Professional Association Software for Maritime Bodies
Software for maritime professional associations: vet applicants, track STCW and MCA tickets, collect dues and publish a directory clients can trust.
Who this is for
- You run an association of masters, officers, marine surveyors, brokers, ship agents or marine engineers
- Membership is small and high-value: tens or a few hundred professionals, often across several countries
- Joining means vetting: certificates, references and a council decision
- The work is done by volunteers or a part-time secretary, with almost no budget
- Clients and yacht owners should be able to check that a member is in good standing
A maritime professional association is not a social club. Its members are masters, officers, surveyors, brokers, ship agents and engineers whose name is their livelihood, and the association exists to say something about them: that they were vetted, that their qualifications are real, that they subscribe to a code. That promise is only as strong as the records behind it.
In most associations those records live in a spreadsheet kept by one volunteer, an inbox full of application PDFs, a directory copied to the website once a year and bank transfers matched by hand. It works until the secretary steps down, a member's STCW certificate expires unnoticed, or a yacht owner asks whether a surveyor is still a member and nobody can answer quickly.
Guild is professional association software built by SupaMaritime for exactly this kind of body. As software for maritime professional associations it brings applications with review stages, a qualifications register, dues paid into your own Stripe account, a consent-based directory, events and board governance together under your own brand. Guild is new, and this page describes only what it does today.
Where the day breaks down
The member list lives in one person's spreadsheet
Tiers, joining dates, chapters and payment status sit in a file only the secretary understands. When they step down, years of history leave with them or arrive as an unlabelled export.
Vetting runs on email threads
Application forms, copies of certificates and referee letters arrive in separate messages. The council decides in a meeting, and afterwards nobody can show which references were checked or when.
Expired tickets go unnoticed
STCW, MCA and RYA certificates, medicals and national licences all expire. Without a register, the association learns that a member is out of ticket after a client does.
Membership is a claim nobody can check
Members put the association logo on their website and email signature. A yacht owner or a charterer has no quick way to confirm that the person is a member in good standing today.
Dues are chased by hand
Renewal notices go out from a personal mailbox, transfers arrive without a reference, and every year someone spends evenings matching bank lines to names and writing reminders.
The board works from email and PDF
Notices, attendance, proxies, votes and minutes are scattered across inboxes. Whether a meeting was quorate, or what exactly was resolved, becomes a matter of memory.
Built around the workflow, not bolted on top
Guild keeps each member as one record: the application that admitted them, their tier and chapter, their qualifications with expiry dates, their dues and payments, their directory profile and consents. The staff console, the member portal and the public pages all read from that record, so the secretary maintains it once and members keep their own part up to date.
Applications, vetting and a verifiable seal
Online application forms with documents and referees, review stages that follow your statute with approval only at the final stage, and on approval a seal members can display, linked to a public verification page.
Qualifications register with expiry reminders
STCW, MCA, RYA and national licences per member, with uploaded documents, staff verification and reminders at 90, 30, 7 and 0 days. Expiring, expired and to-check tabs show who is about to fall out of ticket.
A directory and member map clients can use
Public and members-only directory with an interactive map and radius search around a port. Members consent per purpose, edits you choose wait in an approval queue, and a contact relay never exposes addresses.
Dues paid into your own Stripe account
Dues invoices, card and SEPA payments into the association's own Stripe account, refunds and automatic reminders. In the member portal, members update their profile, upload certificates, renew, pay and manage consents.
Board governance on the Pro plan
Bodies and meetings in the staff console, attendance with proxies, quorum frozen when the meeting opens, motions, secret ballots with receipts, minutes that lock once approved and a numbered resolutions register.
Events, campaigns and board reports
Seminars and dinners with sessions, tickets, waitlists, QR tickets and offline check-in. Segmented email campaigns with open and click tracking, and membership reports for the council (CSV on any plan, PDF on Pro).
A surveyors' association leaves its spreadsheets behind
An illustrative example, not a customer story: a fictional international association of marine surveyors with 140 members in nine countries, a part-time secretary and a volunteer council of five. Members pay annual dues, and applicants need two referees and proof of qualifications before the council admits them.
Before SupaMaritime
After SupaMaritime
The member list is a spreadsheet on the secretary's laptop, with a second copy the treasurer edits for payments.
The spreadsheet is imported as a dry run first, issues are fixed, then the import is applied with a 24-hour window to undo it.
Applications arrive as emailed PDFs; referee letters are chased one by one and filed in a shared folder.
Applicants use the online form, upload documents and name referees, who answer through their own link; each file moves through office check, references and council stages.
Nobody tracks certificate expiry dates, so an out-of-date qualification surfaces only when a client asks.
Qualifications sit in the register with their documents; reminders are raised at 90, 30, 7 and 0 days and staff verify each renewed certificate.
The website directory is a PDF updated once a year, with members' phone numbers and addresses printed on it.
The directory and map show only what each member consented to; enquiries go through the contact relay, and approved members display a verifiable seal.
Dues are paid by bank transfer; the treasurer matches payments to names and emails reminders by hand.
Renewal invoices go out automatically, members pay by card or SEPA into the association's Stripe account, and reminders follow unpaid invoices.
Council decisions are written up afterwards and circulated as a word-processor file that anyone can still edit.
On Pro, the council meets in the console: attendance recorded, quorum frozen at opening, motions voted, minutes approved and locked, resolution numbered.
Facts you can check
A plan limit, not a result: the Free plan (€0) includes one staff seat, 250 active members, 3 concurrent events and 2 campaigns a month.
Stages you define for your procedure, such as office check, references and council decision. Approval is possible only from the final stage.
By design, directory enquiries go through a contact relay, so a member's email address is never shown to the person writing.
Days before expiry, and on the day itself, at which reminders are raised for STCW, MCA, RYA and other certificates in the register.
What professional association software has to do for a maritime body
General-purpose membership platforms are built for the average association: a list of members, a renewal date, a newsletter and a calendar. A maritime professional association has a harder job. Its members hold certificates issued by flag states and maritime administrations, its admission rules are written into a statute, and the people who rely on it (owners, managers, charterers, insurers) want to know whether a given professional really is a member in good standing.
That changes what professional association software has to model. A member is not just a contact with a tier. They carry qualifications with expiry dates, an application that records how they were admitted, consents that govern what the directory may show, and a membership history the board uses to follow growth, renewals and lapses over time.
Guild models those things directly. Tiers, chapters and custom member fields describe your members (5 custom fields on Free, 30 on Pro, unlimited on Enterprise), and every membership period is kept in the history. Custom roles such as treasurer or vetting committee get their own permission grid, so a volunteer sees what their role needs and nothing more.
Vetting applicants, and a seal clients can verify
The value of a professional association is the filter at the door. In Guild, applicants complete an online form you design, upload documents such as certificates and CVs, and name referees who answer through their own secure link. An incomplete file can be sent back with a request for more information instead of starting again.
The review follows your statute. You define up to eight stages, for example office check, references and council decision, and an application can only be approved from the final stage, while a plainly ineligible one can be rejected at any point. Approval creates the membership, carries the qualifications and documents across, and invites the new member to the portal.
Each approved member receives a verification seal to place on their own website. It links to a public page that confirms, live, whether the member is in good standing. When a yacht owner on the quay wants to know whether a surveyor is who they say they are, the answer is a tap away rather than an email to the secretary.
Tracking STCW, MCA and RYA qualifications in one register
For associations of masters, officers and engineers, a qualification that lapses unnoticed is a reputational risk. Guild comes with a library of common maritime qualification types, including STCW, MCA, RYA, ENG1 and national licences, and each association can add its own.
Qualifications are recorded per member with issue and expiry dates and the supporting document. Members can upload a renewed certificate themselves from the portal, and staff verify or reject it from the register without opening each member record. Reminders are raised at 90, 30 and 7 days before expiry and on the day itself.
The register is organised around the question the council actually asks: who is about to fall out of ticket? Separate tabs for expiring, expired and to-check certificates make the answer visible at a glance. Guild records qualifications issued by other bodies; it does not track CPD hours or training courses.
Choosing software for maritime professional associations on a volunteer budget
Most professional associations in shipping and yachting run on volunteers and a modest budget, so the first test is cost. Guild has a Free plan at €0 with one staff seat, up to 250 active members, 3 concurrent events, 2 campaigns a month and the directory and seal widgets. Pro costs €199 per month with three staff seats (€25 per extra seat), unlimited members, five chapters, governance, PDF board reports and your own domain.
The second test is the board. On Pro, the council can run its meetings in the staff console: attendance is recorded with proxies, the quorum is frozen when the meeting opens so it cannot drift afterwards, motions can go to a secret ballot with a receipt for each voter, minutes lock once approved and resolutions are numbered in a register. Voting from the member portal is not available yet.
The third test is the exit. Guild imports from Wild Apricot or a spreadsheet with a dry run and a 24-hour undo, runs alongside your current website through embeddable widgets, and exports all your data in open formats on every plan. The console is available in six languages, and members see your name, logo and colours, on your own domain with Pro, with only a small Powered by SupaMaritime mark.
How this compares to the alternatives
Widely used general-purpose membership platform for associations and clubs; Guild can import from it and run alongside it through embeddable widgets.
Membership, events and communications platform for associations and chambers across all sectors, without maritime-specific qualification fields.
All-in-one CRM, events and engagement platform for associations and chambers, designed for every industry rather than for maritime bodies.
Open-source CRM used by many associations and non-profits for memberships, contributions and events, typically hosted and extended by the organisation or a partner.
Frequently asked questions
What is professional association software?
How is software for maritime professional associations different from a generic membership platform?
Can we vet applicants before they become members?
How does Guild track STCW, MCA and RYA certificates?
How much does Guild cost for a small association?
Can we move from Wild Apricot or a spreadsheet without disrupting members?
How does the member directory protect members' privacy?
What does Guild not do yet?
See it in your workflow, not a generic demo
We'll walk through built for professional associations.
Start on the Free plan at €0 for up to 250 active members; move to Pro at €199/month when you need chapters, governance and your own domain.