Sunday 19th February 2012 - AGM  

A brief 'Thank you' to those members who attended the AGM, thereby ensuring we achieved the required 15 member quorum. I hope to post the Draft minutes for the meeting here during the coming week.  Meanwhile, I can confirm that the amended Membership Renewal rates have been agreed as shown in the New Subscription rates & Committee Members agreed at  the AGM held 2012 02 19  and will therefore become effective 01/03/2012.  Obviously should you renew & pay your Membership before that date, you will enjoy the 2011 rates!

Thursday 23rd February - Renewal Reminders

About half of you - the other half having already done the 'right thing'! - will have received an automated reminder that it is now only 7 days until your Membership renewal / payment is due and the following comments may answer a few of your points / questions:

• To renew your Membership for the 2012 Year please do this by clicking on 'View Profile' (top right) and then under 'Membership' click on 'Renew'. Once you have Renewed, you will then need to pay by the 1st. March if you are to take advantage of our 'Prompt pay' discount! There will be details of how to do this on the Invoice you will receive as part of this process, but please note that as well as Cheques, you can now pay by Bank Transfer, which is now our preferred method, pay to Ardleigh Sailing Club, A/c no. 00644498, Sort code 30-92-16
• When you first go to your Profile, do please check the Membership Level (ML) shown for you is the correct one, especially if we set the Membership record up for you. In particular, if you have a boat at the club, you must have an ML which says '+ 1 included boat'; this is now available for Family and Individual, as well now as Social to cater for those members who are 'Storing' - but not sailing - their boat at the Club. If it is not correct, go to 'View Profile', put it into Edit, and then you can amend the membership level before you start the Renewal process.
• We have introduced new Membership Levels of 'Social & Junior' and 'Social & Junior & Boat' to cater for those Adults who have joined as Social members so as to be able to escort their children / grand children to the club. We have done this as otherwise we were going to have to apply to the Child for the renewal payment - and they will be getting enough requests for money later in life, without starting at Age 8!
• If you have a Boat, if there is just one, then you should already be on the 'Family / Individual and 1 boat' Membership level, if you are not then please importantly choose this correct option. When you have renewed your 'Main' membership, you will then:
• • If you have just one boat, need to re-register it under 'Events' using the 'Included Boat - 2012' option; this will incur no charge, as this is embedded in your Main Membership fee.
  • If you have more than one boat, you will also need to re-register as many as you have under 'Events' but this time choose the 'Additional Boat - 2012' option; this will incur a further charge of £58 for each boat, which please add to your remittence when paying, note the total will be shown at the bottom of the screen once you are have completed everything, and that you can make just one payment - we will 'Allocate' your payment behind the scenes.
  • Finally, if you are a Family Member, and have registered the 2nd. Adult, then they will not need to 'Renew' their membership, it will role over automatically. However, if they have not registered, we would like them to do so, as it gives more information on our member's skill levels and willingness to be involved, plus they get a copy of all the Club emails direct, please note though that they will need a seperate email address to the one used by the Family Head.

Renewed already - and then still had a reminder?

• Sincere thanks to many of you for having done this already, and especially if you have paid by Bank Transfer.  If you have already paid, but then received a reminder, apologies, but even if you paid by Bank Transfer - which definitely remains our preferred method - we do still have to manually update the record once we have seen the Funds arrive: fyi, we have decided not to use the Credit card facility built into the system for the time being - which would make it fully automated - because of the 2% handling fee, but this is something we can always review if there is a Member demand.

A few other General points:

• My thanks to Bob Stannard who has agreed to at least get the Photo Gallery started - so if you have any photo's you would like to potentially share with our other Members, do email them to Bob at images@ardleighsc.co.uk.
• Under the 'Why are changes needed?' menu options to the left, we have given an explanation as to why this is all happening through the 'Background' and 'Why we chose Wild Apricot' sub-sections, we hope you find these useful if this of interest or you are concerned, but it is not compulsory reading!
• Please note there is text attached to the Menu headings on the left, as well as their fly-out 'Sub-sections'; often this puts the information in the following Sub-sections in context.
• When you have completed your Profile do have a look at the 'Forum' area - menu to the left - there are already some interesting threads developing, but do log-in first as otherwise you will not be able to see who has made the comments, and even worse, nor will you be able to add your point of view!
• Finally, do please keep an eye on the Club News option to the left - this is where you will get to see what is going on over the next few months, and if there are any 'Urgent Announcements' - e.g. Racing has been canceled due to Ice, etc.

In conclusion

Very many thanks for taking the time to read this, and any other pages you may take the time to look at. As with all new developments, we are really interested in any feed back you could provide, it will help - even if it is that you don't like it! - but how easy it was to use is only something that you can comment on; we have already received some comments and modified things accordingly, but it can always be improved further! So if you have any observations do please send them to commodore@ardleighsc.co.uk .