Status Report on VOA Registration and Membership

[City]

Posted on behalf of Smokn Tires:

We had to pause registration late yesterday due to a bank issue I'll explain in this email. Now that we have a second to breathe as registrations are paused, I thought I'd provide a detailed status of registration and also get you up to speed on the registration issues. First off, I haven't had a chance to analyze the spreadsheets to see patterns yet, well I just did… You aren't going to believe this! We're more successful than we ever could have imagined - by FAR:

* First off, within 27 hours we broke almost 600 members! So in a single day, we've signed up almost 25% of our membership (50% in my own region.. it usually takes 5-6 weeks to get 50% to sign up for me - so it's a clear indication of how motivated people are). Communication has been good across so many regions as we see similar patterns. Much faster member signups than we've ever seen. Kudos to everyone for good communication. We could have broken 900+ in 48 hours if we didn't have to pause signups.

* Now, for an EVEN bigger shocker… the total percentage of people who picked mama is… almost 75%!!! This is good news for local regions and national! And it's also a sign of the strong support we all have.

* It doesn't end there. Here's one of the biggest shockers. Not only did all of our $500 numbers (85-99) sell out before the day was even done. WE had a LOT of people buy the $100 specific #'s… In the end - 25% of people bought numbers?!?!?! WOW! This will really help the club get on its feet quickly!


Admittedly I'm completely in disbelief. We were very happy with registration progress - it was nuts, but until now we haven't looked at stats closely given the flurry of communications we had to maintain. This is a wild accomplishment! Now I'm really proud of the club and all the regions. It's hard to surpass the bar we set, but this went WELL beyond anything we could have predicted. It gave me goose bumps as I derived the statistics! Congratulations everyone!


Registration Problems
Now there were 2 problems.

1) Because of the rush time, the credit card authorization system took many seconds to process, and created a timing issue that then bumped some people who's charges we're beaten by someone else's charge for the same number. So we have 40+ people who deserved lower numbers, but ended up having higher numbers because they had to reregister. While some folks are ok, there are a good number of them who are not satisfied at all, and nothing will satisfy then but a low number that they deserve. In the last 24 hours, we're formulating a plan that Maurice will communicate to deal with this that should make everyone happy - and there could be a little something extra to it that should help make people very happy. News to follow from him as soon as we get details in place.

2) Something didn't anticipate… Given the success we had, it meant we had a LOT of money charged. Our credit card processor (not the bank) has limits on how much a "new" organization can take in. We calculated a far lower $$ expectation when we applied with them, so when the bank looked at our account only 24 hours after we started and we were nearing $100K quickly, they absolutely freaked! They stopped our charges (without contacting us). We learned of it after people's charges started to get declined. Unfortunately it was the end of the work day for them and we were only able to begin conversations with them. Right now we're in underwriting and looking to re-establish the credit gateway so we can reopen registration.


So in the end, this has been a pretty wild time. We've had success that we really didn't anticipate. And as for the issues, #1 will be resolved completely and made fair. #2 we'll get resolved very shortly.

You're free to distribute this to members so they're in the loop. None of what we share is confidential, I think the message is positive anyway. It's probably good they hear the detail as I have almost 75 people asking me directly.

Thanks everyone for their support! The first day of registration was a wild and crazy success!! Who knows where we'd be the last 12 hours if registration continued. We were averaging a registration every few mins even 27 hours after the start. By my math, we would be knocking on the 900 mark in 48 hours! Kudos to everyone!

any questions, let me know. Expect an email from Maurice on the solution to the numbering problem. I will also email all of you when registration reopens.

Take care!

Alex Ristanovic
National Vice President

[Viper Granny]

HI Alex, I'm assuming these delays are also affecting the mailing of the new member packets as I have not received anything since I joined in October. If so, no worries. It's all good.

[daytonprowler]

HI Alex, I'm assuming these delays are also affecting the mailing of the new member packets as I have not received anything since I joined in October. If so, no worries. It's all good.

If you'll notice, City's post you are responding to is 3 years old.

Membership packets for the 2017 membership year will go out in January.

[City]

Probably should have closed this thread. My bad.