allow student society membership to be bought at the box office in person
Joshua Curry submitted on
Thursday 29th November 2018
Complete
It is currently not possible to buy society membership in person from reception. If you don't want to buy online, SUSU's response seems to be that there are *no other ways* to join, as discovered on 28/11/18 when asking in person at the box office.
You should offer an offline alternative to buying membership for societies, as per previous years where you could either buy it from the box office or directly from the society.
People shouldn't be discriminated against based on their preferred methods of payment, when they're happy to hand over other forms of legal tender.
Responses
Here, you can view the complete set of official responses from the sabbatical officers regarding this submission.
Students' Union replied on
Monday 16th Mar 2020 5:09pm
Hi Josh,
Apologies this has been left open for so long.
Unfortunately looking into this, there isn't an easy fix. The online system is the only way for us to be able to verify that individuals are Union members, allow members to agree to the privacy notice and most importantly have members officially registered so they are covered by our insurance. It has however been updated so that alumni with verified life membership can purchase membership from the website as well.
I understand that some students,particularly those with international bank accounts may find it literally impossible to pay via the website. As the box office has now gone cashless allowing membership to be bought in person would not actually solve this issue in most cases.
I have spoken to our leadership team about this and we obviously do not want anyone to be discouraged from society participation - if anyone has a genuine reason for being unable to purchase membership online we will be able to manually take payment, however this would be a quite admin heavy procedure so can only offer it where strictly needed. If anyone has any issue please get in contact (activities@susu.org)
Thanks,
Fiona Sunderland, VP Activities 2019-20 (vpactivities@susu.org)
Students' Union replied on
Friday 25th Jan 2019 12:45pm
Hi, thanks for your query. I appreciate that this is something which would be of benefit to students, and previously was an option available to them. When all Club and Society membership purchases were centralised in the summer, there was a concern around how Privacy Statements (which have unique content for each Club or Society) would be available to individuals who wanted to purchase in person at Union premises. This led to an initial decision to not allow in person purchases.
I am pleased to be able to confirm that on reflection, we are now looking at implementing this as swiftly as possible, with the likely option being individuals purchasing membership having to confirm at the time of purchase that they have read the relevant Privacy Statement. I will be working with my colleagues to address this issue as soon as possible and will update as soon as this issue is resolved!
Many thanks,
Evie Reilly (VP Demkocracy & Creative Industries)
Actions
Forwarded to Vice President Activities
Friday 13th Dec 2019 1:40pm
Forwarded to Vice President Activities
Friday 30th Nov 2018 1:20pm
Comments
Let's keep this space positive and respectful! Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions, but please remember to keep the conversation friendly and avoid any offensive comments.
Additionally, there are issues regarding people without the ability to pay using card, and those who do not wish to use SUSU's chosen payment processor.
At the moment, Alumni with Life Membership are completely unable to join societies purely due to this. They have not got university isolutions accounts, and you need a university account to access box office. As there is no alternative way to pay, they can not join.
