BMABA CIC

04/06/2026

Club Manager 4.0 is here, and it's our biggest update yet. 🎊🎉

We've rebuilt some of the parts clubs told us slowed them down most, and added a few things we think you'll love.

What's new:
✅ Faster student onboarding, mass editing, full import and export, NOK copy-across and more.
✅ Attendance that finally adds up, combining across your linked classes and following students when you move them
✅ A brand new documents area for your policies, handbooks and waivers, with built-in "I have read and understood" tracking
✅ A spreadsheet-style bulk editor for adding and editing students in bulk
✅ Self-service memberships, so families can sign up themselves when you want them to

And it's almost entirely shaped by your feedback, which is exactly how we want to keep building.

What's coming next? A major payments upgrade is already in the works, including Direct Debit through GoCardless and a complete refresh of our Stripe card payments, to make collecting fees simpler and cheaper. More on that very soon.

Read the full rundown of everything in 4.0 here: https://intercom.news/bmaba/146766-club-manager-4-0-is-here

14/05/2026

🎉 A milestone few weeks for BMABA. 🎉

Three back-to-back external audits, three strong results:

✅ ISO 9001:2015 surveillance audit passed clean. Zero non-conformities, zero OFIs raised. This is a UKAS Accredited award.

✅ ISO 27001 Stage 1 cleared, no non-conformities. Stage 2 is scheduled for early July, putting BMABA on track to achieve what we believe will be a world-first for independent martial arts governance.

✅ Cyber Essentials successfully re-certified under the UK government scheme.

Huge thanks to our entire team for pulling this off alongside the day-to-day. Helen, Niki, Kirsty and Giovanni have lived and breathed audit prep for weeks. Bella, Anna, Cat and the wider customer services team have plugged every gap. Christina has held the Strategic desk through Helen's absences. None of this happens without them.

And to our members, thank you for your patience while we've been buried in this. The credentials we hold are the credentials your club benefits from. AXA, CIMSPA and our other industry partners work with BMABA precisely because of work like this. It's the unsexy backbone of what makes BMABA credible, and it's what separates us from the dozens of self-appointed associations operating without external scrutiny.

Now the fun part! CPD launches, exciting new partnerships, the next version of our CRM and a long list of developments we've been holding back, all about to start rolling out. 🎯

Two places by narrow roads.

Hi there,

12/05/2026

We have a full team training session taking place between 10am and 2pm today (12/05) so please bear with us if you can't get straight through to the team as quickly as usual. 🙏

These full-staff sessions are an important part of how we keep our customer service at its best. They give us dedicated time to bring everyone up to speed on safeguarding practice, compliance updates, changes in law, our ongoing ISO work, CIMSPA lineage and the wider standards we hold ourselves to as a professional body. Stepping away from the desks together for a few hours every so often means the team comes back sharper, better informed and better placed to support our members.v

Usually we have a small team online but today is a 'big one'! We do apologise for any delay in the meantime, and we'll be back in touch with everyone the moment we're done. 👍

07/05/2026

Noticed we've been a bit quieter than usual the last few weeks? There's a good reason.

May is audit season at BMABA. Right now we're being formally assessed by a number of external, independent bodies, including UKAS-accredited certification through the British Assessment Bureau (ISO 9001:2015), CIMSPA as our chartered sector partner, and the Government's Cyber Essentials programme, which we've just been recertified under.

We hold ourselves to the same standard we ask of our members. When we ask you to keep your DBS valid, your first aid in date and your licence current, we think it's only fair that someone is checking our homework too.

The SLT may be a little less available than usual while these audits run. Day-to-day support carries on as normal.

We've also got loads of CPD, tech and other goodies building up this end which will be pushed out shortly, so keep an eye out. Full update on the news feed below;

Hi there,

22/04/2026

We've been formally announced by CIMSPA today as a new Training Provider Partner! 🥳

Launching early May is an entirely re-imagined suite of CPD, all mapped to the CIMSPA standards, and one-by-one, being submitted for formal endorsement.

Our Generation 2 (Gen2) courses will feature 'bang-up-to-date' guidance and best practice, professionally filmed expert interviews, digital flashcards, AI tutor assistance and cutting edge learning opportunities.

We have all of our current awards being re-published, and six entirely new pieces of work going live too - all included as usual with the various memberships.

Congratulations to BMABA CIC on becoming a CIMSPA Training Provider Partner! BMABA CIC is a leading independent martial arts body championing safer, more inclusive, and professionally-led martial arts across the UK. https://loom.ly/LvJ-u2I

27/03/2026

Big things are in the pipeline for our Club Management Platform (BMABA CRM), and the first of them is nearly here. 🔔💚

BroadcastbyBMABA is landing next week (we hope). Send emails and push notifications to your whole club, individual classes, belt groups, or specific members, all pulling automatically from the student and NOK data already in your CRM. Marketing campaigns, training updates, licence expiry reminders, newsletters -- no list building, no duplicate records, no extra setup. Just powerful broadcasts with your club branding applied automatically.

Around the start of May, a major usability update will hopefully be ready to roll out. Mass editing, custom register views, a refreshed interface, attendance that carries across classes for unified grade progression, CSV import and export, and a simpler student creation process are all part of the same release. Day-to-day management is getting significantly faster.

And over the summer, ahead of the September return to dojo, GoCardless direct debit integration arrives! 💪

Set up a membership, send a digital mandate by email, your member authorises it once, and payments run automatically from there. No chasing, no manual renewals. Alongside GoCardless we are completely overhauling the membership view; one clean overview per student or NOK showing exactly what is active and full controls to pause, adjust, discount, or update without jumping between screens.

Lots to look forward to. Watch this space.

Hi there,

23/03/2026

Free, unlimited event cover is now live for BMABA clubs, and we have built an entire platform around it. 🦹💥

The new BMABA Event Hub lets you plan, manage, and insure your competitions entirely online. Financial modelling, participant management, file sharing, collaboration tools, and the compliance checklist that activates your free event licence. All in one place, all included with your membership.

Alongside it, the Event Centre brings together guides, governance frameworks, safety resources, and best practice support to help you run better, more confidently governed events.

Cover is underwritten by AXA XL via Lloyd's and includes competitions, multi-day tournaments, seminars, and workshops. Full contact included. No per-event invoice. Comparable cover elsewhere in the sector costs up to £249.99 per event, and for clubs running a full calendar that saving adds up fast.

If your students are licenced with BMABA or any of the partnership NGBs and NGOs we work with - they're covered. Full details in the link below, including exactly how it works and how to get started.

👇

Hi there,

13/03/2026

🎉🥳 We are very pleased to share that BMABA CIC has been formally approved as a CIMSPA Training Provider Partner, recognised by the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity. 🥳🎉

The contract has been signed, the partnership is live, and we wanted to take a moment to explain what this actually means for our members, clubs, and the wider martial arts community.

CIMSPA is the professional development body for the UK's sport and physical activity sector. It is incorporated by Royal Charter, funded in part by Sport England, and sits at the heart of how the UK develops, standards-checks, and recognises the workforce across all sport and physical activity disciplines. This is the same body that works alongside UK Coaching, Sport England, local authorities, and national governing bodies to set the standards that define what good coaching, education, and workforce development look like in this country. Until now, martial arts has sat largely outside that ecosystem. That changes today.

This partnership does something that goes beyond any logo or marketing benefit. It formally places BMABA inside the national sport workforce development system. Instructors who complete BMABA CPD that carries CIMSPA endorsement will be building a professional development record that sits within a nationally recognised framework. When they are applying for roles in sport, education, community development, or public health, the organisations they are applying to will understand what CIMSPA means. It is the same framework used by swimming coaches, personal trainers, football coaches, and fitness professionals across the country.

For clubs, it means the professional development of their coaches and instructors can be evidenced against recognised national standards. That has implications for funding applications, local authority relationships, school partnerships, and insurance requirements. Funders like Sport England, the DCMS, and local sports development teams understand CIMSPA fluently. It is a language they already speak.

The next step in the process is submitting our CPD programmes for formal CIMSPA endorsement, which we are working through now. Each course goes through its own review and we will share updates as individual programmes are confirmed. In the meantime, you are going to see a significant release of new CPD across coaching, instructorship, safeguarding, first aid, event management, refereeing, business development and more, all carefully developed in line with CIMSPA professional standards and ready for the endorsement process. It has been a long time coming, and we are very much looking forward to sharing it with you.

More to follow soon, but in the meantime, learn more from;

Hi there,

09/03/2026

📢 We have a huge update for clubs, and are so excited to share this! 📢

Despite our policy costs heading towards a quarter of a million pounds over the next twelve months, we haven't passed that on, and we won't. Not only that, we're not just holding cover where it was. We're improving it. 💪

From 4 April 2026, Named instructor cover is getting better. Not as an optional upgrade, not at an additional cost, and not requiring a single extra step from you. It happens automatically.

Worldwide territorial cover, Products Liability, free event cover for sanctioned events, online lesson cover, temporary instructor cover for sickness and holidays, birthday party and holiday camp cover, and maternity and paternity provisions. All of it confirmed standard on every Named instructor policy from renewal.

For events, we'll be covering an unlimited number of event insurances completely free, with no per-event fee, for up to 500 participants including full contact events, provided all attending competitors hold a valid BMABA licence anywhere in the UK. Non-BMABA members can be added to your student licences, or covered with a nominal £2.50 per head fee to the insurer. The cover even includes multi-day events. We've even built a dedicated events management system to help you with compliance, licensing, and planning. This was £189.99 per event.

For those of you doing things right and insuring your instructors and students through BMABA, and holding Regulation Ready Bronze or above, which is free to achieve but does require you and your team to be genuinely serious about operating properly, we'll cover the entire £169.99 per year Club Cover cost on your behalf. That's £5,000,000 Company Public Liability, £1,000,000 Professional Indemnity, and £500,000 Abuse Cover for your club as a legal entity, completely free.

Referee and officials insurance is now available at £3.33 per month, roughly the price of a high street coffee, covering referees, judges, and ring officials at competitions and tournaments.

Live blade cover is being ring-fenced and reduced in price, protecting clubs and instructors for whom weapons are a core part of their training and who need to import martial arts exempt weapons. Border Force letters and certification are available on demand through MyBMABA.

And to the clubs doing things the right way: we see you. Following successful lobbying on your behalf, our underwriter has agreed to a 5% reduction on instructor insurance premiums. We're going further and funding a full 5% reduction across all other memberships and insurance products ourselves, at our cost, so that doing the right thing is measurably cheaper.

We're in your corner.

We'll also stand by our 10% additional discount for Serving and Veteran members of our armed forces (including reserves), Emergency Service Workers, NHS front-line staff and RNLI volunteers. 🙏

See the details;

Hi there,

08/03/2026

We'll be in a position to confirm tomorrow, but in addition to the free event cover provision, we now expect to be able to offer Instructor and Student insurance worldwide, exc. USA & Canada - meaning your instructor and student public liability will be in action anywhere throughout the world at no extra cost!

Keep an eye on our Roadmap Group next week for a full confirmed update.