4.6 Non-renewals (including Resigned, Lapsed and Deceased members)

Resigned, Lapsed and Deceased Members
When it is known that a member will not be continuing their membership, their Membership Record should be updated to an appropriate status such as Lapsed, Resigned or Deceased (see 4.2).

• Resigned should be used when it is known that a member will not be continuing their membership.
  
  
• Lapsed should be used for members that have not renewed by the end of the grace renewals period, but have not indicated that they wish to resign. Experience has shown that lapsed members often renew at a later date.
  
  
• A Deceased member should have the email address removed from the Member Record to avoid the possibility of emails being sent to the deceased member.
  
  
• If a Deceased member shared an address with another member, they should have their ‘Share address with’ changed to <no-one>. Also, check the surviving partner's Member Record to ensure it does not have the deceased partner as the emergency contact.
  
  
• If a Lapsed or Resigned member shares an address with another member, it is recommended that you do not change the ‘Share address with’ to <no-one> – this link will be useful if the member re-joins (the Lapsed/Resigned member will not show up in an Addresses Export of Current members).
  
  
• When a member has lapsed, resigned, or died, their name will remain in any group list of which they were a member. There is no mechanism by which the Group Leader is notified that the member has left the group. Therefore, remember to remove the member from any Groups that they belonged to and as required, notify the Group Leader.
• It is also sensible if a Deceased, Lapsed or Resigned member is a Joint member to change their status to Individual and also do the same for their joint member. This avoid possible difficulties when this remaining member renews.

Dealing with Non-renewals
Select Non-renewals from the Home Page to show a list of members who have not renewed. 

This list operates in 2 modes, according to the option selected by the Show radio button at the top of the page     

• Note: Selecting Members who did not renew last year lists Current members and not members that have already been Lapsed.  You should also note that this takes effect after the grace period set in System settings so your site may have a different number of weeks.
• Selecting Members who have not renewed for 7 years lists all members that have not renewed in the last 7 years.  

After selecting one or more members in either of the two modes, the following operations are available by choosing from the drop-down list below the table and pressing the Do with selected button:

• Send email: opens a form on which to compose an email (see 6.1)
  
  
• Send letter: opens a form on which to compose a letter (see 6.2)

Tip: the members can be sorted by clicking on the blue Address column heading. This makes is easier to only tick one member of a pair so the household only receives one email or letter.

Lapsing Non-renewals
Having selected Members who did not renew last year, tick the members in the Select column. Then select Lapse from the drop-down list at the bottom of the page and press the Do with selected button. A confirmation dialog will be displayed. Press Lapse to proceed. The selected members will have their status changed from Current to Lapsed.

It is important to lapse members who have not renewed as soon as possible otherwise the u3a Beacon licence, TAT subscription and TAM magazine mailing cost for those members will still be included in invoices from Third Age Trust Trading Ltd. This advice also applies to resigned and deceased members.

Deleting long term Non-renewals
Having selected Members who have not renewed for 10 years, tick the members in the Select column. Then select Delete in the drop-down list below the table and press the Do with selected button. A confirmation dialog will be displayed. Press Delete to proceed.

Note: depending on your u3a's Data Protection Policy, it is likely that long term non-renewals will have been deleted long before reaching 7 the years; see 4.2.2 for further guidance.

v2	2021-05-18	Lyn Bossons	Importance of lapsing non-renewed members asap added.
v3	2021-05-23	Graham Tigg	Suggest sorting by address to make joint and address sharing members easier to identify so, e.g., only one reminder email is sent to a household.
v4	2021-08-18	Lyn Bossons	Need to check if deceased member is an emergency contact added.
v5	2021-12-15	Graham Tigg	Clarified that non-renewals are Current members
v6	2022-06-06	Graeme Bunting	Clarified that selecting "Members who have not renewed for 7 years" lists all membership statuses.
v7	2023-01-08	Graeme Bunting	The need to remove a deceased member's email address added. Note about long term non-renewals added.
v8	2024-04-08	John Alexander	Add advice on Joint members change if the other joint member is no longer and active member
v9	2024-07-07	John Alexander	Minor correction to Grace period image and detail