LTB 164/23 - Online Join Replacement
No. 164/23
28th June 2023
TO: ALL BRANCHES
Dear Colleague,
ONLINE JOIN REPLACEMENT
As part of the wider digital transformation project of union infrastructure, the ‘old’ online join form (OLJ) has been replaced with https://join.cwu.org. This has happened ahead of schedule as the old online join form had failed and new members trying to join online were unable to.
Unfortunately, due to the age of the membership system there is very limited integration between Integra and this new online join form. The new membership system is expected to be installed by September 2023 and will plug seamlessly into the new membership form.
Therefore, for an interim period, there is likely to be a slight delay between members joining and them being added to the Integra system while the CWU Membership Department add new members to the database.
There are three key things to note that will be different in this interim phase:
1) Membership numbers will still be given to members upon receipt of the confirmation email from the Membership Team, but not immediately on application.
2) After user testing and an internal workshop with CWU staff and branches, it was decided to remove the death benefit nominee step from the online join experience. We found this deterred some applicants from completing the form, and thus joining the union. Paper forms can still be sent to members, and a digital solution will be provided for members and branches when the new membership system is live.
3) Paper forms for Organisers and Reps can still be found here and there will be a link in the footer of new online join shortly.
We appreciate colleagues support with this out-of-schedule change, but we all understand the importance of ensuring that new members are able to join the union as a matter of priority.
Any enquiries regarding this Letter to Branches should be addressed to the Senior Deputy General Secretary’s Department on telephone number 020 8971 7237, or email address sdgs@cwu.org.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Kearns
Senior Deputy General Secretary