As of a December 2021 update, users will be prompted to give permission for (a) their email address to be used for club communication such as meeting notices and (b) their contact information to be shown to others in the private member directory. This is to show greater respect for member preferences, as well as to address concerns related to privacy regulations such as the European Union’s GDPR.

Members will get this prompt every time they log in until they register their preference. Those who were previously enrolled with user accounts will continue to receive email (unless they have unsubscribed from club email). New members added by an administrator will not receive email until or unless they actively opt in. If your club uses the web-based application form, new members will be prompted to make a choice when they sign up.

Club website administrators and managers can see who has and has not granted permission on the Privacy Preferences screen (a submenu under Users on the administrator’s dashboard). They can also request that the member grant permission to be contacted through the website. Doing so sets that member account to “permission pending” status until the member either grants or denies permission.

Once the “permission pending” flag is set, the member will not receive email until and unless they opt in. Club leaders whose members are subject to GDRP or similar strict privacy regulations may wish to do this for all their existing members who have not yet registered a choice.

A few types of messages are not blocked, regardless of permission status:

• Password reset messages
• Prompts to set or reset permission status
• Messages generated by other plugins outside of RSVPMaker and RSVPMaker for Toastmasters

The email and privacy permission options are also listed as part of the Profile screen where members can update contact details or change their password. That is where a member who previously gave or denied permission can change that setting.

The fastest way to create user accounts for all your club members is to export the member list from Club Central —

— and import it on the Add Members page of the WordPress dashboard (under Users). This is much faster than adding member accounts one at a time. In addition, importing the official spreadsheet means each member’s Toastmasters ID number is recorded as part of their profile. That makes it easier to update the records going forward.

After you click the button to import the spreadsheet of member records, you will be prompted to confirm that the information is correct before it is officially added.

Scroll down the list, making any necessary corrections, and click Submit.

You will see a confirmation message that includes a preview of the information that will be emailed to each member, explaining how to set their password and log in for the first time.

To keep your site well organized, you will want to periodically remove the user accounts of members who have not paid their dues. A backup of their data will be retained, allowing you to restore their accounts at a later date. Members whose accounts have been removed will not be able to log into the website or take assignments on the agenda (unless you add them as guests).

As a site administrator, you can remove members one at a time from the Users screen.

The screenshot above is from Toastmost.org. On a standalone site, the link will be labeled Delete rather than Remove.

Alternatively, you can synchronize your member records with those of Toastmasters International by downloading a .CSV spreadsheet file of current members from the Roster screen in Club Central. The Add Members screen under Users includes an option to import that file. If you check the box that says “Check for missing members,” the import process will check for users on your site who don’t match any current member record.

In both cases, you will be prompted to confirm the removal of members before that action is executed.

Restoring the Accounts of Former Members

The Guests/Former Members screen under users tracks the information of former members.

Click the Reactivate button to Reactivate the account of a former member who is returning to the club.

On a standalone site, after you confirm the activation, and a new user account will be added that includes data such as member speech records. On Toastmost, the user account will be added back to your club website. In either case, you will get a confirmation message that includes the copy of the notification sent to the user by email.

WordPress for Toastmasters allows you to collect online payments from new members, renewing members, and attendees at events. To see the user experience, you can post a test transaction (using a fake credit card for demo purposes).

This is a feature of RSVPMaker, the event scheduling and registration plugin included with WordPress for Toastmasters. RSVPMaker in turn integrates with the Stripe (an online payment service used by major brands like Lyft and Wayfair) as well as PayPal. To use this feature, you you will need to to create an account on one or both services and verify the bank account funds should be deposited into.

Once that is done, you will have to enter a couple of credentials known as API keys provided by these services into your website settings. You can do that as part of the process of setting up the online membership application form or on the Payments tab of the RSVPMaker settings screen.

This video shows how to connect to the online payment services and also how to use the Dues Tracker screen to keep track of who has and has not paid.

If you use the online membership application, the prorated dues amount is calculated (based on the dues schedule you have set up), and the payment button is shown on the confirmation screen.

There is a special Dues Renewal content block for this purpose.

You can also include a stand-alone payment button on any page of your site to collect money for other reasons, such as a fundraiser.

There are RSVPMaker content blocks you can add to a page for either Stripe or PayPal payments. The Stripe version includes a little toggle control you can turn on to say that PayPal should also be displayed, assuming you have both services configured.

Here’s what that looks like in the WordPress editor.

Discounts for Nonprofits

Both PayPal and Stripe offer a nonprofit discount, which you should ask for.

• PayPal nonprofit discount
• Stripe nonprofit discount

You will need to provide the EIN tax ID for your club. In the case of Online Presenters, which does not have an EIN because of its international nature, I was able to provide Stripe with the EIN for Toastmasters International (95-1300076), explaining we operate under that umbrella.

More content will follow for this category. For now, see these blog posts:

Video: How to Import Your Member List, Then Add/Sync Accounts After Dues Renewal – covers the process of adding member accounts, based on the member spreadsheet you can get from Club Central in toastmasters.org.

Collect Dues and Event Fees Online – Payment service integration.

Web-based member application for Toastmasters