Clubs and Groups

This has been the most significant development in Buccaneer this year in terms of time and investment. The new Clubs/Groups/Memberzone feature allows stakeholders (you) to create private communities and if required, monetize them with subscription fees, paid Sessions, ticketing, etc.

This functionality enables controlled club or group environments, where membership and accessibility is managed by committee administrators. It keeps your community interactions separate from the noise of open platforms like Facebook and avoids the risks associated with using tools like WhatsApp for communication and data sharing.

When combined with our feature-rich Events/Sessions and new Session Series tools, it becomes a powerful solution to manage both club communications and activities—whether included in membership or offered as paid extras.

There is also a public-facing profile that welcomes new membership applications, activities, lessons, courses, and events that are open to non-members. All of which can easily be promoted and integrated as needed.

A key part of this release is online membership fees and renewals. Buccaneer now includes tools to set up and collect membership payments (monthly, annually, or on a fixed annual dates) via our secure payment gateway with Stripe integration, supporting all major electronic payment methods.

Other included tools: membership admin controls, forums, and session/activity management to bring your club or group community to life.

Personalised (White Label) App – Free for Your Members

Encourage active participation with our feature-rich native mobile app or web app for members who prefer browser access.
Members can interact via Club and Session forums and respond to activity or session invitations.
Members can share session highlights and achievements (one way) to third-party social media, helping promote your organisation.

Event Creation & Management Platform

Suitable for all scales of events—from small clinics or demos to large meets and festivals.
The Buccaneer Sessions Community platform includes a powerful events management system.
It supports everything you need: event descriptions, instructions, locations, dates, schedules, site maps, course maps, and more.
Real-time scheduling and communication tools make coordination seamless.
Share events with the wider Buccaneer community or promote them externally via integrations with websites, social media, and more.

Promotion for Your Organisation

via the Buccaneer Sessions Community / Crew Hub

Buccaneer’s detailed location database and activity guide showcases all discoverable content you choose to make public, helping you promote your club.

The entire platform is SEO-friendly, ensuring your activities and presence are visible not only to Buccaneer users but also to the wider sporting community through search engines.

Headline Feature List.

✔︎ Your own custom Public facing profile

✔︎ Unlimited community followers (Connections)

✔︎ Unlimited Sessions and Events Platform (Unpaid)

✔︎ Unlimited Follower and Session comms alerts (In-app notifications and emails)

✔︎ Your own branded public forum connected to your profile

✔︎ Directory visibility

✔︎ Location awareness – Location Alerts

✔︎ Location and Entity Favourites

✔︎ Email Support

✔︎ Club/Group profile visible against community location guide

✔︎ Paid Sessions and events

✔︎ Memberzone – Set up sophisticated monthly/annual membership subscriptions for your audience and membership (Renewals, price lifts. Etc)

✔︎ Transaction Fees loaded against or on top of customer/member fees

✔︎ White label App for your membership

✔︎ Member management

✔︎ Membership cards

✔︎ End point business data visible to build Search engine SEO (domain authority

Noticeboard Enhancements - Now Called “Chat”

We’ve renamed Noticeboard to Chat and added long-awaited improvements:

Author Edit & Delete:
You can now edit typos or delete your own posts—finally! Sometimes a post feels like a good idea… until it doesn’t. Now you’re in control.
Reply to Threads:
Members can now reply directly to specific messages, making conversations easier to follow and more organised.

Location Alerts / Location Awareness

We launched Version 1 earlier this year and have been refining it to comply with Apple and Android privacy standards.

This feature has been a major R&D investment—and for good reason. Here’s how it works:

When a Buccaneer user (with the app installed) comes within 0.5 km of a Buccaneer location, the location triggers a push notification.
If the user taps it, they’re taken straight to the location screen, which includes:

Spot data
Weather conditions
Tide info
Check-in & Session links
Mapping
Amenities
Sponsored links

Why this matters

Better User Experience:
No need to search for the spot—info appears automatically when you’re nearby.

Support for Local Businesses:
Vendors can present relevant services and offers to users already in the area.

Win–Win!

Important Privacy Note

We are not tracking your location or doing anything intrusive. The feature simply makes interacting with locations easier by automating the lookup process.

Subscriber Benefit: Seamless access to maps, conditions, tides, and more—the location you’re at is already loaded.
Vendor Benefit: More visibility for sessions, products, and services when users open location pages more often.

Enhanced Sharing Capability – This is Huge!

You can now share key Buccaneer content—Locations, Suppliers, Sessions, Events—directly into third-party apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or email.

When shared, the link automatically pulls in images and summary information from Buccaneer.

Example:
Share a Session via WhatsApp → your friend sees the session image, title, and details with a link.

If they have the app: It opens directly in-app, allowing them to join or interact.
If they don’t: It opens in the web app so they can view the info (joining still requires the app and an account).

Perfect for:

Sharing cool spots or events
Helping businesses promote offerings
Creating high-quality, engaging content fast

Historical Sessions (Your Log Book)

This feature creates a timeline of your entire Buccaneer journey.

It tracks every Session or Event you’ve attended or created, along with:

Locations
Participants
Photos

Think of it as your personal adventure log book, built automatically and stored for as long as you have a profile.

Major Feature – Interface & UX Updates

Interface improvements are constant in any digital platform—and we’ve made hundreds of micro-enhancements in this release to make Buccaneer easier and more intuitive.

Key visible updates:

Your next upcoming Event/Session (created or joined) now appears right on the home screen when you open the app—one tap to access everything you need.
If you’re part of a Club or Group, a direct link now appears on the home screen too—making it effortless to jump into community chats or see upcoming sessions and events (even if you haven’t joined them yet).

Our UX goal: Highly personal, highly relevant, always community-first.

Security & Scalability Upgrades

Not glamorous—but essential!

We’ve updated all underlying components to keep up with Apple and Android security and performance standards.
This ensures Buccaneer remains safe, stable, and future-proof.

Subscriber Benefit: Peace of mind—everything runs smoothly and securely.
Vendor Benefit: Compliance and scalability to support growth.

(And yes… developers feel the pain so you don’t have to!)

SESSION SERIES

This is the third Session Type we’ve developed in Buccaneer, designed to help Session creators schedule recurring Sessions. A common use case is regular club meetups—for example, a paddle or ride-out every Wednesday at 7 pm.

For boot camps or health and wellbeing professionals, it can be used to set up consistent workout or studio sessions, such as a 7 am Session every Monday to Friday for the next three months.

Session Series can be free, paid, or included as part of a club membership. They can also be displayed in a calendar view for easy planning.

General Session Enhancements

We’ve upgraded Session functionality so any user can create a Session at a custom location—no longer limited to predefined Buccaneer spots.

The Session creation workflow is now integrated with Google Maps, allowing GPS coordinates to be selected and automatically added to the Create Session form.

Sessions can be set to invite-only, meaning only users with the Session link (which can be shared outside Buccaneer if needed) or specifically invited users can view and access the Session.

Chargeable Sessions can be configured to be free for users who hold a paid membership to a business profile in Buccaneer.

Sessions can also be configured to run across multiple days, making them ideal for challenge-style activities or extended events.

BUCCANEER SESSIONS v2.0.43 (Release Notes)