Page 23 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2022

NVS Membership Report
This report follows an intense period of membership activity over the past four weeks (writing this in January) with this my first experience of mass membership renewals under the new on-line system. As the membership renewal process has progressed it has become apparent that there a number of improvements that can be made to make the renewal process more user friendly for our members and less time consuming for me as Membership Registrar.
We, by that I mean myself, need to provide guidance to the membership as
to how the renewal process works and to ensure that the on-line process is more intuitive and accurately recognises the members NVS account when attempting
a renewal. Some members may not be aware that if they have set-up a Direct Debit mandate, this will continue until the member cancels it. Of greater importance is where members have previously joined or renewed using a Credit / Debit Card and will also take reoccurring annual renewal payments from the card. Some have manually renewed their previous card payment for 2021 in 2022, this has resulted in duplicate payments being taken requiring refunds to be made.
With the proposals that we will be putting to White Fuse (the Website holder) in order to make the renewal process more user friendly in the future, it is hoped that this will reduce the number of errors that occur. One comment that I have had from many members is that there is no Renewal membership signpost, only the Join Us one, this will change in the future. Once we have revised the renewal process, I will provide a User Guide to assist members renewing.
Another area that I have been in discussion with Fiona Shenfield is that we should consider putting the renewal forms in the Winter Editions of SV and not in October, this will also reduce the number of errors when members change from manual payment to Direct Debit or Credit / Debit Card payment one the magazine has been published.
Members who were concerned that they had not yet received their new membership cards for 2022 had no reason to worry.
We have been trialling a new system of distribution and all members and Societies should now have received their cards for 2022. I would appreciate any feedback, good or bad on how it went.
My report presented in the Winter 2021/22 edition of SV contained a number
of tables and charts giving a snapshot of membership of the Society across the five Branches. As I write this report, it would be premature to present these tables and charts at this time as manual renewals are still coming in and are being processed, however I do present a snapshot as of 24th January 2022 extracted from the Membership Dashboard. You will note from the Dashboard that we managed to recruit 661 new members in 2021 which
is somewhat of a record and will take some effort to match in 2022. My report
in the Summer Edition will include a set of tables highlighting membership across the Society and Branches.
DT Brown, who are one of the NVS sponsors have kindly included in their Spring 2022 Seed Catalogue a “Join The National Vegetable Society” 1/3 page, with information about the NVS on one side
of the page together with a membership application form on the other side. This has resulted in a number of new members joining the Society so a big thank you must go to DT Brown.
Norman Dickinson Membership Registrar
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