The Club Secretary's Survival Guide to Membership Renewal Season (For Those Still Doing It Manually)

It's that time of year again.

You know the one. The season where you send a perfectly reasonable email to 80 members asking them to renew, and 74 of them respond by doing absolutely nothing.

Welcome to membership renewal season. If your club is still managing it manually, this guide is for you. Not because it will help — but because you deserve to feel seen.

Step 1: Open the Spreadsheet (The Right One)

Start by locating the membership spreadsheet. This should be straightforward. It is not.

Your options will include: Members 2024.xlsx, Members 2024 FINAL.xlsx, Members 2024 FINAL v2.xlsx, Members 2024 FINAL FINAL DO NOT EDIT.xlsx, and a mysterious file simply called members backup june DO NOT DELETE.xlsx that no one remembers creating.

Pick the one that looks most recently modified and try to remember whether anyone emailed an update in October that you may have accidentally ignored.

You're off to a great start.

Step 2: Send the Renewal Email

Draft a friendly, professional email reminding members that renewals are due. Keep it warm but clear. Include the bank details. Proofread it twice.

Send it to the list.

Immediately receive an out-of-office reply from someone you forgot had left the club in 2022. Wonder briefly how they're still on the list. Add "clean up the member list" to the mental pile of things you will do one day.

Wait.

Step 3: Wait Some More

Refresh your inbox. Nothing.

Check the bank. Three people have paid. One of them has paid the wrong amount. Another has paid the right amount but written their name as "R. Henderson" when there are two R. Hendersons in the club and you have no idea which one this is.

The third payment has a reference that just says "renewal." You stare at this for longer than you'd like to admit.

Step 4: The Follow-Up Email

Two weeks have passed. You have confirmed 11 renewals. You have 69 members who have not responded in any way. They have read your email. You can see the read receipts. They simply chose not to act.

Send a follow-up. Keep it friendly. Resist the urge to add "as per my last email" even though you are absolutely feeling "as per my last email."

Wait.

Step 5: The WhatsApp Campaign

The email strategy has plateaued. Time to deploy the group chat.

Post a friendly reminder with a trophy emoji to make it feel festive. Watch it be read by 34 people in seven minutes. Receive two thumbs-up reactions and one message from Gary asking if training is still on this Saturday.

Reply to Gary. Confirm training is on Saturday. Return to staring at the spreadsheet.

Step 6: The Individual Chase

This is the phase where renewal management software becomes a deeply appealing concept, but you're not there yet. You are here, in the trenches, with a phone and a list.

You will encounter the following characters:

The Ghost. Has not responded to any email, message, or carrier pigeon. Is definitely still alive — you saw them at the shops — but operates on a frequency that your communications cannot reach.

The "I Never Got the Email" Member. You have their correct address. You have the delivery confirmation. This is the eighth consecutive year they have not received the email. It is a mystery for the ages.

Dave. Dave will renew. Dave always renews. Dave will renew at 11:47pm on the night before the deadline, every single year, without fail, because Dave likes to keep you honest. You respect Dave, in a complicated way.

The Partial Payer. Has paid $80 of the $95 renewal fee. Does not know why. Cannot explain the $80. You will spend 20 minutes reconciling this before deciding it isn't worth it and accepting the $80.

The Keen New Member. Has already renewed, paid the correct amount, with the correct reference, and emailed to ask if there's anything else they need to do. You love this person. Protect them.

Step 7: The Spreadsheet Update

Cross-reference your bank exports against your member list. Update the spreadsheet. Realise the spreadsheet has been edited by someone else in the meantime and there's now a version conflict. Save yours as Members 2025 FINAL FINAL v3 JUSTIN VERSION.xlsx.

Consider whether this is how you expected to spend your evenings.

Step 8: The Lapsed Member Dilemma

Some members have simply not renewed. They didn't reply. They didn't decline. They just... didn't.

Are they leaving? Are they travelling? Did something happen? Do you send one more message, at the risk of seeming desperate? Do you remove them from the system, at the risk of accidentally offending someone who was just busy?

You send one more message. It's fine. You're fine.

Step 9: Declare Victory, Immediately Discover a New Problem

Renewals are in. Not all of them — they're never all of them — but enough to call it done. You update the spreadsheet one final time. You send a thank you to the committee.

Then you realise you forgot to update the access list. And the insurance register. And someone's asking whether their renewal covers the whole year or just the financial year. And the treasurer wants a reconciliation report.

The cycle continues.

There Is a Better Way (Genuinely, We Promise)

If any of the above felt uncomfortably familiar, you might be ready for membership renewal software that does the heavy lifting for you.

SquadSpot automates renewal reminders, tracks payment status against member profiles, handles online payments directly, and gives you a real-time view of who's current and who isn't — no spreadsheets, no WhatsApp campaigns, no R. Henderson disambiguation required.

Dave will still renew at 11:47pm. Some things are beyond the reach of technology.

But everything else? Sorted.

See how SquadSpot handles renewals →

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