Setting up DetectID for your metal-detecting club

DetectID is built to work for individual detectorists, but it shines in a club context. This is a practical guide for club secretaries, committee members and rally organisers on getting your club set up — from member sign-ups to your first organised rally.

Why bother as a club?

Three concrete reasons:

• Members get identifications for individual finds.Subscription is per-member, but you can negotiate a club discount with us (see below).
• Rally Mode turns your club nights into shared experiences. Live feed, density map, end-of-day photo book for every attendee. The kind of thing that gives a club night a lasting record.
• Rally Captain perks the committee. If your club runs rallies that hit 10+ attendees and 20+ finds (most do), the organiser gets 3 months of Premium access free. Two rallies a year keeps them permanently on Premium.

The setup, in order

Step 1 — The committee signs up

Get your committee on first — the secretary, the treasurer, the rally organiser. Each takes 60 seconds atapp.detectid.co.uk/auth/login.

Suggested usernames: the committee role + club abbreviation is durable (e.g. secretary-eastanglian-md) but most people prefer their own name. Either works.

Step 2 — Decide who organises rallies

Pick one person per rally as the organiser. They create the rally on DetectID; they get the post-rally summary email; they earn Rally Captain status if the rally qualifies.

Many clubs rotate this: a different committee member organises each rally so the Captain status rotates around. Workable, but doesn’t produce a single Captain figure in your club — some clubs prefer a dedicated rally captain.

Step 3 — Announce to members at your next club night

A 5-minute slot at your AGM or monthly club night. Cover:

• What DetectID does for individual finds (identification, the result page, the reasoning chain).
• What it does for the club (live feed at rallies, photo books).
• Plans — Free for 3 identifications a month, Basic at £1.99 for serious users.
• The committee is on it, here are some example finds.
• Sign up at app.detectid.co.uk.

A QR poster pointing at app.detectid.co.ukon the club notice board works well. We don’t provide printed materials but the URL on a plain poster is enough.

Step 4 — Run your first rally with DetectID

Pick the next rally you already have planned (a Sunday dig, a charity event, a weekend bash). The full setup is inRunning a rally as the organiser; key bits for a club context:

1. Create the rally a week early.Allows members to join in advance, which is good for the rally page’s pre-start view and for hitting the 10+ attendees threshold cleanly.
2. Print the QR poster. A4 poster on the sign-in table. Members scan as they arrive.
3. Post the join URL on the club WhatsApp / Facebook group. Couple of days before the rally.
4. Enable the leaderboard if you do friendly competition.Some clubs love a Best Find prize based on the leaderboard; others find it adds pressure they’d rather not have. Your call.
5. Set permission terms if applicable. If the landowner has stipulations (e.g. all finds over a certain value to be reported), put them in the rally form. They appear on the rally page so members can see before they dig.

Step 5 — After the rally

• Every attendee gets a personal photo-book PDF emailed automatically the next morning.
• The organiser gets a recap email with attendee count, total finds, top finds, leaderboard.
• If the rally qualified (10+ attendees, 20+ finds), the organiser is now a Rally Captain.
• The rally page stays accessible indefinitely — a permanent record of the day.

Post the rally page URL or screenshots on your club’s social media. Each public find linked is visible to non-DetectID-users; combined this serves as great club marketing for the next rally.

Multi-rally clubs

If your club runs multiple rallies per year, you can organise each as a separate DetectID rally with its own code. Each qualifying rally extends the organiser’s Captain status by another 3 months.

A club secretary who organises a rally every 3 months becomes permanently a Captain. They get Premium access free, the Captain badge on their public profile, and the kind of recognition that genuinely matters in a hobby with a strong community spine.

Club discounts

Not at launch — we’re keeping pricing stable while the platform settles in. If your club has 50+ members and you’d like to discuss a bulk arrangement, email us. We’re open to discussing it for sizeable clubs.

For most clubs, the math already works: members pay their own £1.99 on Basic, the rally organiser is free via the Captain perk, and the club gets all the infrastructure without paying anything as a club.

Charity rallies

DetectID supports charity tracking on rallies. When you create the rally, set a charity name in the form. The rally page displays a running total of attendee contributions, which appears in the post-rally summary too.

We don’t handle the money (DetectID isn’t a payment processor); you collect that the way you always have — bucket on the day, JustGiving link in the rally description, whatever works. The tracker is for transparency and post-event recognition.

The 10-and-20 threshold — will your rally hit it?

Most club rallies easily hit both thresholds. Some maths:

• 10 attendees: any reasonably-promoted club rally clears this. Even smaller club nights with 8–10 regulars typically meet it.
• 20 finds: 10 attendees averaging 2 finds each. On a typical productive permission, this is comfortable.

If your rally is small (under 10 attendees), the rally still works as Rally Mode — it just doesn’t trigger the Captain perk. Photo books, live feed, density map all still happen.

If your rally is large and you’re worried about hitting finds: encourage attendees to upload modern bits as well as the headline finds. Each counts. A 30-attendee rally comfortably hits 20+ finds even on quiet ground.

Club-night vs rally — when to use which

Two different DetectID modes work for two different formats:

• Rally Mode— for organised digs where members upload finds to a shared feed in real time. Use this for formal rallies, charity events, anything where members are detecting alongside each other.
• Individual identifications— for informal club nights where members are detecting separately and just want to identify what they found. Each member uploads to their own /identify; no rally page involved.

Both formats coexist. Many clubs do both: rally days for the headline events, individual identification for everything else.

Sharing club finds across the wider community

When members share finds publicly, they appear in the DetectID discovery feed. Other detectorists from outside your club can heart and comment. This is good for the hobby — club finds are some of the best material on the platform and they raise everyone’s detecting education.

It’s also good for the club — outside detectorists may DM members via their public profile (well, they would if we had DMs — for now via Facebook), which can lead to permission introductions, rally invitations, and broader community knit.

Things to avoid

• Don’t put precise find spots in rally descriptions.“West field of Manor Farm near Cirencester” is fine. “The exact corner where the medieval boundary is” isn’t. Members’ finds use their own location precision.
• Don’t make the rally fee about the DetectID subscription. Members pay their own DetectID separately if they want to identify finds. The rally fee is for the landowner, the venue, the charity.
• Don’t auto-share members’ finds publicly without consent.Inside the rally feed, finds are visible to attendees only by default. Public sharing is each member’s individual choice.

Common questions

Can the club have a single account that members log into?

Technically yes, practically no. Each member should have their own account because finds and identifications are tied to one user. A shared club account means everyone sees each other’s collection, which mostly isn’t what you want.

Can the club page itself have a profile?

Not at launch — profiles are for individual detectorists. If you want club-level visibility, the rally page acts as that surface. Multiple rallies over time build a club’s presence.

What about non-member visitors at a rally?

Anyone with the rally code can join, member or not. They sign up to DetectID (free, no card) and join the rally. For one-day visitors who don’t want to subscribe long-term, this works fine — they can use Free or Basic just for the day.

Can we run a club-only private rally?

Yes — set the rally as private when creating it. The rally doesn’t appear on the public /rallies page; only people with the code can join.

Next steps

• Organising a rally: Running a rally as the organiser.
• The Captain perk: The Rally Captain perk.
• What members see: Joining a rally as an attendee.