Membership discussion #1: Verifying membership details for long term members.
Hi Board Members,
This Loomio involves the keeping accurate membership details.The membership processes are governed by two documents, the Constitution and Membership Policy and these discuss onboarding of members etc. but not the maintenance of the list. Our list contains name, email, , address, socials, interests and if they want to be on our public membership list as well as control fields.
Of our 246 active members, 75% of members have been members for over two years and 52% from the initial pre-covid years. Outside directors and a rare member or two, no details have been updated. Earlier members do not have all these fields set as they were introduced later.
Membership commenced |
count |
Percentage |
2019 |
77 |
31% |
2020 |
52 |
21% |
2021 |
17 |
7% |
2022 |
38 |
15% |
2023 |
46 |
19% |
2024 |
16 |
7% |
The purpose of this Loomio is four-fold
Gauge if board feels that we need to validate our membership database
Ratify the process roughly with concerns regarding privacy.
How the membership working group will cope with bulk updates
-
Updating the Membership Policy
Proposed alterations to the membership database and processes
Adding a new date fields of last checked plus Last check sent and set last checked to the induction date initially.
Creating a process that sends the member who has not updated their details in the last two years, an email and allows them to update their name, gender, address, socials and public membership list setting. All other fields would be kept as they initially entered it to reflect their initial application.
One question I have is, do we send their original details they entered in the confirmation email so they can choose to say these are correct, or make them enter their details again to reduce privacy concerns?
If we do this in July of each year, we have time to update details ahead of the election process and to identify members whose emails hard bounce so that the MWG can try to reach out to them for an alternate email address via LinkedIn etc.
If the above is agreed, the process can then be documented in the Membership Policy once baked in rather than updating the policy first. I suggest that this year, we process one year at a time to reduce the workload of the MWG commencing with 2019 members.
I am keen on your thoughts on this please so we can ratify this next board meeting or before. I hope that this will provide a true reflection of our members and will maintain a reasonably accurate membership listing and process going forward
John Bryant Sun 9 Jun 2024 7:57AM
@Jonah Sullivan yes, really good point. I've always thought that OO should focus on serving the broader community, but membership should be focused on those interested in contributing to the actual operation of the organisation (a much smaller number of people).
Through that lens, I'd say membership is important because it's about making sure the people deciding the future of the org are actually invested in the mission.
Ewen Hill Sat 8 Jun 2024 3:19AM
Thanks Jonah, they are really valid points and I too have queries on how and why of membership. On the investment side, it is time only, not money, however the nub is that the board should be ratified and directed by those who are members although the mechanics of this are another worthy discussion. I'm keen to hear the thoughts of others.
John Bryant Sat 8 Jun 2024 5:07AM
Hi Ewen, thanks a lot for bringing this up. I'm flat out for the next week, but I'm keen for this discussion.
I'm in favour of keeping our list up to date. It doesn't do us any good to have an ever-growing list of inactive people. I prefer a shorter list of engaged people.
The requirement to vote in elections was meant to do this, but it's provoked discussion over whether it's unconstitutional. I don't really see it as such, but probably better to switch to a less controversial method of maintaining membership.
Many orgs have annual dues that achieve this, because they require members to opt in each year. I prefer we keep membership free, but maybe we need an annual requirement to opt in? Eg. get an email reminder that your membership expires in a month, it's time to renew, like OSM does.
There are membership management systems, eg Wild Apricot, maybe we should consider this?
Re: the membership policy, it's been almost 5 years so maybe worth a refresh (and maybe necessary to effect these changes). We should talk to our community before we ratify any changes.
CheersJohn
Elisa Puccioni Sun 9 Jun 2024 9:29PM
All great points and I do agree with them too: as Jonah pointed out being a member of OO now doesn't really affect the person or the organisation, so where's the point? I also think membership should be free but definitely would be good to have members who actually care to be part of the organisation.. I don't really have any good idea right now to how to implement this, but I'm in favor of some membership management system and having a renewal system for the membership. It would be good to implement something like 'to be a member you have to vote or to attend the AGM or any of the community events during the year' but not sure if that would be too strict on people.
Alex Leith Mon 10 Jun 2024 3:30AM
I'd still like to get advice regarding whether we can remove inactive members under our current constitution.
And I think perhaps having paid membership is a way to promote engagement... if we had 200 members putting in $25 each that's $5,000. It's not much of an ask per person, plus, then they have skin in the game.
Ewen Hill Thu 13 Jun 2024 12:44PM
Hi @Jonah Sullivan , @John Bryant and @Alex Leith . Thanks for your input and it is valuable however this Loomio relates to should we verify member details roughly every two years so we can have reasonably accurate records and are confident of our membership base within a volunteer admin team and secondly, should we provide the original details to the member or should we re-request basically all their details. The highly exciting second Loomio will cover a lot of the other elements Alex and look at regigging a lot more but I would like to clear this one up first.
The first batch of members was written on A4 sheets in Melbourne for the conference so we have limited information compared to later entries along with the possibility of typos. People have moved addresses... and countries and some sadly may have passed. As custodians, I believe we should keep the data as accurate as we can within reason. During this process, If members update their details then fantastic otherwise they will remain on the register unaffected.
With regard to considering changing systems, we have a lot of moving parts in this with data being pushed to the web, mailjet, election buddy (and return) and Slack. There is a significant cost in hours replacing this before we throw the baby out with the bath water.
I will put a vote up shortly on this alone but I am really keen to hear from others regarding this.
Dorothy Pion Mon 17 Jun 2024 3:31AM
Hi Ewen et al,
Good points raised so far.
@Ewen Hill Your proposal of adding new date fields would be ideal for keeping track of members annually.
Also creating a process or system to send out an email to members every two years is a good idea. Email can contain their original details to confirm their details or if different, they can update their details if necessary.
Cheers
Dorothy
Jonah Sullivan · Sat 8 Jun 2024 3:03AM
I hope I don't come across as crass or rude, but I'm struggling to see the benefits of membership (and of having an accurate account of members).
From a member's perspective the only additional right or responsibility is voting in the annual board election and being eligible to apply for grants.
From an organisation perspective I guess it's valuable to have insight into the level of interest in different states or countries, but that's an imperfect measure and the value is nebulous.
I agree that the current system isn't very high functioning, but I'm not sure increased investment will return value.