National Homebrew Club - Status Update !

[Partridge9]

    Guys -

    So, many of you have probably twigged - its the 1st of May today .. so the least I can do is give you an update ..
   
   This was the aggressive timetable we set ourselves...
     
   22 - 27 April - Finalise Accounts and prepare summary
   14 - 24 April - Nomination period
   25 - 30 April - Election Period
   27 - 30 April - Accounts Locked
   30 April - Handover of accounts to new treasury team
   1   May - Statement of Accounts Issued
   1   May - New Membership Available
   1   May - New Positions Available
       
   
    IT Team - New Forum + Payment System
   Things are going well - the lads got the new forum up and running with amazing efficiency and even recently added TapaTalk
   - with regards to the membership payment system the lads are on the home straight - there is a complication around the discounted membership for competition entrants but I think there is a proposed solution.
   
    Membership Packs/Cards
    We have a card and we have a system of printing the cards using a database as a source - we have sourced the cards and we have all the bits to Laminate ..
    So we are happy enough with the cards.
    We have been floating the idea of packs - but the least we are going to do is to have a cover letter with the card - but we are expanding on that.
    We are getting NHC bottle caps - but these we wont have these till July - we are working on business cards as well - so this is what the membership team are busy doing.
       
    Rollout
    We are going to start with a 'beta' rollout with the clubs (in Random order) but this will completely opened up after a short period.
    I think a member of the membership team will attend each of the meetings (where possible) and distribute cards/packs in person - Like Santa!
    This means we will need the club to register/join up a week in advance of their meet. Of course people not associated with a club can join after Beta period.
       
    Finances
    We do need to publish a 'statement of accounts' prior to charging for membership - its important that people know our financial position and also that our finances are transparent.
    Some of the lads are busy working on an financial system based on MS excel - they are more than confident it will more than suit our needs - however it wont be ready for a little
    while - so in the interim Brian is happy enough to give us a 'statement of accounts' from the written books - this will probably be a Scanned PDF,
    we can then put this is the membership area. Unfortunately Brian is in the Sunny Kerry at the moment and isnt back till Friday -
   
   Affilates
   We have made great progress on the affiliates - and many thanks to all the lads for working so hard to secure all the discounts.
   We still need to nail down the mechanics of how to actually avail of the discounts and how we link up the affiliates systems
   - but I think we can go live even if the logistics mean some affiliates aren't online for us straight away.

   So to finish ..
   We are going to hold off announcing all the elected positions and the start of membership rollout till the weekend - when we hope to have the final pieces of the puzzle together.
   I am sure people appreciate the amount of people involved and work going on in the background, we are going through a major transition and I'm sure you noticed from the competition
   - we don't do things in halves around here..    so its going to be mega !
   
   James