As we head into our second quarter and look ahead to a busy summer, a restructure in our command structure means we’re going full warp into a huge Admin period and one of the most essential (if a little dull!) parts of our membership process.
SFC membership is for life. Sometimes however, life changes. Ever since we adopted a more digital approach many years ago and dropped all membership fee’s in conjunction with the ability to utilise social media and online platforms for fleet-wide needs over traditional mailouts, there has been a shift in approach for how members leave. Those who want to end their membership tend to just dissapear without formally closing their SFC account.
For us this poses a problem as if an account remains active, we then become a data controller for that information left behind and by law as well as our own strict policies, we do not wish to retain any information for lapsed members. This is why we do things in reverse and open the Annual Membership Confirmation process.
The process is very straight forward. From April 1st we’ll be in touch with members via email to ask if they’d like to continue their membership within SFCQ2 and their local unit. Members can either reply or complete a linked form to confirm their membership. Over the course of six weeks we’ll send two further reminders (those who confirm will be removed from those reminders) and by the end of the Confirmation term, those who do not confim membership will have their accounts closed and details removed from our fleet database including the initial application form.
The confirmation period will begin with initial mailouts on April 1st and close at midnight on Satursday May 13th. Those who do not respond will have their accounts closed and membership closure information completed within two weeks. If anyone indicates they with to close their account in their reply will have that request processed by the next working day.
This applies to all members across all units, with the exception of those who signed up in December 2023 as those members are stil in ‘Academy Term’ and will have their own confirmation process as per our normal methods.
Over the past couple of years we’ve seen SFC make some significant changes following lockdown and COVID. Slowly we’re getting back to normal with events and meetups happening as well as more online actives and discussion groups. Following an internal shake up, we’ll see further change as our Director of Fleet Communications has officially moved into the Director of Fleet Administration role and we go on the hunt for a new DoFC.
That shake up will also allow for more time to be spent on online content with various Comms features being migrated here, as well as news (actual news – no clickbait!) and reviews to return as well as much more in a collaborative way from SFCQ2 members.
Change is always inevitable, and the changes we’re looking at as SFC continues to grow in more ways that one are exciting for us all.
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