Agility Club of Western Australia

Keeping track of members was a tedious, long-winded task for the administrators of the Agility Club of Western Australia before Member Jungle. 

Danielle Jacobson was the committee member who implemented Member Jungle for the Agility Club. She explains "We didn’t really have a system before, we used an Excel spreadsheet, and members would download and complete a PDF membership form. We would then have to manually update our spreadsheet”. 

Moving to Member Jungle has given the club an easy way to maintain their membership database online. The automated renewal process also ensured membership renewals aren't being missed anymore.

“It was messy before...a lot of things were slipping through the cracks. Memberships would expire and we wouldn't notice, and some time down the track we would have to chase the member for payment,” Danielle says. This became a welfare issue for the Agility Club as well as a financial one because if you weren't a current member it meant you weren't covered by insurance for their classes.

When asked if there were any surprises when moving to a Member Jungle system, Danielle replied that the standout for her was the system generated emails and “constant reminders that a renewal is approaching”. This was "something that a human can’t keep up with on a regular basis" and just made the process so much easier to manage. 

The average age of the Agility Club member is around 35 to 40 years old, and while Danielle says if she had a do-over she would have taken a softer approach introducing the system but her members are now all using the system successfully and the club can really notice positive differences in many aspects.

The booking of dog classes using the Member Jungle events module has “created a more even playing field”. Members now have access to a set amount of tickets for the positions available in the classes and once the tickets are sold out the class attendee list is closed.” The old system where an application would need to be sent to the committee to be approved often caused some upset among members who missed out on a position. Danielle says "the events module removes the manual interaction. Members can easily see if they have missed out or if they sign up and get a ticket then, they’re in and everyone is happy.”

Renewal time is now “awesome and simple” with all active members renewing easily with “just a click of a button”. The Agility Club of WA uses a rolling date membership so that members get a full twelve months of membership from their sign-up date. Danielle explains that “members also have to be a current member of a few outside bodies” in order to maintain their membership requirements. These external memberships are invoiced at the end of the financial year, which is why the Agility Club wanted to avoid sending another bill to their members at the same time of year.

"The feedback from members about Member Jungle has been super positive and we have had lots of good things come out of it. I love that it tracks our members so effectively, which was the number one thing we wanted to achieve.

When asked if there is anything she would change, Danielle explained she would defintely change the way she introduced the system to her members. She would take a much softer approach if she did it again but the members are now all using the system successfully.  They had a few members that were resistant to change but once they “got them over the line" it's been great.