Blog
A note from the Membership Secretary
I just wanted to get the message out early regarding membership and the process in joining the club.
I have received a lot of emails this season, asking to join the club on a Monday and all be processed to race on the Saturday, to be clear this is not possible. In order to make everyone aware of the process I thought it was best to detail the steps involved.
It is also worth remembering that throughout this process, the manual interfaces are volunteers, who will generally dedicate a fair amount of time to their roles; however, they also have work and home commitments like anyone else, so SAC may not always be their first priority.
- The membership season runs from 1st April to 31st March, we can begin the process in March as this allows people to be fully signed up ready to go for the 1st April.
- In the period from the 1st March 30th April, membership applications will be processed weekly. With over 500 competitive athletes, this period will capture the majority and as a committee, we are aware this is the critical time.
- As we move into May, the application rate declines so we will reduce processing to two weekly, as highlighted below, due to the work involved maintaining a weekly check is not sustainable.
- From July, onwards the membership applications will be checked on a monthly basis around 5-7th of each month. This will continue until the next March where we start the process all over again.
- Every time a new member joins a number of things need to happen for each,
- A New or Existing member applies through Love Admin,
- Each membership application needs checking to ensure the following information as a minimum is present as this is required for EA application and for coaches information to ensure they have a handle on who is expecting to attend their sessions,
- Name
- DOB
- Address
- Contact Email
- Contact phone number
- Emergency Contact details
- If a junior member (U18) parent or guardian details
- Coach
- Training Days
- When this information is checked correct (there is often a period of to-ing and fro-ing to ensure it is) the application is accepted and payment is requested.
- When payment is made by the applicant, it takes approximately 7-10 days to appear in the SAC accounts.
- I will process the application, when the payment is received in the SAC account.
- At this point, I will raise the UKA membership, this involves the manual transfer of Love Admin data to the UKA site, as frustrating as this is, there is no automatic way to do this and it is a manual process.
- When this is complete an invoice is raised, in line with the information provided prior to this, we attempt to group these together in weekly, two weekly or monthly invoices to limit the amount of time the treasurer needs to dedicate to paying invoices.
- When the treasurer has made payment, it takes UKA 7-10 days to process before issuing an active URN number. It may be possible to speed this leg of the process up, but that will be down to the individual concerned contacting UKA and discussing on an individual basis, this is not something we as a club would do.