New Membership System on track for November launch

Council is very pleased to announce that the Membership Project Team has made good progress with the procurement of a new membership system for Friends. This project began in 2017 and faced many setbacks: the main ones were difficulty finding a suitable and affordable automated database system, and COVID-19. Many members of Friends’ Council have participated in the project at different stages.

Meanwhile the Friends’ volunteer membership team Lesley Harland, Pam Cooke and Evelyn Jacobsen, have soldiered on with the 18-year-old, “old faithful” (but occasionally temperamental) manual system. Our heartfelt thanks to them and to Les Fielke, who created it for us in 2007 and has maintained it ever since.

Selecting a new membership system

We have evaluated several membership systems since 2017. Only a few satisfied our core requirements; some were beyond our means and capacity. The nearest to our needs is Member Jungle (https://www.memberjungle.com), an Australian system with a good track record.

In March, Council gave the Project Team approval to evaluate whether our existing membership processes could be adapted to Member Jungle. With a trial subscription, we started learning about the system in detail and configuring it to suit our membership types and procedures.

On behalf of the Project Team, David More prepared a report for the July Council meeting and presented a preview of the features of Member Jungle. The report noted that migrating member data for the more than 2,000 personal and four Group memberships would be a key milestone for the project.

Council considered the implications of the proposal for the migration of membership data to Member Jungle’s system. Our main concern was the protection of members’ personal data, and for an assurance that the transfer will not involve any financial data.  Council was assured by David that Member Jungle is highly secure; there is no members’ financial data stored in the existing system and none will be stored in Member Jungle. (These and other questions about Member Jungle are covered at https://www.memberjungle.com/faq-s).

Council approval for adopting Member Jungle

Council is satisfied that Member Jungle is the best option available to us for hosting our new system. We have approved the transfer of existing membership data to the Member Jungle System, noting that it would not include the transfer of any financial data.  Council has also requested that the Project Team ensure the security of personal data.

Council has also approved the purchase of a custom-designed digital membership card for use by members who wish to have access to a membership card on their mobile phones as an app.

Printed membership cards and parking permits will continue to be available to members as an adjunct to the Member Jungle system.

Council approval of Stripe online payment system

The method which will be used for making payments and donations is Stripe.  Stripe is an online card payment ‘gateway’ service, for processing online credit and debit card payments securely and efficiently. It is one of the world’s leading card processors. Stripe is used for card payments by Member Jungle and will also be used for online donations in the Friends’ new website.  Council has appointed Beth Tyerman as the Responsible Person for Stripe, during the transition to the new system.

Using Stripe will significantly improve the security of card payments over our current method, as well as reducing the workload for our volunteers. Members who prefer not to make card payments online will still be able to choose direct bank transfer instead, when the new system commences.

Getting up to speed

Our existing membership database requires all data to be manually entered and managed by the membership team. Their work will be very different with Member Jungle: members can go online to join, renew their memberships, and update their addresses and other information (although the team will still assist members who prefer to communicate on paper and by post).

It will take the Project Team some time to become fully familiar with Member Jungle and to re-think how best to provide the services our members are used to – and then to test that everything works well. Our challenge is to accomplish a smooth transfer to a system that offers improved service, without causing problems for members in the process. There is a lot more work to do before we reach that point!

We hope Member Jungle will be ready to ‘go live’ in November this year, after the coming round of membership renewals has been completed using the existing system. There will be regular updates for members as we progress.

Congratulations

July Council noted its deep appreciation to David More, Christianna Cobbold and the many other Friends for the very many hours of voluntary work they have contributed to develop the new membership system.

Cathy Robertson
Secretary
July 2025