Should WVRCM pay for the Wild Apricot online membership system?

Let’s jump right in. What’s it cost?

$518.40 per year on a one-year pre-paid deal. $489.60 per year for a two-year deal.

Lotta money for a small club like ours.

Yes, it’s a lotta money for the club, but to put it in perspective, per person it’s about $8.50. About the same as two gallons of regular or a Starbucks vente mocha latte and vanilla scone.

What does it do for us? Break it down for me.

Wild Apricot has multiple capabilities that are all integrated. Let’s start with a website. Yes, you can get a free site, the club did for years. You usually get what you pay for, but free ones are out there.

It’s what’s in the background that makes Wild Apricot appealing and the reason (as they say) they’re trusted by 32,000 organizations.

Membership: Even a 60-member club can be a handful for someone to maintain. After you’ve walked up to Gary Wollenhaupt at some meeting and handed him money and you said, “renew me,” imagine what he has to do next. The database update, the money in the bank. Multiply that by 60. Now, “Here’s my new phone number.” Or “I’m sure I paid in October.” Times 60. Let’s see, who hasn’t renewed yet? Maybe they’ll be at the next regatta or monthly meeting. Wild Apricot handles all that and chases someone who hasn’t renewed membership yet. New people can join online and instantly become members.

Event registration: Show up at a regatta on a Saturday morning. A dozen people stuffing five-dollar bills in your pocket and saying, put me on the scoresheet, and here’s my sail number. Or show up with everybody (or nearly everybody) signed up, paid, and a scoresheet printed with names and sail numbers. Which event organizer would you rather be?

Emails: Yes, there are email programs, such as MailChimp, that can handle sending your emails once you load it up with the email address you have on your member database and keep it current. Wild Apricot integrates the email program with our member database. Fact: one year ago, none of the local RC clubs had a current email list; no one was confident that the right people were getting email notices.

Payment: True, some people don’t like to pay online, but fewer and fewer feel that way. Most of us like the convenience of clicking a box and paying for an event or membership. Imagine the other end of that transaction: payments are made, logged, listed, and already in the bank.

Member access: Sign into your account right on the WVRCM website and update your contact information, look up another member’s email, see your event history, and see your membership card. Order a name tag. Officers of the club can download lists of registration, membership, payments, unpaid invoices, and so on. Not just one officer can do this, but any officer.

That’s a lot of stuff. And I can see who benefits the most; it’s the club purser/secretary/treasurer.

That’s right. It’s hard to imagine the amount of work involved in doing all these things the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper and Excel spreadsheet.

Got time for a story? A few years ago, I was elected Membership Director at a local car club with about 70 members. The club hadn’t been lucky enough to have someone like Gary handling the books or the membership list. The Excel sheet I got contained the names of everyone who’d ever been a member. And here’s the kicker: the last membership director had accidentally deleted some cells so that none of the names matched that person’s contact information. It was chaos. We signed up for Wild Apricot immediately.

If we do it, are we locked into it forever?

We can drop out anytime. We’d download the database and return to keeping it current on Excel. The website could continue on Wild Apricot for free, but without the convenient SailRC.club and ScaleRC.club online addresses.

Who knows how to use it?

Jack David, Gary Wollenhaupt, and me. I’m the primary user.

And if you get hit by a bus?

The others can take over. While there are some quirks to using it, it’s fairly straightforward. Wild Apricot has excellent tutorial videos, help files, and customer support.

Jack, Gary, and you all want it?

Yes. Enough so that I personally paid for the first year.

-Mike Ferring
Commodore