I know some people have been complaining that we weren't accepting new memberships for this season any more, and some people were asking about 2012 (since the team deadline for ticket renewal is coming up). So here's the news: We've moved our membership database off of our old platform (a mix of random stuff we threw together) and put it all online. At the new site, which we're calling the "Member Portal" because I suck at thinking of names for things, you can change your own email address, mailing address, and information, you can renew your membership, you can get the current ticket codes and discount codes, you can generally do anything else you used to have to e-mail me to get done. This is our "soft launch"--we'll be sending out an email to all of the SoBs in a few days, but I wanted to invite a smaller subset of SoBs who like to find problems and complain about them to give the site a try first. So...BigSoccer. Here's what you need to do: 1. Go to http://sonsofben.memberlodge.org/ 2. Click on "Forgot Password" 3. Enter the email you used to join the Sons of Ben 4. Follow the directions. Once you've set a password, please do the following: 1. Click on the "View Profile" link in the upper right-hand corner 2. Check and update your profile information Please post and let me know about any problems you run into or any suggestions on content you might want to see in the "members only" area. Finally, a word of warning: we're still running some tests on the payment processing system. Until we've got it up and running 100%, please DO NOT pay for a new membership or renew your existing membership. Wait until you get an e-mail from us announcing that 2012 renewals are open. Enjoy! Oh, and a note to anyone who bought multiple memberships: The new system requires that each person who signs up has to have a unique e-mail address. If you had more than one paid 2011 member signed up with the same e-mail address, for example: zolo@sonsofben.com we entered the addresses as: zolo@sonsofben.com zolo+1@sonsofben.com zolo+2@sonsofben.com and so on. Most e-mail hosts will ignore anything after the "+", meaning anything to "zolo+anything@sonsofben.com" will just get sent to "zolo@sonsofben.com". When you get the e-mail announcement, it will include the exact e-mail address you need to use to log in. If your e-mail provider DOESN'T handle "+1" correctly, you will need to email membership@sonsofben.com and let me know what e-mail address you want me to use instead. I know this is sort of a pain, but it's better than the old system, which would let us have multiple accounts on one e-mail address but would silently ignore all but one of them whenever we tried to send out e-mail. Oh, one more thing: We've added some fields to the optional member information. Some of it is soccer-related (what national team do you support, are you interested in college soccer, etc.) and some of it is pure demographics. New members will fill in everything when they join up, but if you're a returning member, please fill in the stuff we didn't ask you when you joined. The new information is all optional and we'll keep it strictly confidential.
oh ********.... Reading fail. well...aside from me screwing that last part up, everything seems to be working fine for me.
Don't worry. It's probably working fine, meaning your identity probably won't be stolen and used to run a Bulgarian child prostitution ring. And the FBI probably won't need to talk to you. Seriously, though, if there was a problem it'd be getting the money from the Google Checkout account to our account, nothing that will affect your membership.
There is a question about the SOB rec league. How about also asking whether one is interested in joining special SOB soccer games and what one's skill level is. Also ask whether one is interesting in joining SOB golf outings.
You should tell folks to change these email address' you came up with to valid current ones once one is logged in. I just did and it seems to have worked.
No. Because of the new software, we can't offer discounts for renewals vs. new members. Instead, anyone who joins early will get the lower price.
Looks awesome and worked perfectly. Finally, I won't have to e-mail every time I need a ticket code because I'm an idiot and constantly delete them.
Fancy.... Only thing I could find wrong was that in the "other teams you support" area you have it as "Reading Rage" still instead of "FC Reading City United AC Wandering Rovers" or whatever they're calling themselves these days...
in and updated. The member since area. Only complaint would be the member since area is not accurate. Not too concerned about it though. unless 48 years from now there is a sweet 50th party for the sobs and i dont get an invite because that is wrong. future me would be pissed. Edit: That must have been due to the system. My first paid membership is correct as 2009 below.
Used Mozilla: Worked fine. Clicked join mailing list, has me as a member already (gave me an ! for my trouble) Looks like all the info that was in there on the old site came over for me. Clicked on all the header options, and also gave me an "!" for being a member of the SoB already. External link to SoB site worked too... can you tell i checked new sites before. It's simple and straight forward. Is there anything else going to be added to it?
Just as a side note, yes, Mozilla worked fine. Safari works very well as well, both mobile and on OSX.
So I got the official e-mail and went to renew, but it gives me this: I tried again a couple times, same thing.
The payment system may be down for a day or two, as we're having some problems with the Google Checkout system. We will have it back up as soon as possible.
Yes, we've temporarily switched over to PayPal while we try to get the issues with Google worked out.
Also, although in my member info it has my "SoB member since" date correct as 2009, it still says member since 9/3/2011 when I go to renew....