Certified Club Manager (CCM)

The CMAE offers club managers two levels of certification – the Club Management Diploma (CMDip) and the globally recognised Certified Club Manager (CCM).

The CCM designation has been the hallmark of professionalism in club management since 1965 and is the cornerstone of CMAE’s member recognition programme. It is a valuable and widely respected mark of a manager’s commitment to professional development and the club industry.

The CCM certification programme is managed by the CMAE’s Education Policy Committee (EPC), with oversight by the Association’s Board of Directors. It is the EPC’s responsibility to consider suggestions from the membership and our academic partners to ensure that CCM remain current in adapting to the ever-changing club management environment.

The CCM designation is awarded to club managers who can prove that they posses a good working knowledge of all of the core competencies, by passing the CCM Exam to the minimum standards. The CCM exam takes place on one day, in two sessions. Candidates are allowed a maximum of 7 hours to complete the exam.

  • For details of eligibility conditions to take the CCM exam, please click here.
  • For details of CCM exam procedures, please click here.
  • To apply to sit the CCM exam please click here.
  • For a listing of current Certified Club Managers click here

How Much Does It Cost?

Certified Club Manager: The first step is to check the eligibility criteria and if a club manager feels that they either fulfill these criteria, or will do so in the next year or so, and they would like to register to sit the CCM exam, you should complete the registration form and submit this to the CMAE Education Office.  Initially, there is a non-refundable registration fee of £75.00 / *€94.97 to be submitted at the time of registration.

PLEASE NOTE: As the verification process may take several months, the deadline for submitting a CCM Registration Form is four months prior to the exam date.

The CMAE Education Office will verify all of your claims for education credits and association credits with the appropriate organizations and education providers, and when the verification process is complete, the applicant will be informed if they are eligible to sit the CCM exam.

If eligible to sit for the CCM exam, the following fees will apply:

  • CCM Exam – £350.00
  • CCM Exam Re-sit – £200.00

Please Note: These fees are set by the CMAE Board of Directors and may be subject to change from time to time. Members will be notified of the fees that will apply to them when eligibility to take the CCM Exam is confirmed.

Exam Dates

CCM exams are held three times per year. The next exams are on the following dates:

Thursday 21st March 2024 (registration closes 31th December)
Thursday 20th June 2024 (registration closes 25th March)
Thursday 21st November 2024 (registration closes 18th August)

Continual Professional Development

All new CCM designations are awarded for a period of five years. Except for those in Retired membership status, CCMs are required to earn at least 120 Education and/or Association Credits during the five-year period following their CCM date to maintain their CCM designations.

At least half of these must be Education Credits. CCMs meeting these requirements will have maintained the designation for another five-year period – The fee for
rectification is GBP 75 which is a cost CMAE incur from CMAA to remain on the
global eligibility platform. CMAE absorbs the costs of the administration to
verify the credits. (One of the benefits of the CCM designation is having a complimentary registration to the CMAA World Conference once every 5 years, this has a value of $1,200)

All CCM’s wishing to renew their qualification will need to complete the CCM Maintenance Form. It is suggested that if you are coming up to your 5 year renewal period to complete a form prior to this as a personal record for yourself.

CCM Eligibility Regulations

In order to meet the international eligibility standards for the globally-recognised ‘Certified Club Manager’ (CCM) certification pathway and examination, the requirements for European club managers is updated every year. The requirement now is to have attended four of our six MDP Courses I.e. MDP Parts One, Two and Three, plus either MDP Golf, MDP Sport & Recreation or MDP Food & Beverage. Then further Association & Education Credits plus 6 years Managerial experience in clubs or equivalent.

N.B. Please note that our MDP pathway, covers all the same Learning Outcomes as CMAA’s BMI programme. However, due to the sequence and level of the order of particular competency areas, specific MDP courses are not inter-changeable with specific BMI courses.

This brings us in line with Club managers in the USA, Canada, China, South Africa and other countries registered to deliver the CMAA’s BMI pathway, that already have these regulations in place. For details of the CMAE’s Management Development Programme of 5-day courses, please click here.

Those wishing to sit the CCM exam on any of the above dates must submit their completed registration forms to CMAE CCM Certification Manager Sharon Reekie prior to the closing date for each exam detailed above. Sharon’s email address is: [email protected]