Registration & requests
Membership application
Everything the committee votes on, gathered once, in the order it decides in.
Why this survey gets sent
“Half the applications reach me missing the one thing we vote on, and I spend the week before every meeting chasing people for a profession and a referee.”
A membership application is a decision brief, not a sign-up. Written in the order the committee actually decides in — who, which category, are they eligible, do they accept the rules — it arrives complete, and the meeting spends its hour on the two applications that are genuinely arguable instead of on the twenty that are merely incomplete.
What is in it
- Name, email and phone (required)
- Which membership, with the fee beside each option
- Profession or field of work
- Why do you want to join? (long answer)
- A current member who supports the application (optional)
- Preferred way to pay, and agreement to the bylaws
About 4 min to answer
Membership application
About 4 min
How to write this survey
Ask only what the vote turns on
A membership committee decides on three things: who the applicant is, which category they are asking for, and whether they qualify for it. Any field that serves none of those delays the application without improving the decision, and it is what turns the week before every meeting into a chase.
Profession or field of work is the field worth making required in most associations, because it settles the category and the eligibility at the same time. Date of birth, identity numbers and a full postal address belong after acceptance: before it they are details about somebody who may never join, and after it they are an ordinary part of a member's record.
Put the fee beside the choice
The commonest reason somebody abandons this page is reaching the last question without knowing what they are about to be charged. Write the amount into the label of each category — “Full member — 25” — rather than on a separate fees page or in a later email. A number beside the choice makes the choice a decision instead of a surprise.
The amounts here are placeholders: replace them with your own, add your currency, and say the period out loud — a year, or once. If there is a joining fee on top of the subscription, put both numbers in the same label. A charge that first appears after approval costs you the member and the goodwill together.
One open question, and make it specific
“Why do you want to join?” is the only question the committee will read in full, and it is what separates one application from another. Keep it required, and keep it single: two open questions means the second gets one line, and three means the application is never finished on a phone in the evening.
If you want to steer the answer, steer it in the question rather than in a note beside it: “Why do you want to join, and what would you like to take part in?” gets a useful paragraph where “tell us about yourself” gets a copied biography. A short answer written for you is worth more than a long one written for everybody.
Agreeing to the bylaws is an act, not a sentence
Acceptance of the rules should be something the applicant does: an explicit question they answer yes to, not small print under the send button saying that sending implies agreement. The difference shows up on the day of a dispute, when you need a dated answer showing that this person read the rules and accepted them.
Link the bylaws in the question itself, or in the paragraph at the top of the page — not on an “about us” page the applicant would have to go looking for. And never bundle agreement to the rules with agreement to a newsletter in one question: somebody who wants the first and not the second is left with no honest answer.
What happens after they press send
Put the next meeting date and your reply time on the thank-you screen, because an applicant who does not know when their application will be looked at simply sends it again a week later. One sentence does it: applications go to the committee at its next monthly meeting, and we reply within two days of that meeting.
Leave the money until after acceptance. Asking how someone would prefer to pay is enough at this stage — it tells you what to prepare for a new member without taking a payment for an application that might be refused. Card details never belong in a survey; payment has its own channel, opened once the acceptance notice has gone out.