, membership fees and competition and event registrations are now all handled through the same service.

During the transition, the old membership register was cleaned up. Members who wished to continue their membership rejoined the club through Suomisport, where membership is managed in accordance with Finland’s Associations Act.

Membership briefly declined but has since risen above its pre-transition level.

Suomisport supports the club’s growth

New membership applications are now handled according to an agreed process. The board has defined the steps and responsibilities, so there is no need to work out what to do and who is responsible for each task every time a new application comes in.

– Suomisport handles and tracks membership fee payments, and the money is paid into the club’s account regularly. The process is much easier for us than before and reduces manual work, Salminen says.

The board has up-to-date information on members and the status of membership fee payments. Managing membership fees is no longer as dependent on a single person.

A long history doesn’t have to stand in the way of change

Salminen encourages long-established clubs to take a fresh look at their familiar practices. A way of working that once made sense can remain in use without anyone reassessing whether it still works.

– It’s always worth taking a moment to think about what we do and why we do it, Salminen says.

When reviewing practices, it can help to ask whether the club would adopt the same procedures if it were starting today.

IK-32’s development work continues. The club wants to build a pathway that starts with its cycling school and allows riders to continue cycling as a hobby or progress to the highest levels of international competition. Riders can join at any stage. At the same time, the club aims to become Finland’s largest cycling club.