- Exactly How Do I Migrate My Current NCMUG Membership To Meetup?
- How Do I Get A Best Buy Discount Card Now That I’m On Meetup?
- I Was Told Meetup Is Free. Why Am I Asked To Pay $10 Dues?
- How Will NCMUG Deal With My Current Membership Expiration When I Migrate?
- I Have A Household Membership With Multiple Members. How Do I Migrate The Household?
- What Happens If I Choose Not To Move To Meetup?
- How Public Is My Meetup Information?
- I Don’t Want To Use My Real Name. Is That OK?
- What Is The URL To The NCMUG Meetup Page?
- I Can’t Find NCMUG In Meetup When I Search. How Do I Locate You?
- I Just Paid NCMUG Dues Recently And Now The Dues Are Less. What Happens To My Membership?
- How Do I Log Out?
- How Do I Keep Meetup From Renewing Automatically?
- Is There A Meetup Instruction Page?
- When I Create My Meetup Account, It Wants Me To Start A Group. What’s That About?
Exactly How Do I Migrate My Current NCMUG Membership To Meetup?
If you do not have an account on meetup.com, you’ll need to create one. Then you can join the NCMUG Meetup group. These instructions assume you do not yet have a Meetup account. Here’s how to do it.
- Go to http://www.meetup.com/North-Coast-Macintosh-Users-Group/. Click the purple “Join Us” button under the NCMUG banner on the right side of the page.
- Fill out your name and email address. Enter a password. Click Next.
- Most of this next page is optional. You must enter a country and zip code. Click Next.
- This page is completely optional. If you don’t want to add a photo, click “Skip for now”.
- You’ll get a page telling you that you are almost there. Wait for Meetup to send you an email. Click on the link in the email.
- You should now see a Meetup page with an NCMUG banner at the top. You still don’t need to supply a photo so click Next.
- You’ll be asked to select things you are interested in. You can do this or not. Meetup will use this info to notify you of Meetups in your area that match your interests. You can do this later or not at all. Click Next.
- You will now be told that your trial has begun. This means that you have successfully created a Meetup account and you have successfully joined the NCMUG free trial. If you do not currently owe membership dues, simply wait for a week or so to allow time for the NCMUG membership secretary to update your status from TRIAL to PAID. In the meantime, you will have full membership privileges.
- If you did not use your real name on your Meetup account, please send an email to membership@ncmug.org and supply your real name and Meetup name so that your dues can be credited properly.
- If you owe dues, you have 90 days to pay them through Meetup.
- If you have household members that need to migrate, they will also need to go through this process.
- If you have any problems with the migration, please send an email to meetup-transition@ncmug.org.
How Do I Get A Best Buy Discount Card Now That I’m On Meetup?
All paid NCMUG members are entitled to discounts at the Santa Rosa Best Buy store. As in the past, you must show proof of membership at Best Buy in order to receive the discount. Best Buy will only accept physical NCMUG membership cards with your name and an expiration date in the future. There are no exceptions for anyone. If you don’t have a valid card with you, you cannot get the discount. Our move to Meetup does not change the way this benefit works, but we no longer have the ability to automatically send you a card.
In order to receive a new card, either as a replacement for a lost card or as a replacement for an expired card, send an email to membership@ncmug.org with the following information:
- Your real name
- Your snail mail address
- Your Meetup name if you did not use your real name on your Meetup account
Please allow time for our membership secretary to process your request and snail mail you the card.
I Was Told Meetup Is Free. Why Am I Asked To Pay $10 Dues?
It is free to have an account on meetup.com. There are many Meetup groups that are completely free, so once you have an account, you can explore all that Meetup has to offer.
NCMUG charges membership dues, as it has since its inception. Now that we have moved to Meetup, dues collection will be done through the Meetup website instead of the methods we used in the past. If you are a current NCMUG member and your dues are not expiring yet, you do not need to pay dues now. Once you join the NCMUG Meetup, you will be part of a 90 day free trial. An NCMUG board member will automatically change your membership status to PAID and will adjust your expiration date to reflect your current membership, and we’ll give you the extra 90 days as a bonus for migrating to Meetup. When your paid membership expires, you will need to renew on Meetup to continue receiving benefits.
How Will NCMUG Deal With My Current Membership Expiration When I Migrate?
Once you join the NCMUG free trial on Meetup, an NCMUG Board member will look you up in the old NCMUG database and will change your status from TRIAL to PAID. If you did not use your real name when getting your Meetup account, please send an email to membership@ncmug.org with your real name and your Meetup name so that we can find you on Meetup. Your expiration date will be set as follows:
- If your dues are currently due, you will need to renew through Meetup. You are still eligible for a 90 day extension for signing up with Meetup. This extension will automatically be added to your expiration when you pay your dues.
- If your dues are paid up and your last renewal was due before June 1, 2024, then your membership expiration date will be adjusted to the current expiration plus a 90 day extension for joining the NCMUG Meetup group.
- If you paid $30 for renewals that expired on June 1, 2024 or later, your expiration will be adjusted to compensate you for the new lower rate of dues NCMUG is now charging. You will also be credited with 90 days additional time for migrating to Meetup. Please note that the dues restructuring compensation will not be made immediately, since we are focusing our initial efforts on getting everyone to Meetup.
- if you are currently part of a household or business membership, each person in that membership will need to join NCMUG through Meetup in order to continue receiving benefits. If there is time remaining on your membership, adjustments will be made to the expiration dates of each individual as described above. Note that NCMUG does not require everyone in a household to join or renew, but only those who join through Meetup will receive benefits going forward.
I Have A Household Membership With Multiple Members. How Do I Migrate The Household?
if you are currently part of a household or business membership, each person in that membership will need to join NCMUG through Meetup in order to continue receiving benefits. If there is time remaining on your membership, adjustments will be made to the expiration dates of each individual. Once these adjustments are made, each member will be responsible for his or her own renewal.
Note that NCMUG does not require everyone in a household to join or renew, but only those who join through Meetup will receive benefits going forward.
What Happens If I Choose Not To Move To Meetup?
We plan to complete the migration to Meetup by the end of the 2024 calendar year. Beginning in early January, the following changes will occur that affect your benefits.
- The sonic Announce List will be retired, so SIG announcements and vendor discounts will no longer be sent to members that have not migrated to Meetup. SIG Announcements will be sent through Meetup invitations and vendor discounts will be announced on the NCMUG Meetup Announce List.
- The sonic version of the NCMUG Member List will become inactive. Members will remain subscribed for at least 6 months unless they choose to unsubscribe, but all attempts to post to this list will be rejected. The NCMUG Meetup Member List will become active and all members who have migrated will be able to send and receive messages. In addition, Meetup supports discussion forums for those members who prefer that format for asking / answering questions.
- The NCMUG website will be significantly altered to reflect the move to Meetup. Some information, such as the specific locations, times and dates of SIG meetings, will reference the Meetup site. When NCMUG Meetup members look at these pages, they will see the complete information about upcoming Meetups. When NCMUG members who have not migrated to Meetup look at these pages, they will only see generic information but no specific meeting times or locations.
- Your Best Buy discount card will be honored until it expires. If you lose your card, you can request a new card.
- The sonic NCMUG off-topic list will be retired mid 2024 and will not be replaced. Meetup can only support one Announce List and one Member List.
- When your membership expires, you may only renew by joining the NCMUG Meetup group at http://www.meetup.com/North-Coast-Macintosh-Users-Group/.
How Public Is My Meetup Information?
Meetup itself is a large social media organization, so some of the information about you will be publicly available. You are in control of how much you share and it is possible to remain mostly anonymous if that is your desire.
When you sign up for a Meetup account, you must provide a name and valid email address that you control. You are not required to use your real name. You must have access to the email address you supply and your Meetup account will not be issued until you go through a verification with Meetup in which they send you an email and require you to verify it with your account.
NCMUG members have access to your Meetup name once you join our Meetup, but we do not have direct access to your email address. We can send you emails through Meetup, but Meetup itself is the entity that has access to your email.
If you choose to post a question (or answer) on our new Member List (once we activate it), your email address will appear in the message just as it does on our sonic Member List today. In addition, Meetup archives all messages, which are accessible to all NCMUG members who wish to search the archives.
If you wish to remain as anonymous as possible, you can use your first name, a nickname or a handle when you signup. You can also get a free email address that is not your regular email address and use that only for Meetup.
If you choose not to use your real name, NCMUG requests that you send an email to membership@ncmug.org with your real name and Meetup name so that we can credit you for dues paid and mark you as migrated in our retiring database.
I Don’t Want To Use My Real Name. Is That OK?
Yes, this is fine. Many of our members are using their first names only or first names with last initials. Some are using handles or nicknames. Many are using full names.
If you do not use your real full name, please send an email to membership@ncmug.org with your real name and Meetup name so that we can adjust your dues expiration date and mark you as migrated in our retiring database.
What Is The URL To The NCMUG Meetup Page?
http://www.meetup.com/North-Coast-Macintosh-Users-Group/
I Can’t Find NCMUG In Meetup When I Search. How Do I Locate You?
The search tool in Meetup does not work like a Google search, so if you search for something like NCMUG, you won’t find us. The idea behind the search tool is to help you find new groups you might be interested in, not to locate ones you already know about.
The easiest way to find us is to go to our URL on Meetup directly. That address is http://www.meetup.com/North-Coast-Macintosh-Users-Group/
If you want to search for us, we can be found by looking for keywords like
iOS
Mac User Group Apple
Mac
iPad
iPhone Genealogy Videography Photography Video
You will need to make sure you set the location area to the right of the search box so that NCMUG is geographically in the region you are searching.
I Just Paid NCMUG Dues Recently And Now The Dues Are Less. What Happens To My Membership?
If your dues expired on or after June 1, 2024, and you paid the old $30 rate, NCMUG will credit you with more time on your membership to compensate you for the dues restructuring. This change may not happen immediately because our first priority is to get all members migrated to Meetup; however, we know who you are and will make a sweep through our Meetup members to update this in the next few months.
In order to get this credit, you must migrate to Meetup. If you have multiple members on your household membership, each member will need to migrate to Meetup as well.
If you or any members of your household did not use your real name on Meetup, please send an email to membership@ncmug.org with your real names and Meetup names so that we can properly credit your accounts.
How Do I Log Out?
Most people elect to stay logged into Meetup. If you log out of Meetup and visit either our ncmug.org website, or our NCMUG website on Meetup, you will not see all the information available to members. For example, you won’t be able to see the detailed times and locations for Meetup events like SIG meetings and you won’t have access to our discussion forums. This may be confusing.
If you still want to logout, here’s how:
Look for the person icon in the upper right corner of the website. Either mouse over or touch the icon to see a drop down list of options. Select “Log out”.
How Do I Keep Meetup From Renewing Automatically?
Until you enter a credit card through the NCMUG Meetup site you will not be on an auto-renewal plan. Most NCMUG members who migrate to Meetup should stay in the free trial and let the membership secretary update their status to PAID and adjust the expiration date. Once the status is PAID, you can set up auto renewing payments by selecting “Manage dues” from the left side navigation and enter credit card information. Once this is setup, your credit card will be billed when your membership expires.
If your membership is due now, then follow the directions above to set up payment.
If you want to stop auto renewal at any time, simply return to “Manage dues” and click “Stop member dues”.
This will halt automatic payment but will not cancel your membership.
I have not been able to determine whether Meetup will notify you that your membership is expiring so you may want to put something in your calendar to remind yourself.
Is There A Meetup Instruction Page?
Meetup offers a help center that may answer many of your general questions about how Meetup works. I have personally found many answers to common questions here and have learned a lot about how Meetup works. It’s not perfect, but here’s where to start:
http://help.meetup.com/
Many of the topics are designed to help group organizers. I recommend starting with topics under “Managing your account”.
Feel free to send any specific questions to meetup-transition@ncmug.org if you need more help.
When I Create My Meetup Account, It Wants Me To Start A Group. What’s That About?
Most NCMUG members simply want to join the NCMUG group and do not wish to start their own group. Unless you really have an interest in starting a group, don’t pursue this path.
NCMUG is an example of a large Meetup group. We offer our members the ability to lead relevant Meetups or SIG groups under our umbrella. If you’d like to do something like that, contact one of our board members for more information.
If you get inspired by what you see with Meetup, you may decide you want to start your own group. It will cost money to do so, but feel free to check it out.