I'm curious about the renewal process at other clubs? At Souths, you can sign up to what they call the "rolling rabbit plan". Basically, once you sign up, your membership is divided into smaller monthly payments which are direct debited each month. This makes it easier for those fans who struggle to come up with the payment in one lump sum.
The big benefit for the club in this, is that once you sign up, you basically agree to be a member until you contact the club and tell them that you don't want to be a member anymore. This opt out, rather than opt in approach means that when the membership options come out for the following year, those who have signed up to the plan are rolled over automatically. It's why we already have nearly 10k members after the membership has only been available for a few weeks.
Do other clubs do this? I'm guessing that they don't because most seem to have started from scratch again. So I guess the next question is, why don't other clubs do this? It would save them all the work of having to chase previous years members to sign up again and again at the start of every new year. Plus you would have to think it would make it easier for the club financially as instead of receiving the majority of memberships in one massive lump sum and having to dole it out for the remainder of the year, they would be receiving a uniform amount each month throughout the year.
I can't believe that a lot of other clubs haven't taken up this method.
