Hello Chapter Representatives:
Hello Chapter Representative:
Mike Malveaux, the new membership coordinator has asked me to appeal to you to make both your job and his job a little easier.
You now can update your own info through the Members Area -- https://usgo.org/members -- as long as we have the correct email address set as their login email. This works even if you're not current on AGA dues. (I think you have read-only access to the membership database through the Membership Manager. When you're looking at a Chapter in the MM, the email address I'm talking about should be in the one that says simply "Email", just below "Phone2".) This is a big improvement on the old method of waiting until an AGA volunteer gets around to doing it, and they should take advantage of it.
In the Members Area, you can see contact info for your affiliated AGA members, current and lapsed. And if you Chapter is current on its AGA dues, you can also use the Members Area to send out voucher links for promotional-rate AGA membership, that prospective members can use to join AGA through the online system. BUT -- you first should carefully search the TD List (saving the file from http://usgo.org/mm/tdlista.txt and opening it in a spreadsheet is the best way) for similar names, because there are many players who paid a "non-member fee" to play in a tournament once. Those people already *have* an AGAID, though they may think they were never members; and Mike dislikes having them in the database multiple times.
In the case of a player who's been paying a $10 (or $5, if it was a while ago) fee for one-time, ratings-only status, Mike says he is willing to manually extend the chapter-based promotional rate to them. He thinks that will encourage players who finally have time in their lives for the game and the AGA to join and consider themselves "members," and he hopes to see this reflected as an increase in the renewal rate. So Mike asks that the chapter rep send an email to database@usgo.org describing the situation, and he'll make the adjustment.
Mike would like you to use the Chapters email list. You should get rid of any old paper membership forms with the Old Chelsea Station address prominently at the top -- we still happily take checks, but you should use one of the new forms (attached, in case you need them; you should also be findable on the website). Mike can supply snail-mailing labels or email addresses for AGA members within a certain radius of their Zip code -- email database@usgo.org to discuss details.
In the future, we will have some kind of automatic status checking system. It will work something like this -- if your Chapter hasn't paid dues nor updated info in a year, the system will send you an email prompting you to login and update or confirm your meeting info. If a month passes with no response, the public listing is suppressed until we hear from them.
Mike and I both want to thank you immensely for taking time to organize a chapter!
What Mike wants back is the correct email address for your AGA Members Area login (otherwise you can't update their info, and will have trouble renewing your chapter online); and if you're no longer meeting or on hiatus, Mike would like to know that so he can permanently or temporarily suppress your listing at http://usgo.org/chapters.php If you're still meeting but you're too old-school to comfortably navigate the Members Area, please send Mike Malveaux (membership@usgo.org) your current meeting days, time, and place, and he will edit your listing for you. Or you can send it to database@usgo.org.
Thanks for all the work you do directing your Chapter. I know it's not easy.
Gordon E. Castanza (戈登・卡斯坦赞 博士)
AGA Board of Directors Western Region Representative
Gordon 戈登
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