🧠Setting your joining rules
What somebody pays when they join part way through the season, and how to tell Pavilion your club’s rules.
1Go to Settings, then Membership
The rules are set per membership type, not once for the whole club. A full member is usually charged pro-rata; a social or winter membership is often a flat fee whenever they join.
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?Choose how each type is charged
Four answers are offered, and the right one differs by type.
Full annual fee → the same fee whenever they join. Simple, and fair enough on a cheap membership. | Pro-rata → a twelfth of the fee for each month left of the season. The month they join counts in full. | Pro-rata then next season → pro-rata until a date you set, after which the fee buys the rest of this season and all of the next. The usual “join after Christmas and next year is included” offer. | A set price for a window → the figure your committee agreed and printed. “Join in August or September: £85.” Choose this whenever the club advertises a round number rather than a share of the annual fee. |
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3Set your joining offers, if you use them
Only for the fourth option. Give the dates and the price — 1 August to 30 September, £85 — and as many of them as your club prices — a full table usually runs in two-month steps from June to March: Jun/Jul, Aug/Sep, Oct/Nov, Dec/Jan, Feb/Mar. A window may run past the new year; December to January is fine, and so is August to March. There is always a spare row beneath the last one you have filled in. Somebody joining outside every window pays the full annual fee, because Pavilion will not invent a figure the committee has not agreed.
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4Set the cut-off, if you use one
Only needed for the third option. Pick the day and month after which a joiner gets next season as well — 1 January and 1 February are the common choices.
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5Say how long the membership runs
The club year for most people; twelve months from the day they joined for a rolling membership; or never expires for life and honorary members. A rolling or never-expiring membership always pays the full fee, since there is no part-year to divide.
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6Choose months or days
At the top of the same screen, and one answer for the whole club. Whole months is easier to explain and is what Pavilion has always done; days is fairer on a large subscription, where somebody joining on the 28th paying for the whole month is real money. It only affects types set to pro-rata — a set price for a window is a set price either way.
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7Add a joining fee if you charge one
A one-off, separate from the subscription, and never pro-rated. Somebody joining in February pays a twelfth of the annual fee plus the whole joining fee.
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8Check it with a real date
Open Add Member, choose that membership and a joining date, and read the figure and the line underneath. If it is not what your committee agreed, the rules are wrong rather than the sum.
💡 Tip: Set these before the season opens rather than when the first late joiner appears. The rules apply the moment somebody joins online, and a club that has not set them charges everybody a full year whatever the date.