Trophy Guru
Plan your club’s trophy archive project
A practical club committee checklist for a trophy archive: choose a pilot, photograph engravings, assign a reviewer, estimate the work and hand over the records.
Agree the first useful result
Decide what your club wants members to be able to find: the past winners of one competition, a period of club history, or the names across a complete trophy collection. Write that scope down. Start with one representative trophy and a specific outcome, such as a checked winners list and an example online honours board to show the committee.
Give the evidence and the decisions an owner
Ask one person to coordinate the archive and identify someone who can check historical names. They may be the same person in a small club. Agree how questions will be resolved and who can approve publication. Store the club’s working notes where the next secretary or historian can find them, rather than leaving the project entirely in one volunteer’s personal files.
Choose a pilot that teaches you something
A trophy with several decades of reasonably legible winners is a useful starting point. Include a difficult inscription if it is representative of the collection. Gather any supporting honours book or result sheet before taking photographs. Use the pilot to learn where glare, initials or missing years require more evidence, and keep those findings in the next batch’s instructions.
Protect the physical collection
Ask permission before moving trophies and use a stable surface. Photograph the lettering from different angles instead of experimenting with cleaning or polishing a historic object. If an item is fragile or valuable, follow the club’s handling arrangements and seek appropriate specialist advice before changing its condition.
A committee checklist for the first trophy
Use this at the cabinet or copy it into your project notes. Complete a small pilot before estimating the whole collection.
- Record the trophy name, competition and where it is kept.
- Note the earliest and latest visible years, including any gaps.
- Photograph the complete trophy, then each engraved area with overlapping views.
- Keep a list of supporting sources: honours books, minutes, result sheets or photographs.
- Assign a reviewer who can compare each proposed name and year with its source.
- Record unresolved initials or dates as questions, not confirmed facts.
- Agree who can approve publication and who will maintain the archive next season.
- Export a copy of the reviewed records and record where the club keeps it.
Estimate the work from your own pilot
Record the time spent gathering the trophy, photographing it, checking the reading and resolving exceptions. Count both straightforward trophies and difficult ones when planning the next batch. Do not multiply the speed of your easiest cup across a cabinet of worn engravings.
| Record | What to write down |
|---|---|
| Scope | Trophy, competition, visible date range and number of engraved areas. |
| Capture | Photographer, date, image count and time taken. |
| Review | Reviewer, time taken, corrections and unresolved entries. |
| Other evidence | Source title, date or page, and where the original can be found. |
| Approval | Who checked the final record and whether it is ready to share. |
| Handover | Archive owner, export location and next review date. |
Budget for a staged archive
In Trophy Guru the first trophy is free, with up to 12 saved photographs and no payment card required. Additional credits cost £7.50 for one trophy, £60 for ten or £250 for fifty, including VAT. Credits do not expire. Allow separately for your volunteers’ time and any specialist handling or conservation advice your collection needs.
Check the full current pricing, show the committee the example honours board, or start the pilot with your first trophy free.
Explore the service
Explore the public honours board demo, read the current pricing or start your club archive.