Author Topic: Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation  (Read 170 times)

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Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation
« on: October 24, 2020, 11:53:29 am »
"Back in the Day", our web site automatically reactivated the account of a "lapsed" member.  At some point, that was changed so that a lapsed member now has to request reactivation from a club volunteer.

I am not sure what the reason for the change was, but I can't see anything in the bylaws that requires it, and I don't think it's ideal to have a volunteer have to take care of an administrative task (reactivating accounts) that could just as easily be done automatically.

The way it worked before was this:
1) After 12 months of no activity, the member receives an e-mail notifying them that their membership will lapse;
2) After 13 months, their status is set to "resigned";
3) If the member later logs back in, the web site checks credentials (username and password), and if the member is in "good standing", the web site automatically reactivates the account.

Members who deliberately resign their membership, or who have their membership revoked, are not subject to the "automatic reactivation".

Any questions or concerns about putting the web site back to the way it was with automatic reactivation for lapsed members?

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Re: Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation
« Reply #1 on: October 24, 2020, 04:50:47 pm »
Absolutely in favour of automatic reactivation.  I would go even one step further and say memberships should be "lifetime" meaning there would be no "lapse" or notification email required.  Memberships would only be classified as "resigned" if the member themselves gave notice they wished to quit the club.   In my experience I have seen many members disappear for years (for a variety of reasons) and then reappear out of the blue wanting to attend something again.  When that happens the process should be as easy as possible for everyone involved.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2020, 05:34:46 pm by Duane »

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Re: Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation
« Reply #2 on: October 24, 2020, 04:55:05 pm »
But that's what the automatic reactivation does.

The reason why I like automatic inactivation of membership is because, if we leave everyone in there for all time, it gives a really inaccurate perception of how many people truly have membership with the club.

By putting the site back the way it was, with automatic-reactivation, people would never even realize that their account was inactivated - they just go on the web site and log in, or register for an event, and the web site takes care of the reactivation behind-the scenes (now that I say that I realize that we shouldn't have the 12-month "notice" that an account is going inactive... it would just happen, and then it would un-happen if the person ever came back to the web site).

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Re: Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation
« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2020, 05:04:12 pm »
Oh, another thing that could be a problem with this... according to Alberta Law regarding societies, we have to provide a list of members to them every year.  I think we'd be in trouble if we were giving them a list that included thousands of people who haven't attended anything in years.

How about we do a compromise:
1) For now, we make reactivation "automatic" and behind-the scenes; and
2) If we dissolve the registered society we can look at changing it so that membership never expires

?

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Re: Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation
« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2020, 05:41:22 pm »
I'm all for automatic reactivation and my apologies I was drafting and changing my comments as you were likely replying to them so what you initially replied to may have changed. lol  Anyway long story short I am in favour of your original proposal but was just thinking it would be nice to simply have lifetime memberships.  If we can't easily accomplish that then YES your initial proposal is most ideal at this time.


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Re: Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation
« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2020, 05:48:35 pm »
I wonder if we could have lifetime memberships but for executive/society stats use only break it down to "active" vs "dormant".   This would be completely separate from what we call an active member (3+ events per 6 months ).
« Last Edit: October 24, 2020, 05:53:00 pm by Duane »

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Re: Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2020, 03:48:40 am »
That's an interesting suggestion, and one I'd like to do some more analysis on.  I think it will take more time than we have between now and Nov 10th.

For the Nov 10th meeting, let's aim to have a decision to set the web site back to auto-reactivation and we'll take this one forward for more analysis and discussion.

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Re: Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation
« Reply #7 on: October 28, 2020, 09:27:13 pm »
Sounds good

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Re: Lapsed Membership - Automatic Reactivation
« Reply #8 on: November 04, 2020, 07:32:08 am »
I feel we should go back to the original format for lapsed and reactivation of membership.