Ugh. I’m so glad I’m almost done with this part of the job. As VP Membership for the AWC, I not only have to call new members when they register, activate them and keep track of whether or not they’ve paid their dues but every year when our new season starts, and membership fees are due for everyone, which is the end of August…I have to keep track of ALL the payments (with the help of our excellently patient treasurer) and finally deactivate all those who have moved, are not renewing or who never answer.
I put several notices and reminders in our monthly newsletters leading up to the deadline. I send out numerous email reminders. Once the deadline has passed, I send out some more to those I haven’t heard from. In years past, once the deadline has passed and then a month had gone by, I actually CALLED every single member that I hadn’t heard from, mostly because I’m nice and I hate to deactivate people who have just forgotten or who might not have received the notification for some reason. And even then, I wait until 2 months have passed before I start getting nasty. Since we hit 200 members however, I am not up to calling all those who I haven’t heard from. It’s nearly always half the club.
But honestly, how hard is it to remember to do this? It’s once a year, but with all the reminders, why are there always some who go months past the deadline? The thing is, IF I deactivate someone, it’s quite a bit of administrative work. I have to deactivate them from our database, remove their email from the distribution list, remove them from my membership tracking Excel sheet, send them an email to say thanks & goodbye, and add them to the alumni page on our member site.
If they THEN reply and say, Oh! Oops! I forgot! I am paying! I promise! and then actually DO pay, FINALLY… I have to do all those steps in reverse: reactivate them, add their email back to the list, add them back to my Excel, and remove them from the alumni page. It’s a giant pain in the ass, considering how many chances they’ve had and how much time has usually gone by before I actually start deactivating people.
I like the calling people to welcome them to the club, and giving them info about how things work, and I like greeting people at the meetings and I even like keeping track of things… but I could really do without this part. At least, I could really do without the slackers and the people who never bother to respond, who, despite my request for them to LET ME KNOW EITHER WAY, they just assume that if they don’t reply I will just go ahead and deactivate them. Which I will, eventually, but why is it so hard to just send me an email in reply and say I AM or I AM NOT renewing my membership??
#$@&%*!