Communicating with your Members

"Do I have to constantly maintain my own distribution lists?"

Absolutely not. We are super-proud of our Dynamic Member Lists in myClubhouse, which automatically keep themselves up to date. You just describe which types of members need to be in the list and myClubhouse works out which members fit the bill. For example, you could define a list that contains all adult female members with a current subscription; or, all former junior members between the ages of 11 and 15; or, all current members that don't have an ability rating; etc. etc. Pretty much anything is possible and these Member Lists can be used for a wide variety of purposes including sending emails, setting Entitlements, performing membership analysis, or data export. You can use the following characteristics when defining Member Lists:

• Personal - age, date of birth, gender, name.
• Membership status - current member, former member, non-member.
• Membership type - category, start and end dates, first subscription or renewal, trial membership, paid or not paid.
• Role - club role that they hold.
• Form data - query about any answer made to any question on any form including registration questionnaire and parental consent form.
• Event attendance - query about particular events or event types that the member did or did not attend.
• Other modules - use references to other modules including Teams, Certifications, Bookings, Horses, and Vehicles.
• Member Lists - you can also make a Member List combining several other Member Lists.
• Explicitly Named Users - you can also add particular users to a list.

"Can I change the automatic emails that are sent out by myClubhouse?"

Yes you can. myClubhouse has lots of auto-generated emails that are sent at various points during a person's membership of the club. Each of these is defined as a template which can be tailored to suit your needs. Emails are sent in HTML form, so you can add whatever formatting you like. You can also select which members will receive a copy of the email, or 'switch the email off' completely. You can also define standard headers and footers that will be added to every email sent from the system; this is useful where you want to add a banner with your logo to the top of each email; or, perhaps, you want to use it to add sponsors' messages or promote your Easy Fundraising page.

GDPR & Data Protection

For the purposes of GDPR and other data-protection laws, the automatically generated emails are known as “transactional” emails, as they are a response to a user action. In such cases the basis for sending such emails would be “legitimate interest” and therefore no specific consent is required.

"What about text messaging?"

myClubhouse does also support SMS text messaging using Twilio . You will need to set up your own Twilio account and then paste the necessary details into the club settings on myClubhouse. Once SMS is enabled, you can send text messages as you would emails, making use of Member Lists etc. Also, you can set up one or more of the auto-generated emails to also send a text message; this could be useful for, say, Event cancellation messages.

"Can I just send ad hoc messages to the membership?"

"Absolutely. The Send an Email page allows you to format an email and send it to any section of the membership. Each member will get their own, individually addressed, copy of the email (we don't use cc or bcc, so there is no danger of accidentally publicising your members' email addresses).

We use an email service provider to deliver these emails which ensures that you maintain a good sender reputation and, therefore, increase your chances of getting each message through any spam filters.

When setting the recipient list, you can use any combination of Member Lists, individual members, or plain email addresses. You can also specify an exclude list which ensures that any listed member will definitely not receive the email; very useful when arranging surprise parties!

Members must explicitly opt-in to receive bulk email and myClubhouse will automatically ensure that those who haven't do not receive email sent to a Member List that they are part of. However, if the email is directly targeted at them, they will still receive it.

The sender must select a Message Category for each message sent and recipients will be further filtered based on their specific messaging preferences.

You can easily see which members, who remain in the recipient list after filtering, do not have email addresses on the system and will therefore need to be contacted in an alternate way.

"How can I make sure my messages are GDPR compliant?"

The following features help the club to comply with GDPR and data protection laws:

Message Categories

Each ad-hoc message sent (email or text) from Send an Email must have a Message Category selected. You can configure as many message categories as you like. For each category, you must decide if the legal basis for sending is "legitimate interest" or consent.

Message Consents

If a Message Category is consent-based, then the corresponding consents must be set up (one each for email and SMS). Members must manage their messaging preferences by explicity opting in to each Message Category. Don't worry if you set up a new Message Category that no one has consented to yet, the blanket messaging consent will apply until the member has specified their preferences.

Manage Preferences (without logging in)

Each message sent from myClubhouse comes with a footer that explains the name of the recipient, the email address, and the Message Category. This should alleviate confusion when members are sharing an email address or when a member has two addresses in the system. There is a "manage preferences" link on each email which allows the member to update their preferences (consents) without having to log in.

"How can I make members aware of club news?"

As well as sending emails out to your membership, you can also publish news and announcements on the front page of your myClubhouse site. Once members have read announcements, they can mark them as read and they will be removed from the front page (for them).

If you think this feature is right for your club, click to GET STARTED