A New Look for the Rybnik Municipal Chess Club - a Redesign Built in Astro

project type: Website | technology: Astro / HTML

About the Client

The Rybnik Municipal Chess Club has been running continuously since 1997, teaching chess to children and teens and fielding a senior team that competes at the top level. The club's alumni regularly win medals at the Silesian and Polish Championships, and the organization today has more than 100 active members.

Working with MKSz Rybnik on their new website was a chance to support a local, municipal initiative - helping a club that has spent nearly three decades building a chess community in our city was an easy choice for us.

Goals and Challenges

The previous MKSz Rybnik website did its basic job - publishing club news and reporting on players' achievements. But it didn't fully capture the character of the organization, and over time it started to need a refresh, both visually and technically.

Our goal was to give the site a "wind in its sails": to make it more appealing, more representative, and above all, more informative. We wanted the new site to not just report on what had already happened, but also encourage people to join the club and help with securing financial support for its activities.

Implementation - Step by Step

Why Astro?

We built the new site with Astro, which proved itself on two fronts in this project - it let us prototype and build the whole thing quickly, and - importantly, from the user's perspective - Astro doesn't send unnecessary JavaScript to the browser by default, rendering pages server-side instead. In practice, that means every part of the new MKSz Rybnik site loads for visitors almost instantly, regardless of device. We've written more about the advantages of Astro on our blog.

More Information About the Club

The new site says far more about the club itself than its predecessor did. We added a Club History page, covering nearly three decades of MKSz Rybnik's activity, as well as a Coaches page introducing the people who run the sessions. This lets visitors - whether parents looking for activities for their kids or people simply interested in chess - get to know the people and history behind the club before they even reach out.

One of the key elements of the new site is the Sponsorship Offer page - something the previous version of the site didn't have at all. Like many local sports initiatives, the club relies heavily on sponsor support and funding from the city budget. A separate, clear page with an offer for businesses is meant to help the club reach potential partners and make it easier for them to decide to lend their support.

Attracting New Club Members

The site's structure guides both current and prospective members through the most important information - from news and classes to a simple sign-up path on the Enrollment page. That path was kept free of unnecessary elements and designed so that anyone wanting to join the club - or just learn a bit more - can do so quickly and easily.

There's also a nice touch for people who want to practice on their own: the site links to Chess.com, where visitors can play against the computer or other players online without needing to create an account. Including this feature also has the potential to spark visitors' interest in playing chess in the first place.

Results

The result of our work is a fast, clear, and far more representative website that better reflects the character and history of the Rybnik Municipal Chess Club. The new pages - Club History, Coaches, and Sponsorship Offer - give the club tools it didn't have before: the ability to build its image and secure support, not just publish news.

You can see the results at mksz.rybnik.pl - well worth a look if you're into chess!

Summary

This project stands out from most of our work in one way - we chose it ourselves, wanting to support a local initiative that has spent nearly 30 years building a chess community in Rybnik. Both MKSz Rybnik and our team are happy with the result - and glad we could help with such a good cause.

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