8.9 Considerations when changing fees and membership years

Background

u3a’s usual activities were on hold for a prolonged period of time during 2020-2022. Committees considered whether they could compensate members financially in some way. Also some u3as find they have surplus funds or would like to change their membership year e.g. to spread their annual workload.

The implications for Beacon of changing fees or extending the membership period to achieve this are explored here. The Beacon Team cannot advise on non-Beacon aspects of this but these are some important points to be aware of and look into: -

• Check your constitution: this may define your fee structure and membership year, which may limit your Committee’s ability to make changes without formal consultation and approval by membership at an AGM/EGM.
• If considering a change to your membership year: this could impact your AGM timing. Holding your AGM after your membership year starts but before members are lapsed may not be easy to manage.
• Third Age Trust fees are still payable: all the usual contributions your u3a makes for Trust membership, Third Age Matters (TAM) and Beacon are payable in full.
  On TAM note that the Beacon generated submission to the publishers only includes one copy where two members share an address.
• Make sure you can afford it: help your Treasurer do a projection going forward. If your fees don’t cover the ongoing costs of activities, such as room hire and speaker fees, your u3a won’t experience significantly reduced outgoings. Some u3as run a healthy surplus and may look to reduce this to be more aligned with Charity guidelines for reserves.
• Keep things as simple as possible: avoid mixing elements of different approaches.
• Don’t rush to a decision. By all means signal to the membership their Committee is looking at the best way to compensate members, or if that’s not the case then explain your position.

Approaches and Implications - Reduce fees for the next year

This will involve implementing a one-off reduced fee for current members at the next renewal period. If the renewal month isn’t imminent the Committee may have time to make plans and calculate a reduction. If renewals have started there will need to be a delay until the next membership year.

To do this in Beacon: -

• In the months between closing renewals and before the next advance renewal period, set the membership fees for your membership classes (Individual, Joint etc.) to the reduced fee.
• Decide whether new members should pay the reduced rate or the normal fee.
• If you decide that new members should pay the normal full rate don’t be tempted to create new Membership Classes – this adds complexity to everyday Beacon use. The amount they pay can be controlled by setting joining fees by month as described below.

To set joining fees by month make sure they are enabled. Login as admin. From the Home page go into System Settings (under Setup) and make sure “Member fees” are set to “Annual – fees vary by month of joining” as below. Remember to click the “Update” button at the bottom.

Note that the Advance renewals period is set to 13 weeks (3 months) and the membership year starts on 1^st April in this example.

Now go into Membership Classes under Setup. Click on a class, e.g. Individual, and you see this table at the bottom.

 The reduced Renewal fee of £12.00 (rather than the usual £20.00) is entered on the left. Next are the Joining fees for each month, starting with the month of renewal (April).

Completing this table requires some thought. In the above example new i.e. Joining members will pay the full fee for the first six months of the membership year April to September inclusive. For the next three months they pay half price £10.00. However, because the advance renewal period is 13 weeks or 3 months, the fees for January to March are set to the full rate as they cover membership for the following year.

Also note that when completing this table amounts will auto-fill propagate from left to right, but can be over typed.

Finally, u3as in a financial position to waive fees for a whole year could set Renewal fees to £0 and simply renew all current members in one go at the start of the membership year.

Approaches and Implications - Extend the membership year

This is especially attractive if your u3a is currently processing renewals or has done so recently.

By extending one membership year by a number of months as a one-off, while keeping the same fee, members will receive additional months of membership at no cost to them.

The membership year is a setting that must be changed by the Help Desk. This is because there are Beacon side effects that need to be managed.

Before requesting the change wait until the non-renewal months between renewals from the previous year completing and the start if the advanced renewals period for the following year. This may well mean extending the next membership year rather than the current one. For example, if your membership year starts 1^st April and the advance period is 2 months and the grace period 2 months, then avoid the change from February to May inclusive.

When the membership month is put back the Help Desk, following discussion, can optionally set the renewal date of all your members on Beacon to a new date. Consider the case of putting the membership year back from 1^st April to 1^st June. If the renewal date remains 1^st April for all member a side effect will be that during the period from April until members renew, their names will appear in red when viewing Group participants. Unfortunately, changing the Grace lapse period has no effect on this.
Conversely setting the renewal date to the next 1st June for all members will make it harder to identify when then membership of lapsed and other non-Current members expired.

So there are three options: -

• Leave the dates in the membership records and put up with the red. When members eventually renew the renewal date will be correctly set as usual.
• Increasing the advance renewal period and encourage members to renew early.
• Discuss with the Help Desk changing the renewal date of all your members on Beacon.

Note that membership renewals will be listed as normal in the Membership renewals page from the number of Advanced renewals weeks before the start of the membership year start month. For example this will be from 1^st July if the advanced renewals period is 13 weeks and the membership year start on 1^st October.

Approaches and Implications - Extend the renewal grace period

If the start of your membership year is approaching and no fees have been banked, then consider delaying renewals. This has the advantage that fees can be reviewed and set at a later time (perhaps after consulting the membership) and the membership year does not need to be changed. It involves: -

• Firstly, notify the membership not to renew or make payments (bank transfers especially) until advised. If operating the member’s portal then disable the ability to renew on-line (menu Public Links then under Configure Members Portal).
• Set the Grace lapse period in Beacon to e.g. 26 weeks. This will allow renewals through the Members Portal when it is enabled at a later time. Note that otherwise this has no effect beyond being a reminder to Beacon System Users.
• Don’t lapse any members. Everyone will go red in the Groups listings, but this manageable given that group activity will be low.
• When you are in a position to set fees for the remainder of the year follow the steps above in  Reduce fees for the next year

Approaches and Implications - Issue refunds

This is covered for completeness but is not recommended. Also note that Charity law states than fees (these count as donations) can only be refunded in special circumstances.

Issuing a partial refund of fees to members has attractions from the perspective of members – they get some money back sooner rather than later. For the Treasurer it would be a major logistical project involving the writing and posting cheques, setting up bank transfers and reconciling the bank account as cheques are cashed over many weeks. It will also be difficult to set a refund amount before there is confidence that activities have been resumed.

From a Beacon perspective, a transaction would need to be manually entered against every member to reflect the refunded amount. If a u3a operates Gift Aid, then the refund will need to be recorded against individual member’s Gift Aid status – something Beacon does not do automatically.

 Summary

To compensate members financially: -

• Issuing refunds is not a realistic option
• If you are in your renewal season then consider reducing fees for the next year or extending the membership year
• If your u3a will be processing renewals soon then consider reducing fees for the next year or extending the renewal grace period
• If you are mid-year then consider all approaches.

Revision History

v1	2020-04-12	Graham Tigg	First version by Graham Tigg
v2	2020-04-14	Graham Tigg	Moved refunds to the end. Mentioned monthly fee propagation. AGM could overlap renewals period if membership year is changed
v3	2020-04-14	Graham Tigg	Corrected and clarified renewal vs joining fee for the month by month table
v4	2020-04-15	Graham Tigg	Added option to extend the renewal grace period
v5	2020-04-22	Graham Tigg	Mentioned grace period and renewals through the portal being inhibited
v6	2020-04-24	Graham Tigg	Clarified the outgoings will be less depending on TAM take-up.
v7	2020-06-21	Graham Tigg	Mention that charities cannot refund donations
v8	2020-08-01	Graham Tigg	Clarified Grace Period effect
v9	2021-05-06	Graeme Bunting	Article moved from Knowledge Base to User Guide
v10	2022-09-25	Graham Tigg	Added that the Help Desk can bulk change renewal dates for all members. Made the article more generalised.