Ringing Forums

it may well be scalable, but that's not quite the right question. The question you should ask is whether it can be partitioned, so that different societies can manage their own membership separately. You could ask the same question of a large society (like ODG, which has 15 branches).
The answer is no. The consequence is that whoever has access to manage the data would have access to it all.
LoveAdmin can be segmented to handle structured organisations, and is used by at least one ringing society, but it has a different charging model.
ODG is in fact intending to use MemberMojo, and I am sure it will be made to work, but I doubt it will prove as useful as a system that could support separately managed parts of an organisation.
As for different societies using it, that would be a step too far.

I think that there are enough ringing associations using member mojo now to pull together a conversation with them about improvements or adjustments which would suit the ringing set up. For example I’d like them to make it easy for us to mark the tower contact and then let the tower contact see who has renewed in their home tower. Potentially a group discount for ringing associations could be negotiated, making use of the overall volume but keeping individual association subscription rates, databases and ‘rules’ on how MemberMojo is used. I’d be happy to work with one or two others to start a conversation and see whether MemberMojo see any benefits for them in this.

Using one system for all ringers may be much more cost-effective not only for Member Mojo but other systems as well. Most societies pay separately for insurance, for example.

We should also consider the valuable time spent by volunteers who prepare and negotiate policies and procedures separately for each society, and sometime even at branch / district level. With the shortage of volunteers, shouldn't we consider more sharing and common systems?

One suggestion that I made as a member of CRAG was to have dual membership. A fixed amount to go to the Central Council, and then another amount to go direct to the Guild/Association of your choice. I am sure that with modern technology this would be simple to do.

I've looked at membermojo's docs and it doesn't seem to support anything that looks like it could be used for multi-level membership, although some other similar systems do.

But I think the main problems with your suggestion wouldn't be technical ones...

I looked quite hard a year or two ago to find systems that were designed to handle structured organisations that operate as a federation of many parts, and I could only find one that might be affordable for ringers (ie excluding those aimed at corporate use) and that was LoveAdmin, as mentioned in my op. If there are others now it would be interesting to compare them.

the one I linked to (Tendenci) has ridiculous hosting charges ($250 pcm) but it's Open Source so you could host it yourself. A more realistic price for hosting for it would be in the $25 - $50 range,

I am sure that we could pay for Membermojo or another system to be adapted, but in doing so let's not adapt it to preserve our antiquated Victorian ways of doing things, when we are bringing things into the 21st century, with all the benefits that will bring.

That’s a suggestion for a different model from the original question posed (I think) and would therefore require a different kind of project. I was aiming to answer the question posed as a way to potentially save money and scale efficient methods of collecting subs that could be offered quickly.

That’s a suggestion for a different model from the original question posed — Lucy Chandhial

Yes it is. But that doesn't mean it's not worth asking. The idea that different ringing tribes should share their membership management isn't exactly a trivial admin tweak to the status quo.

From a project management perspective, doing the simple quick and dirty solution is not necessarily the most economic option in the long term. It's best to explore all options before proceeding.

I would have thought that any IT company would prefer to deal with one customer, rather than offer each of a particular group of customers a discount. That would save the IT company costs and hassle.

Also, you wouldn't need all of the customers to join at the outset. You could run a pilot at first with just a couple. Then the incentive for others to join would be the offer of a working system at a discount. You also get round the problem of a lot of societies needing to change their rules. Think outside the box and don't get bogged down by the Victorian mindset. Doing so will only make it more difficult to transition to a 21st century system later.

As ringers we need to appreciate that we can't continue to do things on shoestring, if we want to enjoy the benefits of bringing ringing into the 21st century. I am sure that the membership will appreciate the need and the costs, if it is put to them in the right way.

I’ve never considered myself Victorian but I have no intention of getting involved in a push to a single national (global) organisation! I offered assistance with a suggested idea, I am not extending that to a much bigger idea so I’ll leave others to decide if they want to try it.

This is very timely, because we are starting to look at MemberMojo to see what capacity there might be for economies of scale, and also to Alison's point of reducing duplicated effort (which is really key). As Roger points out, a trial is an obvious way to test this out, and doesn't require everyone to make a wholesale change all at once. If it can be made to work, then one customer with a big subscription has more ability to influence rates and also to be heard when discussing changes or customisations.

Lucy, there has been a lot of chat about this particlar software on these Forums. Is it worth organising a bit of a workshop with some interested people?

as I said at the start of this… I would be willing to talk to two or three others and then talk to MemberMojo as a group but…. as stated yesterday not if this becomes a huge topic of whether one national membership is the answer for all associations as I think that’s a much bigger topic and will take far longer to reach any kind of definition to then discuss with MemberMojo. So it depends what you are aiming for.

The legacy of our Victorian structure is that ringing is very fragmented with around 50 territorial societies all doing their own thing in different ways. If only they were better able to work together, so much more could be achieved. I'm not suggesting imposing anything on any of them, it's more a case of developing something which is sufficiently good that one by one they may wish to join in. It may take a couple of decades, and some might never wish to join. But by working together as a team, inputting experience and ideas, the workload on any one participant would be far less.

I don't disagree with your comments about the current territorial setup being outdated (I ring in 3 different associations most weeks), but I think you'd probably want 2-3 willing guinea pig assocs if there was to be any chance of success developing something.

Based on my experience with ART and Phil Gay's and my own experiences with mobile belfries, it will take decades, but there are probably 2 or 3 willing guinea pigs out of the 50 to start with, and gradually others will come on board, once they see the benefits.

I'm sure you are right :roll: and if that's the case it's unlikely a commercial membership service will be around that long.

Hi Lucy, understood, that makes sense. The Council exec is taking a look at this in terms of whether it is a solution that could reduce effort/cost for associations. It probably makes sense to feed into this process, and also to keep discussions open on this forum.

membermojo's docs and it doesn't seem to support anything that looks like it could be used for multi-level membership, although some other similar systems do. — John de Overa

I just spent some time looking round the Tendenci site. There's a lot of it but it does tick a lot of useful boxes. It does support structured organisations (which they call Chapters) enabling them to manage a lot of things away from the centre. It is open source so you aren't locked in to a proprietary service provider. It can be hosted on any server: your own a third party of your choice (or theirs if you prefer) so you aren't locked into a single service provider. And (given that we are talking about ringers) there is a free version available. I didn't explore everything, but as far as I could see it would provide all that a large, multi-district ringing society, or a group of ringing societies would need.

Interesting.

Whatever we self-host we have to support, which means ensuring regular security updates (which would be essential because of the personal data stored. The sustainability of that is also something we need to take into account.

Nothing you choose is going to be effort-free, any security updates would likely make up just a small part of that.

It doesn't sound like MemberMojo is a particularly good fit and customising it will likely be both expensive and time consuming, if indeed MemberMojo are prepared to take on the job the first place. Worst case, it may not be feasible to make your required changes at all. It would be better to choose a package that does most of what you want out of the box and adapt your processes to it rather than the other way around. Ask Birmingham City Council :rofl:

You could always run a pilot with a couple candidate packages first, with mock data.

I'm always in favour of a pilot :) I was just pointing out that 'free' isn't really free. People's time has value even if it is volunteered.

sure, nothing in life is free :wink:

We'll be looking at teasing out, documenting and prioritising our initial requirements fairly soon. Will be good to have feedback after that?

The legacy of our Victorian structure is that ringing is very fragmented with around 50 territorial societies all doing their own thing in different ways. If only they were better able to work together, so much more could be achieved. — Roger Booth

Surely the legacy of our Victorian structure is that what was entirely fragmented began to be pulled together in regional and national organisations.

I'm sorry, but the the entire territorial society/CCCBR structure was set up around 125 - 150 years ago. It's not cohesive, it is inward looking, and is not suited to tackle the issues that we face in the modern world, both now and in the future. If we were setting up a structure today, we would set up something totally different.

Surely the legacy of our Victorian structure is that what was entirely fragmented began to be pulled together in regional and national organisations. — Alan C

There's an assumption there that there were insurmountable problems with the previous state of affairs and that the Victorian structures are an improvement - the fossilised state of many ringing associations suggests not. The current organisation of ringing is closely aligned with CofE diocesan boundaries, because the impetus behind the formation of ringing societies was Belfry Reform and the CofE wanting to impose their control. In my area, prior to Belfry Reform there was a lot of movement of ringers over an area that's now covered by 4 different associations, because that made both geographic and social sense. That's mostly stopped, and ringing in the area has suffered greatly because of it.

I'm not going to make a 3 hour round trip every week to Derby to ring, but I do ring in three other associations, because they are the towers that are closest to me. In fact I don't ring in any other tower in my "home" association. I'm a notable exception in terms of cross-association ringing, very few ringers do, even experienced ones.

There are a myriad of issues with the current structures, to the point where the cluster of towers to the north of me have formed a breakaway group (although they wouldn't call it that) that's independent of both the territorial association and the CCCBR. It's based on geography and social links and is vibrant as a result.

nothing to be sorry about :wink: because you are spot on. The doublethink that bemoans the parlous state of many ringing association whilst being intractably opposed to burning them with fire and starting over is a constant source of wonder to me... :chin:

There are a myriad of issues with the current structures — John de Overa

That may well be true, but what is the new structure that will replace it, how will it remove those problems without creating a myriad of new ones?