Hello All,

I am looking for feedback for how your club manages the following:

1) - Membership / renewals - primarily, online vs. cash/check other method.

2) - If you have controlled access to your club, gate etc, - how is that handled, i.e. keyed lock, combo lock, other?

3) - Do you collect dues once per year at the same time, or are memberships handled year to year, regardless of when a person signs up / renews.

Thank you in advance!

Yearly, online or in person cash or check but there's a link on our web site that takes them to a paypal renewal.

Key lock

Changed at the January meeting (first sunday of the month) memberships renew yearly, after june or so they get a break for the partial year. We have about 4 years worth of keys and rotate them every year.

emt, cash, check. Receipts given and can be paid anytime. we have an emt email that goes direct to the club account.
We use a gate & code lock. Code gets changed every two years. The new code gets emailed & texted to members who paid, or we know are going to pay.
If a new member joins anytime after August, there dues cover the remainder of the year, and the following year.

Coded lock. Members have until the end of March to renew and get the new gate code. Combination changed very year.

We also accept PayPal

This is awesome guys. Keep them coming please. I am trying to move us into the modern era with online membership maintenance. One struggle we are having is dealing with dues proration. We offer first-time members dues proration so they don’t have to purchase a full year for only a few month’s flying if they sign up later in the year. That’s been sort of difficult to figure out from a web-based standpoint.

$15 off if your renewal is postmarked in January.. cheapskate modelers will pay on time if there is a financial incentive….

$10 off if next years' dues paid by Dec 31st of the current year. Checks, cash and have done Paypal F&F on a rare occasion.
Locks with combination provided to members each year on their membership card

Renewals at start of year. New members pro rated by month of becoming member. New members pay one time ‘runway’ fee. Payments are via PayPal but we have a few that still pay with a check.

Originally Posted by jbarnes

Renewals at start of year. New members pro rated by month of becoming member. New members pay one time ‘runway’ fee. Payments are via PayPal but we have a few that still pay with a check.

Thank you. So using the PayPal option, do you let them enter the amount they owe? We thought about that as an option - Post the proration schedule and allow the member to enter the correct amount they owe on their own. Obviously, we were concerned there might be some wiggle room for fraud there. But I wouldn’t think it would be an unmanageable issue. What has been your experience?

Bump.

For those using online services, could you expound on how you’re doing it exactly? PayPal, other? Especially if you’re prorating dues throughout the year? I really want to focus on online membership maintenance and move away from handling checks / cash.

Thank you in advance!

Using Paypal F&F payment ...
No year round proration of dues.....gets to complicated...and the Club has activities that require $$ throughout the year.
New member dues set at $40 at time of application, rises to normal $80 dues second year, with a $10 reduction for payment prior to Jan. 1st of the next year.
Only exception is that if a new member signs up in November of one year, their new members dues get them the next year also.

Sort of a sidebar question - but are any of you being overrun by people attempting to access your club and use it for free? I guess I am talking about all scenarios such as - members sharing the combination to the lock, sneaking in, coming in when the gate is open and flying as a non-member, etc. We are not seeing this - and I personally do not see it as a threat. Just curious what other clubs are seeing. And if you’ve had it, how you handled it. Thank you for all the feedback!

Yea, you have to split the difference between being welcoming, and having people there all the time that aren't paying for the mower gas.

Originally Posted by BarracudaHockey

Yea, you have to split the difference between being welcoming, and having people there all the time that aren't paying for the mower gas.

I am also looking at time/energy/money spent on mitigating a “threat” that doesn’t exist on a large scale vs. making processes easier/less expensive for our club. From my perspective, the unfortunate reality is that almost no one cares about RC except those that call it their hobby. And of those, most do not mind paying a club for the privilege to fly there. I just do not see 100’s of people trying to get away with using our club for free as a realistic or unmanageable threat. We may experience some onsie / twosies that come our way. But I personally want to view those as opportunities, not a threat.

Yea that's exactly right.

And most of the so called "free loaders" are more than happy to help if you just explain what the money goes to. Power bill so they can charge, gas for the mower so they can fly etc.