Digi-Wedge · Prepared for Rand Club · Commercial in confidence

A public website the Club can stand behind.

A governed, integration-ready website for Rand Club: built to work with the member platform the Club already runs, publishing only what the Club has approved, and collecting no personal information on the public site itself.

01 · The situation

The audience is already there. Nothing captures it.

Rand Club has what most venues spend years building — a heritage building, a genuine reputation and steady organic interest. What it does not have is a measurable path from that interest to a named commercial outcome.

Enquiries for functions, accommodation and membership arrive through routes nobody can attribute, and the website ends where the decision begins. The visitor who wants to hire a room, book a bed or apply for membership is handed nowhere in particular.

That is the gap worth closing, and it is the one both of the other approaches leave open.

This is a plumbing problem, not a brochure problem. A more beautiful site that still stops short of the member system will not change the numbers.
02 · Position

We built the member platform the Club already uses.

Rand Club runs on My Club Account. We are its authors. That matters not as pedigree but because the commercial routes on this website can be wired to something that already exists, rather than described now and deferred to a change request later.

Membership

The Club's application form already exists on the member platform. The website routes applicants straight to it.

Events

The Club's published events are already available through a versioned public interface, subject to the Club's subscription and approved service scope. The website reads them; nobody re-types anything.

Accommodation

Bookings stay with the Club's existing provider. The website presents the rooms and hands over cleanly.

Integration-ready, with approved external member-system handoffs. Connection to the member platform remains conditional on the Club's own subscription and contract for those services, which is quoted as a separate line below.
03 · Scope

Ten routes, defined precisely.

A tight core built properly, rather than a large page count built thinly. Each route earns its place by serving a decision the Club wants a visitor to make.

  1. HomeThree routes by intent: host an event, become a member, stay at the Club.
  2. The ClubWho the Club is, with approved heritage in brief. One page, not an archive.
  3. Venues & SpacesEvery named room with verified capacity, on one navigable page with a finder.
  4. Venue hire enquiryAn approved external enquiry handoff to the Events team, carrying the detail needed to quote.
  5. AccommodationRooms and stay information, handing off to the Club's booking provider.
  6. DiningRestaurant and bars with published menus, handing off for reservations.
  7. MembershipCategories, benefits, reciprocity and governance, routing to the Club's application.
  8. EventsThe published programme, read from the member platform, with an approved ticketing route.
  9. Visit & ContactAccess, parking, dress, and the right contact for each kind of enquiry.
  10. GalleryA curated set, published only where the Club's rights are recorded.

Explicitly out of scope

  • Individual pages for each of the sixteen named rooms
  • A full library and collections archive
  • The complete reciprocal-club listing
  • A journal or news section
  • Per-category membership pages
  • Photography, film and image licensing
  • Paid media, social media management and newsletter production
04 · How we work

Nothing is published that the Club has not approved.

Every claim has an owner

Each publishable statement carries a named approver, a dated source and a review date. Where the record is contested and the Club has not settled it, we publish nothing and record that decision.

No invented history

Public sources disagree about this building — its storeys, its royal visits, its restoration status. We will not quietly resolve those for you. We will ask, and wait.

Images carry their rights

Every image is recorded against the permission that allows it. Nothing is linked from someone else's server and hoped for.

No personal data on the public site

Applications, bookings and reservations complete on the Club's existing systems. Those providers may collect information after the handover; this website does not collect it.

Content updates are logged with us and implemented under an agreed turnaround. Events are the exception and need no request at all — they flow from the member platform automatically where the Club's subscription and approved service scope permit, and that is the content which changes most often.
05 · Hosting

Served from Cloudflare's edge, not a server we have to patch.

The site is built to static files and published to Cloudflare Pages. That choice is the reason several of the commitments elsewhere in this proposal are affordable.

Cloudflare logo Cloudflare Pages — the Club's site is served from Cloudflare's global edge network. Cloudflare is an independent provider; naming it here states where the site runs and implies no partnership or endorsement.

Fast where the members are

Pages are delivered from the network edge rather than a single machine in one city. That matters for a Club with international and reciprocal members, and for visitors arriving on mobile networks.

Nothing to keep patched

There is no database, no plugin ecosystem and no application server exposed to the internet. The recurring cost of a conventional site is largely the work of defending one; this removes most of that surface rather than charging to guard it.

Encryption and protection included

TLS certificates are issued and renewed automatically, and denial-of-service protection is part of the platform rather than an upgrade.

Every change is reviewable before it is live

Each build gets its own private preview address, so the Club can read a change in place before it is published. Nothing reaches the public site unseen.

Instant rollback

Deployments are immutable and atomic. If something published is wrong, the previous version is restored in seconds rather than repaired under pressure.

Portable by construction

The output is ordinary static files. The Club can move to its own Cloudflare account, or to another host entirely, without rebuilding the site. Hosting is not a way to keep the Club.

Hosting and technical support are quoted at R2,500 per month, cancellable. If the Club prefers to own the hosting account directly, we will deploy into it and bill support alone.
06 · Delivery plan

Four stages, each with something the Club can see.

Every payment is tied to an output the Club can inspect, not to elapsed time.

  1. MobilisationConfirmed content owner and approval route · Confirmed member-platform position and approved handoff destinations · Agreed route inventory and success measures
  2. Approved design and content modelPresented design for the Club's identity across the ten routes · Content model with the approval record for each publishable claim · Agreed measurement plan for enquiries, applications and bookings
  3. Staging and UAT core deliveryAll ten routes on a private staging address for Club review · Handoffs wired to approved destinations and tested end to end · Accessibility and responsive proof at mobile and desktop widths
  4. Handover and acceptanceLive deployment on the Club's chosen hosting · Content-update process and turnaround in writing · Source, content model and approval records handed to the Club
07 · Investment

R155,000 excluding VAT — a provisional commercial position.

One fee for the ten-route core, billed against four milestones. No large upfront deposit: R31,000 is payable at mobilisation, and the balance follows delivery.

MilestoneShareAmount ex VAT
Mobilisation20%R31,000
Approved design and content model30%R46,500
Staging and UAT core delivery30%R46,500
Handover and acceptance20%R31,000
TotalR155,000
Ongoing and conditionalBasisAmount ex VAT
Hosting and technical supportMonthly, cancellableR2,500 / month
Content beyond the agreed corePriced batchesOn request
Member-platform subscription and servicesConditional, separate lineTo be confirmed
This is a provisional commercial position, not a fixed quotation. It is subject to confirmation of the delivery day rate, and will be reissued as a firm fee once that is settled. The member-platform subscription, implementation and support scope are a separate conditional line and are not included in the figure above.

Hosting is not a hostage. Support is monthly and cancellable, and the Club can move the site to its own hosting without rebuilding it. Ending a support arrangement does not take the website with it.

08 · Reduced alternative

A six-route launch at R95,000.

If the Club prefers a smaller first commitment, this is a genuinely reduced scope — not a discount on the same thing.

Included: Home, The Club, Venues & Spaces with enquiry, Accommodation, Membership and Events, with the accommodation, membership and events routes wired as described above.

Deferred to a later phase: Dining, Gallery, the detailed Visit & Contact route, and the fuller heritage treatment. We would rather name what moves than quietly deliver less.

09 · What we need

Dependencies, stated plainly.

  • A named content owner with authority to approve historical and factual claims. Without one, the heritage routes cannot be published honestly.
  • Approved source material for the ten core routes. We implement what the Club supplies; we do not invent copy about the Club's own history.
  • Confirmation of the member-platform subscription and the services in scope, which governs what the membership and events routes can do.
  • Photography is excluded, as it is from the other proposals the Club has seen. We will advise on what is needed.
  • Approved handoff destinations for booking, application, reservation and ticketing, each confirmed in writing before it goes live.
We do not promise search rankings, booking volumes or membership numbers. Anyone who does is selling a forecast, not a website.
10 · Next step

A working session, then a fixed scope.

On acceptance we would confirm the day rate and final commercials, agree the content owner and the approval route, and confirm the member-platform position — before any fee is invoiced.

The ten routes above then become the contracted scope, and anything beyond them is quoted rather than assumed.