Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

I hope this can be taken as constructive criticism rather than a whinge.

I will be renewing, but have to say that it's a pretty poor show to receive an e-mail that says 'Your membership at The Independent Porsche Enthusiasts Club has ended' and just gives a link to http://www.mybigbluesky.co.uk/membershi ... ip-levels/

I have not received a membership renewal reminder - at which time I would have renewed- in fact no contact of any sort since the last time I renewed.... just 'your membership has ended'.

Poor show, please buck up.

John, constructive criticism would have been privately contacting one of the committee through here, or Lee as membership secretary either by Email through the board or using the contact details in the mag. You have contacted me using these systems in the past, so you cannot say you don't know how they work.
Or put another way if one of your clients had an issue with you would you want them mailing your entire client base (2000+ subscribers on tipec.net) of your perceived failings?

We are currently experiencing a high level of lost post 3-7% at present which Lee will confirm. So I suspect the renewal notice which the system automatically produces has been sent & has gone AWOL. Hence the reason after it ages out that we just send an e mail, or would you want us to send another letter, in which case how many letters do we send, given the exorbitant cost of post (that gets lost)?
I'd also remind you that the club is staffed by volunteers so we all have busy day jobs as well. So your buck up comment is not well received.

Apologies all.

To explain the email, it appears that the web developers have triggered a notification mechanism in the old site for people who had joined/renewed via Google in the past.

This was not intentional and our sincere apologies for the cock up.

Please disregard the email, if you are currently a member do not worry you have not been terminated. If your membership has lapsed and this has prompted you to re-join please contact Lee.

"Mybigbluesky" is the development test site.

Regards

Sean

Hi John, I did post your renewal letter yesterday. It should arrive this week. That aside, it has nothing to do with the current issue with the web site. I hope you get the letter ok, if you don't, please let me know.

As Sean has already said, sorry for the issues with the current web site development. I do work during the day, but if anyone wants to discuss their membership then my number is on page 3 of the current All Torque and I can be emailed at membership@tipec.net should it be easier for you. Please do get in touch if you have any questions.

Hi

This is NOT a criticism in any way....

But i cannot quite believe that Tipec sends out renewal LETTERS in this day and age.... Email reminders with a hyperlink to a payment page, with a read receipt would be a LOT cheaper....

All the best Brett

I totally agree but the guys wanted to keep the paper version.

Surely for the benefit of the club we can all move to electronic, seems like a pointless use of funds.

Hi Sean

If you explained in financial terms to members....such as 2000 (figure picked at random) Members times 2000 stamps times 2000 envelopes times 2000 sheets paper times 2000 stuffing envelopes (I pity whoever has to that last one lol)

Thats a SERIOUS amount of money and effort for possibly 5% (a guess) of members who would not get the equilavent Email.....

Most members would see the sense surely ?

All the best Brett

This posting wasn't intended to offend anybody, and I apologise if anybody has been 'hurt' by the comments. It was supposed to be 'feedback'. The last time I renewed it was relatively easy so no complaints. However on this occasion the exercise has proven to be not very efficient.... I do also agree with the other guys' comments about cost etc.

The new e-mail system is a great idea, everything should be done on-line now which would save Lee a lot of work, however it may have been an idea to notify us of the intentions to use this 'mybigbluesky' thing to run the renewals system and that there was likely to be teething problems - that way I wouldn't have had a shock and wouldn't have said anything...... although on the plus side it has raised some interesting points.

I have now received the letter from Lee - who does do an excellent job - and will renew over the weekend one way or another...... probably just send a runner up with a cheque .

Jim - the 'buck up' comment was because I was at a loss of a term to use. As for your client analogy - I left financial services about 18 months ago...... fed up of doing too much for too many for too little (I would never charge fees). For the record, 24 years service, over 500 clients, of which 5 'took issue' as you put it. Three of these complaints were upheld as 'non-justified'. This means that the customer was just trying it on, and the company (Allied Dunbar) paid out as it was cheaper than paying the ombudsman to investigate the complaints. I was never penalised for this as they were genuinely non-justifed - if a complaint is upheld the adviser pays the first £5000 of any compensation and repays any commissions earned. I was asked to do neither. The other two - one withdrew her complaint after I discovered that it was her new boyfriend making her fabricate a complaint, and the other was rejected after I proved the guy had recently been released from prison for insurance fraud!

I know you're all volunteers, I appreciate this, and like I said previously I apologise if anybody was unintentionally offended.

Keep up the good work.

As a follow on... and it's not a whinge Jim, just a factual observation -

I said I would renew so I have just sat down to do it. I read Lee's letter and at the bottom it says 'You may also renew via our website'. I followed the renewal instructions on the home page of the website - grey box that says 'Membership Renewals, click here to pay your subscription fee >', completed everything, went to the next page, selected 2yrs again - to then get told that you cannot pay via the Google payment thing...... wasted time and effort.

Now I knew that the Google thing no longer worked, but you don't find out who you're paying through until you have completed everything and gone to the next page. I thought that the site would have been updated to reflect the change to the 'mybigbluesky' arrangements.

As a point of interest - I pay because I get free technical advice from the contributors on this website and unlike some I do not like to free-load. I have only ever attended two regional meetings and have never attended any TIPEC functions (in fact the last function I did go to was a Porsche Club GB one at Wilmslow OPC - well organised and very enjoyable), and have only once displayed a car (not mine) on a TIPEC stand at a car show. Furthermore, although it's a nice 'benefit', one can get 10% discount (or more) anywhere just by asking - one doesn't require a TIPEC card for that.

What I'm saying is that I can take or leave membership, but I do want to pay to support TIPEC and what you do on this website because it's a valuable source of information.

So.... how do you actually pay your money on-line?

Not an unreasonable question.

John, I'll answer both your posts since you didn't take the hint that you can mail us individually about issues, rather than airing them in public.
First point is did you read Seans Mail? Obviously not! We are in the middle of redeveloping the website & that has been delayed for various reasons & in the interim Google pay has ceased. This was why you had the Mybluesky message as it is from the DEVELOPMENT website not the live one, obviously when we get it automated it will mail out renewal notices but your one obviously escaped whilst in development.
There are 3 methods to pay membership. If you click the big TIPEC logo top left then it takes you to a home page there, then it gives you either the renewal page that you used from the letter, which I thought we'd killed. Or phone Lee with membership details or the best way is Paypal £50 to membership@tipec.net.
I'll chat with Jim & Lee about making sure the google pay option is completely removed as it is causing pain.

Edited to say we have killed the Google pay option on the renewal page here.

Stop being so defensive / patronising Jim. Your previous quote referred to there being '2000+ subscribers on tipec.net'.

Surely if this matter affects so many people then it should be on an open forum.

My previous comments still apply. It has affected around 3-5 people all of whom have contacted either Sean, Myself or Lee & it has been sorted in 5 minutes. As we have you. The club has around a 1000 members but many more subscribers here who aren't members. So my previous comments stand. Could you not have just contacted a committee member direct?
Patronising or defensive, me? no. Trying to explain in words you understand yes.

Hi Jim

Although I see your point about privacy ...

It is making you and Tipec seem like the "other Porsche" organisation with their secrecy and not allowing critical posts on their forum....i apologise for the insult, but please do not go down that line

I totally agree with John about posting it here... whenever I decide to become a member again its useful to know not to bother trying to do it online.....which I have learnt from this Forum thread....

All the best Brett

Oh I give up....
Nothing to do with privacy in any way. But everything to do with asking the relevant people about the issue to try fixing it before broadcasting a PERCEIVED failing to the world. I regard it as common courtesy as I explained in my first answer to John. Nothing to do with being defensive or patronising.
As I said to John & I'd echo to you if you screw up in the day job would you expect the customer/client to mail the world about it or would you have a quiet word? My principles say have a quiet word but others obviously have different ideas & as I said didn't take the hint. If I dealt with my customers/Partners the way & tone that John has dealt with this I'd be quite rightly looking at a P45 pretty quick.

As for doing things privately if I/we wanted to do that then we could have deleted the thread & answered John on PM which we didn't.

Brett: you've been quick enough to criticise us for deleting threads in the past, here we haven't. I am just asked that if people have a problem then they directly contact those who can fix it rather than shouting it from the rooftops here? Is that too much to ask?
You also will probably get it fixed quicker!
I'd add that we have 2 methods of renewing your membership at present one is a "manual mode" contact Lee direct, the other is the on line method using Paypal which the vast majority do with no issues, as I said problems are less than 0.1%.
So we do still have online membership. Once the website is renewed then it will become a bit more automated.