Postby stevent » Mon Nov 09, 2015 8:28 pm
Just thought I'd jump in on the discussion on this.
Our Forum is open to anyone to sign up, whether a member or not. I think that is a good approach, it is welcoming, encourages people to get in touch, strike up conversations about trail riding and get out onto a trial run. As Chris says we then hope our offering is good enough that people want to sign up to become fully paid up members. If people want to be part of our TRF gang then I think its right that we require them to sign up and pay the subs, so that it is fair for everyone and so that TRF can be as strong as possible in fighting for our rights. Legal cases cost a lot of money (even when we win, which we usually do).
With having members and non-members on the forum, it can be a bit confusing who is a paid up member, e.g. for granting access to the member only bit or for run leaders when arranging runs. So Chris's colour coded system (names in green = paid up member) will help with that as we will be able to see that members are fully paid up or not.
To make it work there is quite a bit of admin that needs to be done behind the scenes. The membership list is constantly changing so Chris and Dave's admin support (and others who are involved) is in constant demand just to keep up. They both do this for free for us. I think there are others who help out too.
There are inevitably going to be a few delays and teething troubles. Just to explain where some things can go wrong - every month I get sent a list of paid up members from the National TRF (plus those whose membership has recently lapsed) which I then share with Chris, Dave and Steve Sharp. This shows everyone associated with South London and Surrey Group as their main group and then others who associate with us as a secondary group. Gonzalo, you're a case in point - your association to us must be missing so what we need to do is getting you associated with SL&S as your second group. So despite the extra admin I think its better than have to grapple with the full National TRF list (its safer data protection wise, that there aren't master lists of 3000 + member being sent out to all TRF groups). Another issue is that if you sign up after the start of the month, you may not make it onto the national membership list that gets sent out till the next month, so it may take time to verify that you're signed up. A further headache is that forum names don't always help in identifying who you are, or if you're on the national TRF membership list.
Despite all of that, Chris and Dave and others have figured out how to manage all of this, and on the whole I think things are working pretty well but there will be a few anomalies to sort out, and there may be a few delays. Given some of the constraints and the fact we have volunteers doing the admin I hope people understand and will be patient while updates get actioned. And everyone else need to be aware that some people with names in blue may in-fact be members but they've just not been updated yet.
I think everyone involved is open to sensible suggestions for improvements, as well as volunteers to become either committed assistants and mini project leaders. Sorry for the long post, but just wanted to ensure everyone can understand how it all works.