Re: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications
Hi, Dave. Thanks; I had tried only HTML, since I figured it would be the easiest way to get a quick look at the volume involved. I was able to get a delimited file and import it into Excel. By checking current member records on the Web, I found some listed lapses had subsequently renewed. Thus, it would appear that using this output for a to-contact list is not feasible unless one first uses the member search to look for subsequent renewals (a cumbersome process). Does the Membership Manager have a cumulative, aged list of lapses? As to year vs. birth date, perhaps we should look into changing the master record structure so that year only is accepted. The forms themselves are easy to change if we decide this is a worthwhile modification. On a related subject, the membership forms no longer ask for telephone number. Are we relying on members to add that when updating their profiles? If they don't does that mean that they won't get any telemarketing calls such as from the proposed test program, or is someone looking up their numbers independent of the member record? 73, Marty N6VI ----- Original Message ----- From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ To: arrl-odv Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 11:46 AM Subject: RE: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications Marty, http://www.arrl.org/new-amateur-reports works fine for CSV and tab-limited reports. The link to download the report appears at the top of the page, which is easy to overlook. I don't know what the story is with the HTML report - until just now I hadn't tried it myself since I had no reason to want a listing in that format. I understand the desirability of having better demographic data. The online membership application has an optional field for date of birth as does the form in QST, e.g. page 126 of the December issue. I believe our other membership application forms do as well. We have a field in the master record for date of birth and we fill that in when we have the information but it's up to the member, by editing their profile, to determine whether it is displayed. Siebel only accepts complete information for the master record, i.e. if you enter the month and day but not the year, or the year but not the month and day, the entry is not accepted. Dave From: Marty Woll [mailto:n6vi@socal.rr.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 1:58 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications Sorry if this has recently been reported on already, but I couldn't find any discussion as to the status of the New Amateur Reports portion of the ODV Web pages. No matter what period or listing type (e.g., lapsed members) I request, I get an empty report. Is this a recent problem or one continuing from last spring? Where is it priority-wise on the punch list, and is there an estimated fix-it date? I wanted to look through the list of recently lapsed members in our Division and possibly make some calls myself. Separately, has any thought been given to requesting year of birth rather than birth date on our membership applications? Given our obligations re. privacy of personal data, related member reluctance to share such data and the fact that (AFAIK) we have no use for exact birth dates, we might get better compliance with a year-only request and, thus, more data with which to monitor our membership demographics with less private data exposed to possible leaks. In the case of life memberships, providing year of birth should be mandatory, since having year of birth would reduce the guesswork and improve the quality of the actuarial data we pay for concerning the life-member fund. As I recall, we're missing birth information for a significant portion of our life-member group. Clara and I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Marty N6VI
Marty, the lapsed list is generated once a month. The latest one was generated on November 2 so there has been three weeks for members to renew late. Of course, quite a few do so. Mailing lists are prepared for 4th and 5th renewal mailings approximately six weeks and 11 weeks, respectively, after expiration. The online application form has fields for both daytime and evening telephone number. I don't recall that it has ever been a standard field on the QST form. In general we try to make the printed form as non-formidable as possible. The phone numbers in the membership database are notoriously out of date; if we can get members used to updating their profiles this may improve in the future although people are reluctant to share their cell phone numbers and increasing numbers have no landline. The telemarketing firm can find listed telephone numbers based on name and address. Re: modifying the Siebel system to accept just a birth year, please forgive me if I put that a bit low on the priority list. Now I'm off to the airport to pick up Linda, who is flying in from Baltimore for Thanksgiving. By the way, she says it took her just 5 minutes to clear security at BWI. 73, Dave K1ZZ From: Marty Woll [mailto:n6vi@socal.rr.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 3:45 PM To: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ; arrl-odv Subject: Re: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications Hi, Dave. Thanks; I had tried only HTML, since I figured it would be the easiest way to get a quick look at the volume involved. I was able to get a delimited file and import it into Excel. By checking current member records on the Web, I found some listed lapses had subsequently renewed. Thus, it would appear that using this output for a to-contact list is not feasible unless one first uses the member search to look for subsequent renewals (a cumbersome process). Does the Membership Manager have a cumulative, aged list of lapses? As to year vs. birth date, perhaps we should look into changing the master record structure so that year only is accepted. The forms themselves are easy to change if we decide this is a worthwhile modification. On a related subject, the membership forms no longer ask for telephone number. Are we relying on members to add that when updating their profiles? If they don't does that mean that they won't get any telemarketing calls such as from the proposed test program, or is someone looking up their numbers independent of the member record? 73, Marty N6VI ----- Original Message ----- From: Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ <mailto:dsumner@arrl.org> To: arrl-odv <mailto:arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 11:46 AM Subject: RE: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications Marty, http://www.arrl.org/new-amateur-reports <http://www.arrl.org/new-amateur-reports> works fine for CSV and tab-limited reports. The link to download the report appears at the top of the page, which is easy to overlook. I don't know what the story is with the HTML report - until just now I hadn't tried it myself since I had no reason to want a listing in that format. I understand the desirability of having better demographic data. The online membership application has an optional field for date of birth as does the form in QST, e.g. page 126 of the December issue. I believe our other membership application forms do as well. We have a field in the master record for date of birth and we fill that in when we have the information but it's up to the member, by editing their profile, to determine whether it is displayed. Siebel only accepts complete information for the master record, i.e. if you enter the month and day but not the year, or the year but not the month and day, the entry is not accepted. Dave From: Marty Woll [mailto:n6vi@socal.rr.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 1:58 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: New Amateurs Report / Membership Applications Sorry if this has recently been reported on already, but I couldn't find any discussion as to the status of the New Amateur Reports portion of the ODV Web pages. No matter what period or listing type (e.g., lapsed members) I request, I get an empty report. Is this a recent problem or one continuing from last spring? Where is it priority-wise on the punch list, and is there an estimated fix-it date? I wanted to look through the list of recently lapsed members in our Division and possibly make some calls myself. Separately, has any thought been given to requesting year of birth rather than birth date on our membership applications? Given our obligations re. privacy of personal data, related member reluctance to share such data and the fact that (AFAIK) we have no use for exact birth dates, we might get better compliance with a year-only request and, thus, more data with which to monitor our membership demographics with less private data exposed to possible leaks. In the case of life memberships, providing year of birth should be mandatory, since having year of birth would reduce the guesswork and improve the quality of the actuarial data we pay for concerning the life-member fund. As I recall, we're missing birth information for a significant portion of our life-member group. Clara and I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Marty N6VI
participants (2)
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Marty Woll -
Sumner, Dave, K1ZZ