Asking members whether they are coming

Premium. Events → Invite on any event. Members can already sign up for an event from the app, and that works for the members who use the app. The Christmas lunch, the AGM and presentation night are not events for the members who use the app — they are events for everybody, and the twenty people the caterer needs a number for are disproportionately the ones who will not sign in to answer a question about Saturday.

🔗 There is nothing to sign into

Every invitation carries a link unique to that member and that event, with three buttons on the end of it: I will be there, I cannot make it, Not sure yet. One tap on a telephone, no password, no app. The page it lands on is a plain page with no website around it — a navigation bar, a cookie banner and a photograph of the green between somebody and three buttons is how a reply does not get made.

🤔 Not answered is not a “no”

Three answers and the absence of one, kept separate on purpose. A club that treats silence as a refusal cancels the lunch that forty people were coming to. The chase button emails only the people who have not replied, which is the only list worth having.

🔄 Replies change

Somebody says yes in October and their daughter has a baby in November. The link works as many times as they press it and updates the answer rather than refusing. Set a closing date and it stops accepting changes after it, with a line telling them to ring the club.

👀 Whether names are shown is your decision

Who else is going is exactly why people come, and exactly what some members would rather not have broadcast. So the count is always shown on the reply page and the names are shown only if you have asked for them on that event. It is per event, because the answer for the Christmas lunch and the answer for a bereavement collection are not the same.

🔒 What the link can and cannot do

It opens exactly one thing: the answer to one question about one event. No member record, no other event, nobody else’s answers beyond the count you have chosen to publish. The token is thirty-two bytes of real randomness rather than anything derived from the member’s number, and only its hash is stored — so a copy of your database is not a set of working keys.

The consequence worth knowing: sending a second invitation to somebody issues a fresh link and the older one stops working. Nothing anywhere knows what the old one was, so it cannot be reissued. If a member says their link does not work, send them another.

📮 Members with no email address

They are counted and reported rather than quietly skipped. “We invited everybody” and “everybody got an invitation” are different sentences, and a secretary needs to know which one is true before ringing the caterer.

Common questions

Does this replace event sign-ups?

No — they sit side by side. Sign-up is for events with places, a price and a capacity. An invitation is for asking a question and counting the answers. An event can use both.

Why not a general poll or survey tool?

Because a general poll engine is twice the work and worse at this job. Everything this needs to know — who to ask, what the event is, when it is — comes from the event itself. Pavilion does have surveys if you want to ask the club something that is not about an event.

Can I send it again to everybody?

Press send again and anybody who has already replied is left alone. Use the chase button to email only the people still outstanding.

What number do I give the caterer?

The first figure on the screen — coming, including guests. It counts each member who said yes plus anybody they said they were bringing.

Will it email a member who has left?

No. Archived and deceased members are excluded before anything is sent, by the same rule that keeps them off every other mailing.