Membership payment link

#1

Can we got a pinned post with the new member subscription link for when people walk in and want to join? The actual shipping cart item, not the instructions. Have someone here on person and that process is unclear/unlinked during discourse sign up.

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#2

Hi Neil,

Thanks for your suggestion.

Quick disclaimer: I did not set up the sign-up procedure, I only took over some time ago and I just follow how it was passed on to me / though after more than 15 months of doing this, I have a little insight as to why and how this process was developed.

If you want to simplify the joining procedure and automate it all, I’m all up for it. I simply did not want to change anything that worked fine up until now. The ballpark is, that usually one in 40 new members find it difficult to understand the joining procedure. I think that is “normal” / i.e. could be language barrier, could be lack of diligence when reading the messages… it sometimes just happens because folks are overly excited when joining.

Here’s the straight forward way of joining:

  1. create a discourse account
  2. fill in the pre-membership survey
  3. within 12hrs receive invitation e-mail to join ( if age >=18 )
  4. click on link, set up preferred payment method, done.

That is the process to join SLMS, no barriers, no gate keeping.

In other words: If you are a human being and 18+ years old of age, you will receive an invitation to join within 12hrs after filling in the pre-membership survey to the e-mail provided. This discourse account thing is important to emphasize the need for this platform as our main means of communication, i.e. inductions, booking, etc. We do have every now and then somebody who expects SLMS to be a paid workshop and that they just want to pay one month, finish their project and leave again. As far as I am informed, this behaviour is not predominantly wanted - emphasizing more on the communtiy aspect.

Only providing the membership item as such will make the pre-membership survey redundant, since most people will not feel the need to fill it in, after having joined - I speak from experience, looking at every single survey from every single new member every day of the week / chasing up surveys from members who swooped up a membership link from a friend, etc…

Hope, that helped clarify?

If the member has a problem joining, please tell them to get in touch with @welcome. We never get tired helping people to join SLMS.

I also have a lot of understanding for the need of instant gratification when being at the Makerspace and simply not being able to hold back the compulsion of having to become a member right this second. But in reality, if somebody made up their mind, willing to join, they will also want to join when back at home, sitting infront of their preferred device, no?

What’s the benefit of signing up right at the space? There will still be the delay of the access levels for discourse having to be elevated manually, the fob needs to be activated, no induction possible… no real benefit from my point of view.

I am sure you’ve heard other “legacy” members say the following too, but it is so true:
I had to wait a little over 3 years to join, yet I still joined, and I’m still holding a grudge :laughing:… No I’m not.

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#3

Maybe setting up a clearly visible sign in the clean room with a QR code pointing towards our discourse, saying: You want to join? Create a discourse account and follow the white rabbit message from Chatty Cathy…

… could help a little?

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