If you have made the subscription product type: Junior, then the system is expecting the junior to be in a group with an adult. This is a key feature of the junior subscription product type. We do this, because the vast majority of organisations that have junior members want to collect contact details for a responsible adult. See here for a further explanation.
The adult does not need to have a subscription, or be a member of your organisation, but they do need to be recorded in WebCollect as a separate person to the junior.
How to add the adult, and create the group
Step 1: Create the adult's account. From the admin panel, click on the Members link top left. Click on Add new member. Complete the details for adult. At a minimum, you need a first name and last name. If you don't know their name, you can put "Parent" for the first name, and the junior's surname for the last name. Click on Add.
Step 2: Create the group. You should now be on the individual member's page for the adult. Click on Create a new group top right. This automatically creates the group. The adult will have the Family Admin box ticked (note: this is important because the junior must be in a group with someone who is a family admin for the group).
Step 3: Add the junior to the group. Click on Admin home. In the quick search box, start typing the junior's name and select them from the dropdown list that appears. That takes you to the junior's individual member page. In the box, "Assign to an existing group", start typing the adult's surname. Select the correct group from the dropdown list that appears.
Click here for more information about junior memberships
Why have this rule for junior memberships?
The benefits of this set-up are:
- Parents have their own account on WebCollect. They will be the purchaser of the subscription (not the child). Useful if you want to rely on legal statements made online (e.g. parental/medical consent forms)
- Where multiple children are members of the club, the parents are stored once (not once per child)
- Family information (e.g addresses/phone numbers) are stored centrally for the family and can be updated by a parent for all junior members in their family in one go.
We know that many clubs store the parent's contact details as part of the child's record, and that it is quite a bit of work to restructure the data to fit the WebCollect system during set-up. However, we have found that the system will work much better for you if you do. Storing the parent's details as part of the child's record can get really messy, particularly where you have sibling junior members. The parents and the child are separate people, and are best stored as separate accounts.
