How to Set Up Groups Inside Your Pickleball Club
Once a club gets big enough, "the whole club" stops being the unit people actually play in. There's the competitive 4.0 crew, the beginners still learning to keep score, the Tuesday-morning retirees, the ladies' doubles ladder. Groups are how Pikel lets you carve those out — subgroups that live inside one club, each with its own chat, its own games, and its own notification settings. You don't spin up five separate clubs; you keep one club and split it into the circles that matter. Here's how to set them up and run them.
Step 1 — Create a group (admins only)
Open your club and look at the action row near the top. Alongside Invite and Posts, admins and owners see a Group action — tap it to open the Create Group form. (Regular members don't see this button; creating groups is an admin/owner-only action.)
On the form you'll set:
- Group name — required. Something concrete like "Saturday Picklers" or "3.5 Ladder."
- Description — optional, a line on who it's for.
- Cover photo — optional, so the group is recognizable at a glance.
- Visibility — Public or Private (that's the next step).
Tap Create Group and it appears in your club's Groups section. The flow is identical on iOS and Android.
Step 2 — Choose public or private
The visibility toggle decides how members get in — and Pikel spells out exactly what each one does:
- Public — "Anyone in the club can join." They tap the group in the Groups list to open it, then tap Join Group — and they're in instantly. Best for open crews and skill bands where more is merrier.
- Private — "New members need admin approval." Join requests land in the group's own Join Requests queue, and an admin approves or denies each one. Best for a curated ladder or a fixed roster.
This choice only governs who can join the group — everyone's already a member of the club. You're just deciding whether this particular circle is open-door or gated.
Step 3 — Let members join their groups
Once a group exists, every club member sees it in the club's Groups section. A group they haven't joined shows a Join badge; they tap through to the group and join (instantly if it's public, or by request if it's private). Members can belong to as many groups as they like — the beginner who's also on the Saturday crew joins both.
Step 4 — Each group gets its own chat and its own games
Open a group and you'll find it's a little club of its own:
- Group Chat — a dedicated conversation for just that group, separate from the club-wide chat. The ladder talks ladder; the beginners ask beginner questions without cluttering everyone else's feed.
- Create Game — start a game right from the group and it's automatically scoped to it. Those games show under the group's Upcoming Games and Past Games, so each crew's schedule stays its own.
Admins get a couple of extra tools in the group: Invite Members (to pull people straight into this group) and Manage Members for the roster. On a private group, the Join Requests queue lives here too.
Step 5 — Tune per-group notifications
This is the quiet superpower of groups. Every group has its own Notification Settings, and any member can open them — not just admins. At the top is a single Mute Group switch that silences everything from the group. Leave it off and you get four independent toggles:
- Game Reminders — before games in this group
- RSVP Updates — when members RSVP
- Score Updates — round robin scores
- Group Messages — chat messages in this group
So a member can stay loud on the competitive ladder they care about and mute the casual group they only dip into. The settings are saved per member, per group.
Pro tip
Use groups to fix the two things that quietly kill a growing club: noise and mismatched games. Split by skill (a 3.5 group, a 4.0 group) so games post to the right crowd instead of the whole roster, and split by cadence (a "Tuesday Mornings" group) so your regulars have a home. Then pair each group with a recurring series and its own group chat — that's a self-sustaining pod inside your club that keeps showing up without you herding everyone every week.
Get started
Pikel is live on iOS and Android — one club, as many groups as your crew needs.
Frequently asked questions
How do I set up groups inside a club?
Open your club and tap Group to create a subgroup — say a 3.5 ladder or a Tuesday-morning crew. Each group gets its own chat, its own games, and its own notification settings, so you can split a big club into the smaller circles that actually play together without spinning up separate clubs. Members join the groups that fit them.
Who can create a group in a club?
Only a club admin or owner. The Create Group action shows up in the club's action row for admins and owners only — regular members can join groups but can't create them. It's the same on iOS and Android.
What's the difference between a public and private group?
You pick when you create the group. A public group lets anyone in the club join instantly; a private group means new members need admin approval, and their requests land in the group's own Join Requests queue for an admin to approve. The choice only affects who can join that group — everyone's already inside the club.
Does each group get its own chat and notifications?
Yes. Every group has its own Group Chat, and its own Notification Settings that any member can open. You can mute the whole group, or keep it on and toggle Game Reminders, RSVP Updates, Score Updates, and Group Messages individually — the settings are yours, saved per member.
Can I run games inside a group?
Yes. Each group has its own Create Game button, and games you start there are automatically scoped to that group — they show up under the group's Upcoming and Past games. It's a clean way to keep a ladder's or a crew's schedule separate from the rest of the club.