Discussion: Club membership software

Can anyone recommend a good, inexpensive (free), online membership system?
The MNOC system is currently a combination of online/offline and I'm re-evaluating options.
We'd like to be able to maintain our member list/member info/payment status, send out automatic reminders, and (probably) link to our online payment system.

Beware of spending a lot of effort establishing a sophisticated system and data base to do all that. Simpler is better. Both software and volunteers have short longevity these days.

While one club officer may have the time and expertise to set up such a system, the chances are that within a year or two, the next guy will not. The system will not be properly maintained, and soon become worthless.

We're all volunteers at the club level. And new appointees like to show that they're doing something...so changes are made "to simplify and improve." But those goals are rarely attained in my experience.

Chances are Eventor. (I hope.)

Linear Ice, does your club do calendar year memberships, or do you have to keep track of 12-month memberships? If the latter, one step in simplifying would be to switch to calendar year membership. Only need one set of reminders, and then you just add people to "membership list 2015" as they pay.

Cristina, good point. We keep track of 12 months memberships. An annual process would be a lot easier than a monthly process.

CascadeOC has a custom-built registration, membership, and volunteer signup system programmed by the Purple Pen guy (Peter Golde). It's super nice to use as an event director, and it eliminated the need for someone (who was me) to manually keep track of volunteer points and free event redemptions. I think it's probably super nice for our membership coordinator (not me) now that that's built in, too.

I don't know if Peter is available to get this system to other clubs, though.

One negative of Eventor is that it requires you to provide your birthdate but publicly displays the full birthdate (not just year) on your bio page. Granted, there are probably many other places potential identity theives can get this information. But let's not make it easy for them. Please join me in boycotting Eventor until this policy is changed! And be sure to email the IOF telling them why. Note that they are requiring all Event Advisors (as well as all athletes who want to participate in WREs) to register with Eventor - North America can't afford to lose one of our few advisors or ranked athletes just because somebody insists on unnecessary publication of personal information.

Mike, just put in your birth year, (1/1/****) that is all that Eventor needs. As club registrar, its all I use if I'm putting PPL into Eventor

Mike, did you send a request to the IOF asking why they need to display the full date either directly of via your country administrator?

Eventor is not "inexpensive" unless you can negotiate a really good deal

@Mike - Where is this bio page with full date of birth details? I'm looking at eventor now and the only time I can see anyone's full birthdate - (ie mine) is when I look at 'My Settings" when logged in. Even as an administrator of my club, when I look at my members I only have the year.

Trish Trash, are you looking at IOF Eventor, or the Oz one?

http://eventor.orienteering.org/Events

OOOH # '-' #

Oh yeah that sucks big time - and it looks like my athlete profile is in there as well.

BTW, that isn't my birth date, but the year is right

You will enter WRE events but it seems tRicky is ageless!

Now no-one will buy me a birthday present.

That's one less present, yes?

@ Uncle JiM, I'll try putting in the stars for the date.

@obiwan, I sent a reply to the email notifying all IOF event advisors that they needed to register with Eventor. I got most of the way through the registration process, then actually bothered to read the agreement that you have to accept, which stated that your full birthdate would be visible in your profile. At that point I got annoyed, sent the email to IOF and exited the registration process.

@Trish, I only read the statement that said birthdate would be public; I didn't actually check anybody's profile to see if it really was.

Yes, I looked around at other athletes (lucky I already know tRicky's full birthdate) From a privacy point of view - it's not good.

That's one less present, yes?

Thankfully you cannot get less than zero.

@Mike: "1/1/****" = "1/1/[birth year]"

Wasn't OUSA developing a system that the clubs could also use?

How is the IOF going to know when to send birthday cards to its Event Advisors?

All orienteers have the same birthday for age classification purposes (31 December).

Where I come from, our birthdays are always 1 January. Is that different on the other side of the planet, too?

Where I come from, Chocolate Milk solves all problems (and is a perfect birthday gift). Is this different on the other side of the planet, too?

Oops, you're probably right. I meant it is your age as at 31 December that counts for the whole year.

and I thought it was an international date line thing

I hear there's a website if you're looking for foreign brides.

Is that true for leap years as well ?

No, the website is down in leap years. Which really messes up the calendar when you're crossing the Pacific.

Maybe they should update their membership software. There's a thread about it somewhere.

Excellent hijack.

An update on Eventor - Although it still asks for your full birth date when you register, the registration agreement has been modified to state that your year of birth may sometimes be publicly displayed. (as opposed to previously saying that your full birth date would be displayed). I'm happy with the change.

"may sometimes be publicly displayed" ?? Mine is still on display

Is there a option, that allows you to hide it from being viewed?

In your profile, you could probably change it to January 1. I took your and GuyO's suggestion to do this with mine, even though it now sounded like it would not be displayed.

Anyone who enters their actual birthday into any online app deserves the fate they get. Everyone knows this, so it is unclear why this is an issue for this particular app.

Wasn't OUSA developing a system that the clubs could also use?

Lets hope not. Roll your own secure software rarely ends well. At least they finally put SSL on the membership app. Wasn't true when it was first rolled out. Perhaps my pointing this fact out at the time (offline, of course) precipitated this obviously needed correction, but, then again, everything I point out is "stupid". Too bad I'm not one of "the World's Smartest Athletes".

Roll your own anything rarely ends well, but at least you've saved those pennies to enjoy the $5 entry fee in perpetuity.