It is a sensible policy to have some way of distinguishing the staff at your club. This makes it easier for new parents, children and visitors to know who is on duty that day, thus reducing confusion and improving communication.
Name badges
The cheapest and easiest solution is to have some name badges that all your staff wear. You can make simple badges yourself easily enough but if you want a more professional finish you might want to try a badge printing company, for example:
www.imagin-badges.co.uk
www.badgemaster.co.uk
Staff T-shirts
Another popular solution with some organisations is to have staff T-shirts or polo shirts. However, the cost of printing staff shirts can be prohibitive, especially for out of school clubs, where margins are often very low. We did a lot of research when we were considering these for our club and found that even when suppliers claimed a low cost per shirt, this was not actually the case: when you add on the image costs and the minimum order quantities, the price goes up and up.
So we came up with a low cost alternative, which uses computer-printed transfers to customise plain T-shirts or polo shirts with your club's name or logo.
Print your own logo shirts
To print your own shirts you will need:
- Computer and printer
- Plain coloured T-shirt or polo shirt
try: www.polo-shirts.co.uk - Iron-on printable cotton sheets
try www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk - Iron
Method:
- Print your club logo onto an iron-on printable cotton sheet
- When the ink is dry, peel off the backing paper
- Position the printed sheet onto the shirt in the desired position (we used the back of the shirt)
- Iron the printed sheet into place, following the instructions for the iron-on sheet. Don't leave the iron in one place for too long: the printed sheet is reasonably thin, and will burn if you over-do it.
- Wear your logo T-shirt with pride!
The T-shirts can be washed, without fear of the ink fading, but we did find that after the first wash the printed panel did lift slightly around the edges. We just re-ironed it and it stuck with no problem. We now wash the shirts inside out and the printing hasn't lifted again.
Other ideas
If you have any other ideas or recommendations for cheap solutions for staff uniforms for your club, please let us know. Drop us an email or post a message on Club Chat.