Your Membership Card is now available digitally

Hi, hope I didn't miss the info I seek elsewhere in this forum; please redirect me if I did. If I download and use the App will I still receive the Physical Card each membership renewal? I may be, as one poster made reference, a Luddite, but I often camp without any tech....tech is not mandatory, and the feeling of 'freedom' leaving the silicon at home is great. So, my question: will I still receive my card? And the worry: is the Club going to replace the cards with the app? If that happens then mandatory app/smart phone use is going to be, ostensibly, enforced. Some of us prefer the olde worlde of analogue and having smart this and smart that pressed upon us is not always welcome. Thanks

As far as I know the physical cards will still be sent. Using the app and digital card is just an additional option. 

I can’t see use of the app becoming mandatory unless the club is willing to either lose members or supply each of us with a smartphone.

I don't think you need fear losing the actual membership cards. I could perhaps see in time that the cards could become optional if enough members started to use the App. The advantage in technology is that it can be both convenient and cost effective. It must cost the Club about half a million pounds annually to produce and send the membership cards out by post. The major benefit for members, and the Club,  will be if they have both the App and a payment method on their phone so its easy to switch between the two. I have not yet ventured down the payment route on my phone but perhaps something I should investigate?

David

Tinwheeler and DavidKlyne: thanks for your replies. In truth, it's not apps or devices that I have a problem with, it's the things that are being 'lost' as tech, especially Smart tech, takes over. I'm still dealing with having a telephone in the house (as opposed to having to walk up the lane to the phone box) and asking is it a good idea?! I will hold onto my 'cards' for as long as I can, then maybe be the one of those left hanging on to them despite the Club urging me to 'just let it go, Shaun, let it go......there's a good lad."

Embrace it, Shaun. Go with the flow and enjoy the new world.

I like to embrace new technologies which make my life easier. Just imagine getting up and going to the TV to change channels, inconceivable almost? Likewise wandering around with a phone with a long wire attached (my sister in law still has one of those!)

I am not so out of step with your own thoughts re the membership cards simple because both the membership card and the card I use to pay are both in my wallet so it is quicker and more convenient, to me, to do things that way. I also carry my phone with me but it would take longer for me to find the app on my phone and show to the member of staff on reception so currently I will continue to use the card. However if the Club were ever to introduce automatic check in where you use the CMC App on your phone to read a QR code ( a bit like the COVID App) then I could see that it would be a smoother method of check in and probably the time to ditch the card. I don't see it happening anytime soon but not impossible.

David

I have always prided myself on being at the cutting edge of technology; I was using desk top computers from 1984 in my work and I signed up to the world wide web and email with Demon in 1995 - only two years after the internet became publicly available and long before anyone I knew was able to email me! I have had at least one PC at home from 1987 and before that a Commodore 64 and then a 128 from pretty much when they appeared; not just for gaming.

You can imagine then that I am not especially proud of my record with smart phones; which have, to a large extent, been my Achilles heel. I do use quite a few apps and some of them are really useful - too numerous to go through now - but I cannot get on at all with things like online banking, online shopping, doing the bookkeeping, making payments, or other tasks like, for example, the Scan & Go system at my supermarket. In every case I either resort to my desk top (e.g. for online banking) or the manual option (e.g. plastic cards or the scanner for Scan&Go). 

I also find using phone key boards trying. It is good to see emails on my phone, but mostly I wait to reply on my desk top. 

I tend to the view that smart phones are somewhat over rated. They can also be controlling which I really deplore.

I can't see me using the digital CMC membership card anytime soon. 

I would see it as wrong if people became obliged to use a smart phone, but I acknowledge they have a place and can be useful.  

Much the same as GdJ, I don't get on very well with touch screens and that is why my principle tool is a desktop or while travelling a laptop because I much prefer a keyboard and the larger screen. With old age comes poorer eye sight which adds to the complexity of using small devices.

I would like to see smart phones sold with much less clutter on them instead of oll the many preloaded Apps which are often unrequired and which you  cannot remove.

peedee

You can usually shuffle them to another screen, so the primary one has those you use most. Also increase the icon size. However, I also find the phone a little small and only use it to do anything fiddly if I don’t have my pad handy, which can be linked to the phones 4G if no WiFi. It has everything the phone has but bigger.😀

I wondered if it would take longer to find the digital card on my phone than it would to whip the old card out of my wallet. 
I had a feeling it might take longer but I’ve just had a go and found it quite quick to access the app and go to the card.

There is a big drawback currently however. My phone doesn’t recognise me if I’m wearing a mask so in practice it will take longer if I have to activate my phone using my passcode.