Announcements are how you talk to your club outside of events — a welcome message to new members, a venue change, a reminder about dues, a note celebrating a tournament result. They land in each member’s inbox as an email, not buried in a feed. This guide walks you from blank compose form to sent.
Before you start
Announcements need a roster to send to. If you haven’t added members yet, start with Adding Members — without anyone on the list, there’s no one to reach.
One thing worth noting upfront: announcements are for communication that isn’t tied to a specific event. Event-specific reminders — practice cancellations, RSVP nudges, post-event recaps tied to attendance — flow more naturally through the event itself (RSVP notifications and event-level communications). Use announcements for club-wide news that stands on its own.
Compose a new announcement
Head to Announcements and click New Announcement to open the compose form. (The compose form lives at a URL you can’t navigate to directly — always reach it through that button.)
Subject — The email subject line your members will see in their inbox.
Message body — Defaults to Rich Text, with a full formatting toolbar: Bold, Italic, Strikethrough, heading levels (H1/H2/H3), Bullet List, Numbered List, Quote, and Link. If you prefer to work in plain text, the toggle at the top of the message field switches modes.
Priority — Four levels: Low, Normal (the default), High, and Urgent. A sub-label updates as you move the selector — “Standard announcement” for Normal, for instance. High and Urgent are there for things members genuinely need to act on immediately. Don’t burn that signal on routine news; if everything is urgent, nothing is.
Pick your audience
The audience selector has two options:
- All members — sends to everyone on your active roster. The default, and right for most announcements.
- Select specific members — expands to an inline checkbox picker. Check the members you want, use Select All or Clear to manage the list in bulk, and a count updates as you make selections.
There are no role-based filters or custom segments today. If you want to reach a specific group — just the coaches, just members who attended last week — cherry-pick them via Select specific members.
Schedule for later
If you’re not ready to send immediately, the Schedule for later button in the action bar toggles an inline scheduling panel.
Inside the panel: a Schedule send for datetime input, a Schedule button (disabled until you fill in the date and time), and a Hide button to collapse the panel if you change your mind. A note in the panel reads: “The dispatcher checks every minute, so the send may fire up to 60 seconds after the time you pick.” — honest, and good to know when timing matters.
If you skip scheduling here and click Send Now instead, you’ll get one more chance to schedule inside the confirmation dialog.
Preview and send
Rook Ready uses a two-step send flow — you get a real look at what members will see before anything goes out.
Click Send Now on the compose form → the Preview dialog opens. It shows your announcement rendered as a full email — subject line, formatted body, From attribution (your name). This is the moment to catch formatting issues, a stray variable that didn’t fill in, or a subject line you want to tighten.
From Preview, click Send → the Confirmation dialog opens. It summarizes the announcement: Subject, Recipients (count), and Priority. From here you either commit with Send Now or, if you’ve changed your mind about timing, there’s a Schedule for later option here too — a second escape hatch into the scheduling panel.
Two dialogs before anything goes out means you have real chances to catch a mistake. Use the preview step; it takes five seconds.
Templates (Rook plan)
Announcement templates let you create reusable email formats for club communications, newsletters, and updates — a format you can reach for instead of rebuilding from scratch each time. The templates settings page is at Settings → Announcement Templates.
On the Pawn plan, the page is locked with an Upgrade to Rook CTA. On Rook, templates are available to create and reuse from the compose form. If you’re on Pawn and considering the upgrade, this is one of the features that adds up for clubs that send regular structured communications.
Review what you’ve sent
Announcements are organized across four pages, connected by a button chain in the navigation:
- Inbox (
/announcements) — where members receive announcements. As an admin, your inbox stays empty because you’re the sender, not a recipient. - Sent (
/announcements/sent) — every announcement you’ve sent, with a table showing Subject, Recipients count, Read (n/total and percentage), and Sent date/time. - Drafts (
/announcements/drafts) — saved but unsent announcements. - Scheduled (
/announcements/scheduled) — announcements queued for a future send time.
The Read column in the Sent view is worth calling out: Rook Ready tracks open rates per announcement, so you can see at a glance how many recipients opened each one. It’s a useful signal for knowing whether your message landed — especially for anything high-priority.
What’s next
Announcements work best when the roster behind them is solid:
- Add your members — no roster means no one to reach. Manual entry, CSV import, or invitations all work.
- Record attendance — announcements pair well as event follow-ups. Send a recap or a “thanks for coming” after recording who showed up.
If you get stuck, the FAQ has answers to the most common questions, and you can always email support@rookready.com.
Updated May 11, 2026