Fuse and England Touch
England Touch is the national governing body for Touch, which is similar to rugby but is a distinct sport in its own right. Here in England there are over 70 affiliated clubs across the country, while England Touch is part of an international community both in Europe (European Federation of Touch) and across the globe (Federation of International Touch).
Like every sport, England Touch relies on the contributions of volunteers. But unlike a lot of governing bodies this commitment from volunteers extends to the Association’s management; there is only one full-time paid employee.
Touch is a sport that is growing exponentially, with England hosting the 2018 European Touch Championships in July, a tournament which will have 66 teams from 18 countries competing across a range of age and gender categories.
So England Touch needed a website to be:
- Looking as professional as a full-time national governing body, in order to appeal to potential sponsors and have all the information needed by players, clubs and other relevant stakeholders
- Be cost-effective and robust, so that the Association’s volunteers can manage it effectively themselves in terms of navigation and content with minimal support from Fuse
- Be flexible to grow as the Association grows in the future
Fuse’s team worked with England Touch on a solution that fitted all of the above categories, using Umbraco as the content management system (CMS) and Microsoft Azure as the hosting platform.
Umbraco is an outstanding CMS which is growing rapidly in popularity as developers recognise some of its features, such as:
- It doesn’t interfere with the html once it has been rendered, giving you full control over the output
- The admin interface is clean, logical, and is intuitive for all users to be able to understand it quickly
- It is extendable, customisable and flexible, whether you are using an existing template or building your own
Meanwhile Azure’s automatic scalability is able to deal with the spike in usage that accompanies the regular events that England Touch organises, which also includes day-long live streaming of elite club and international tournaments.
Fuse has built on its experience of working with Premiership rugby club Northampton Saints, and everyone in the office enjoys being in the sporting environment. But the England Touch example also showcases how we can tailor our approach to non-profit organisations of all sizes, too.
We took our time to understand England Touch’s ambitions and structure, which sees its management operate across the country, often at unsociable, out-of-office hours. We then came up with a bespoke package that suits their immediate requirements, but can then be scaled up as the Association grows.
This example may be a website, but our approach to the specific requirements of non-profit extends across our work, especially with building a solution to your IT needs that is tailored just for you.
We know that budgets are tight in this sector and every penny must be accounted for, which is why we will never recommend anything that you don’t need, take out the jargon, and will be proactive in our account management to ensure that you are well looked after.
Give us a call on 01604 797979 for a no obligation chat about how Fuse can help your non-profit organisation across a range of areas, such as data protection and security, building an IT infrastructure that enables effective collaboration between your team wherever they are, and how to get the most out of your Microsoft licence package.
You can check out England Touch’s new website at www.englandtouch.org.uk and we hope you will join us in wishing all the England teams every success in the European Championships.
About the author
Head of Development
Your business might need more than just Microsoft packages, and this is where James’s expertise and experience comes to the fore. He is responsible for the custom development of online solutions that increase your productivity, efficiency and collaboration between staff. This includes the development of bespoke software as well as tailoring Microsoft’s suite of products so that your needs are met.
