Thread: Deerstalkers membership woes

Anyone else had issues with joining the deerstalkers this year. I paid for a membership back in Jan and asked that it commence from March 2019 as advised by the local deerstalkers club.

I paid and filled the form in and sent it off via email. No acknowledgement was received. I then expected to receive a member card and some sort of acknowledgement in March but nothing. I contacted deerstalkers at end if March for a possible update on my membership and they just told me that memberships will be processed soon. So I waited again until near end of April as by now I was desperate to use the club's range, which I can't do without a membership card. I had real trouble getting anyone to acknowledge my requests. The chat to us for on the site was ignored, the contact form on the site was ignored and initially the Facebook chat request was ignored for. Couple of days. I finally got a reply asking when I had paid for membership so I sent back the payment details and then once again heard nothing until I pressed them for a response. They finally acknowledged my payment and send a card would be sent out. Well guess what. Nothing has arrived over a week later.

I'm starting to lose patience with them now as this seems to have dropped into the realms of incompetence. Is my case isolated are are others getting frustrated too?

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This popped up in another thread recently, but over the last few months they've been shifting the entire membership database across to an entirely new system. This hasn't exactly gone smoothly for them, but they're finally mostly done and starting to get caught up now.

Bear in mind over the last month or two they've also been having to send out membership cards etc for every member in the country, on top of everything else going on..
Actually I just remember seeing in an email also that both of their paid admin office staff have been out sick most of this week too. Bit of a perfect storm for them.

If you talk to the local club, and explain the situation, I'm sure they'd consider letting you use the range in the meantime.

I only just received this year's membership card this week, I renewed my membership in March I think when they all roll over. There is only a few people doing admin so it takes them a bit to get the cards outs but usually the range cards are sorted pretty quickly as long as you have done the range course etc. If ya busting to go up the range let me know and ya can head up with me, I have a couple of rifles to sight in.

Originally Posted by Magnus

I only just received this year's membership card this week, I renewed my membership in March I think when they all roll over. There is only a few people doing admin so it takes them a bit to get the cards outs but usually the range cards are sorted pretty quickly as long as you have done the range course etc. If ya busting to go up the range let me know and ya can head up with me, I have a couple of rifles to sight in.

Hi Magnus

I joined the welly club who don't have ranges cards. I assume you are an upper Hutt member? I should join that one as an associate and do the range safety course.

I dropped my .308 a couple of weeks ago hence the need to get it to a range and check the sight. I've resorted to using a 30/30 over open sights for my last couple of day trips out.

I'm hoping that the membership pack will turn up in the next couple of weeks - i'm not free at weekends now for a couple of weeks anyway.

regards
Ash

Wellington club range is a bit shit to be honest. I could not even find the range the first time. when i did, it was a paddock covered in sheep and cow shit. haha...... Kaitoke is the one to join but a bit to travel if you live on SH1 route.

As above. I applied 5 months ago and have been informed the “too busy” excuse was on a/c of new computer glitches. Local club has been accommodating/supportive.

I've contacted them again, will have to wait if they respond. IT isn't that difficult, maybe u should offer my services to help them sort out the DB and data migration.

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@aetchell, there are 3 NZDA clubs in Welly, which one are you talking about ?

Bottom line, have you been to a meeting ? Most of these clubs are run by volunteers who are either not tech savvie or seriously over-worked. In my experience with the Hutt Valley club, going to the meeting and talking to people face to face makes a huge difference.

Originally Posted by ebf

@aetchell, there are 3 NZDA clubs in Welly, which one are you talking about ?

Bottom line, have you been to a meeting ? Most of these clubs are run by volunteers who are either not tech savvie or seriously over-worked. In my experience with the Hutt Valley club, going to the meeting and talking to people face to face makes a huge difference.

The wellington branch, but this isn't handled by local clubs, it goes up to HQ for processing. I went to the march meeting and had a chat, which happened 4 days before the ChCh event. range access rules changed after that...