This email was sent out on 12 July 2023 but some PayPal subscription cancellations took place on 8 July 2023.
Dear Member:
Firstly, thank you for being a member of The Heinlein Society. Recently, we have made some changes you should know about. Since our inception we have been keeping manual records via an Excel Spreadsheet. This worked fine until our growth made this method untenable for our volunteers. So, over the past few weeks we have been migrating this data over to our website. For payments we used a manual method through PayPal until December of 2019 when we put in an automated payment system that also accepted credit card payments, but we still had many members with recurring payments made directly through PayPal. We have kept both methods in place until now gathering the data manually via a spreadsheet. Late last week we canceled all those recurring payments through PayPal so we can have one integrated payment system. Members who had those recurring payments have already received an email from PayPal that the recurring payments have been canceled and an email of explanation from us. A new method of buying a gift membership has also been added to our cart system making it easier to gift a membership. You may also still pay by check. In addition, our emails reminding you of payments, thanks for payments and welcome emails have gone out manually. In the future all those emails will be automated. Hopefully these changes will make it easier on our volunteers and members, but being a new system means that some bugs still need to be worked out so please be patient.
I’m sure your first question is “what does this mean for me?” If you have joined since the beginning of 2020, you may not notice a difference. All members now have an account on https://www.heinleinsociety.org tied to the email address at which you are receiving THIS email. If we created the account FOR you, or if you’ve forgotten your password, you may use the “Lost Password” function at the bottom of every page of the website. This includes Lifetime Members.
One other important point: with our amazing growth thanks to fans of Robert A. Heinlein that want to “Pay it Forward”, we have found it necessary to collect a little more information about you. The first time you go into our website after logging on, you may see a screen of “Account Details”. You will need to fill out any mandatory fields missing data. Mandatory fields have a red asterisk next to the field. This information will never be sold or given to any third-party without your consent. You will not have to fill out this screen on subsequent visits to our website.
You may always update your address, credit card, and subscription information via your personal “My Account” section after you have logged in. Even if you had been paying for a one-year membership, always check the “Subscription/My Subscription” area (see picture) in My Account first before going and ordering a new one-year membership. You may order a one-year membership from the subscriptions area of your account as long as there was an existing order.
The best way to renew your membership is through the subscriptions section. For members with a “one year only” non-recurring membership dues payment, our website will be sending out reminders that your membership will expire at 30 days prior to your expiration date, a second reminder 15 days from your expiration date, and one week after your expiration date. Members that do not renew will be considered inactive but may pay to become an active member at any time after they become inactive.
I hope this explanation makes sense, but if you have questions or run into problems, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Best regards,
Will Hamilton
Membership Chair
The Heinlein Society
FOR THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
