Case study
From an inherited membership system to a digital platform the charity owns
- Client
- National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs
- Contact
- Marty Bibby, Digital Manager
- Sector
- Charity / Youth Membership Organisation
- Year
- 2013 – present
Services delivered
The challenge
In 2013, ECK Technology inherited support of CMDS — the membership system behind the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs. NFYFC is organised into counties, each with clubs across its towns and cities, and CMDS was installed locally at every one of them, with each county syncing its data back to a central installation at YFC headquarters in Kenilworth.
It was a Delphi Windows Forms application running on local databases — already ageing technology, critical to a national organisation, and with no one left to look after it. For years the charity also lacked a clear digital direction of its own, so the system needed a partner who could keep it dependable while steadily moving it forward.
What we did
Keeping CMDS alive — and moving it forward
Supported the membership system continuously from 2013, keeping counties and clubs across the country running day to day. Rather than letting it stagnate, the application was progressively modernised — first rebuilt as a .NET Forms application, then as a full MVC web application in 2022. Three technology generations, no disruption to the organisation.
A new public site, built with the charity's Digital Manager
In 2023 NFYFC hired a Digital Manager to take the reins of its digital strategy. Working together, we developed a new MVC front end for the charity's public website, backed by a headless CMS — giving the organisation a modern site whose content it could own and shape itself.
Foundations for a new membership system
Behind the scenes, designed and started the framework for NFYFC's next-generation membership system, built on SOLID design principles — deliberately crafted to give the Digital Manager the best possible footing to carry the platform forward in-house.
Re-architecting the hosting
The final piece was helping architect the migration of the charity's entire system away from costly Microsoft Azure hosting onto cheaper, more powerful Linux-based hosting, with full CI/CD pipelines running on locally hosted runners.
Handing over the keys
NFYFC is a charity, and every decision along the way was made with its costs and ethos in mind — doing what is best for the client, not what is best for ECK Technology. That's why the source code and control of the project have been handed over to NFYFC itself, so the platform can keep growing from strength to strength, with ECK on hand to help, support, and stay transparent about costs and hosting.
The result
The public site and headless CMS that we started together have since been taken to new heights by NFYFC's own Digital Manager — exactly the outcome the handover was designed for. The charity now runs a modern digital platform it genuinely owns, on hosting that costs a fraction of what it once did, with the confidence that thirteen years of dependable support stands behind it.
Results at a glance
- Membership system supported and modernised across three technology generations — Delphi, .NET Forms, then MVC
- New public website delivered as an MVC front end over a headless CMS, now run and grown in-house
- Next-generation membership system architected on SOLID principles for in-house development
- Hosting migrated from Azure to cheaper, more powerful Linux infrastructure with full CI/CD
- Source code and control handed to the charity — a partnership built on its ethos, not lock-in
“ECK Technology has been heavily involved with our organisation's digital development. They designed new versions of our website, membership database and online application form, from concept through to launch. Dave's knowledge of the organisation has been a big help in offering proactive ideas and solutions to further develop our digital systems, and he always goes above and beyond to ensure that everything runs smoothly. I would have no hesitation in recommending ECK Technology to organisations looking to develop their digital presence.”