Member Messaging
Member Messaging lets you compose and send personalised emails to your members from inside Clubtreasurer. You decide who receives the message, you can test it on yourself before sending live, you have a clear record of who got each email, and your members can unsubscribe themselves at any time.
This guide walks you through your first send, the things worth knowing about composing, how to target the right members, and the safety nets that prevent accidental mistakes.
*Please Note: This feature is in General Beta and still evolving. You might notice unannounced changes or run into occasional bugs as we continue to make improvements.
Before you start
Member Messaging is available to users with the Manager role. If you can’t see the Membership → Member Messaging menu item, ask your organisation’s Primary Contact to confirm your role.
You’ll need:
– At least a handful of members with valid email addresses on file
– Access to your own User email address (as set up in Clubtreasurer) so test sends reach you
– About ten minutes for your first run-through
Member Messaging is currently in Beta. Feedback is welcome — please contact support@clubtreasurer.com with your suggestions or anything that doesn’t look right.
Your first message in 5 minutes
1. Open the Library
This is the fastest path to sending your first member email. Follow it once and you’ll have a feel for the whole flow.
Go to Membership → Member Messaging from the main menu. This page contains your organisation’s message library where every message you’ve ever drafted or sent lives.
Use to page filters and/or search to locate a specific message or groups of messages.
2. Click “New Message”
The Create / Edit Message drawer slides open. You’ll fill in three things to get started:
- Message Name — a short name for you (e.g. “AGM Reminder 2026”). Members never see this.
- Category — a label to group similar messages, e.g. “AGM” or “Renewals”. Pick from the dropdown or type a new one.
- Email Subject — what members see in their inbox. Keep it short and clear; around 50 characters fits well on a phone.
3. Write the body
Type your message in the Email Body editor. The toolbar gives you formatting, bullet lists, links, and font choices.
To personalise per member, use one of the merge tokens shown in the hint panel:
– `{memberFirstName}` — replaced with each member’s first name
– `{memberFullName}` — replaced with their full name
– `{orgName}` — replaced with your organisation’s name
For example: `Hi {memberFirstName}, …` becomes `Hi Sarah, …` when Sarah receives it.
4. Preview
When you’ve saved your new message, click the Preview button to see what the email will look like. Merge tokens render as `[Member First Name]` etc. (the placeholders make the structure visible without needing a recipient picked yet).
5. Save and move to Select Members
Click Select Members & Prepare Email Blast. This takes you to the recipient selection page.
6. Pick recipients
Use the filter controls at the top — Status, Section, Membership type, Min. Active Membership Date, Past Recipients — to narrow the member list.
- Status – filter only active members or incl. inactive members
- Section – filter members in a specific Section or all Sections
- Membership – filter members with a specific Membership Assignment or All Assignments (incl. none)
- Min. Active M’ship Date – if you enter/select as date here it will filter only members with an active members how only members with an active membership on or after the date you select. Members whose memberships ended before that date — or who have no active assignment after it — will be excluded. (This is based on the “Assignment Cancellation Date”).
- Past Recipients – Choose whether to exclude members who already received this message, include them, or send only to past recipients (useful for follow-ups).
Then tick the checkbox next to each member you want to email.
The Selected eligible members count updates live so you can see at a glance how many people you’re about to email.
7. Test it first
- Click Validate Selected Members to freeze your selection – the report updates to show only selected members.
- Leave the Test mode switched ON (it’s on by default for a reason).
- Click Send Emails > Confirm in the dialog.
A single email goes to your own admin address (not to the members you ticked). It carries a yellow TEST MESSAGE banner so it’s impossible to mistake for the real thing. Open it and check that the layout, formatting, and merge tokens look right.
8. Send live
Once you’re happy, switch mode to Live and click Send Emails again. You’ll get a confirmation dialog telling you the recipient count and the message subject, with a warning that the send can’t be undone. Click OK to confirm.
Your members receive the email within a few minutes (sometimes immediately, depending on queue depth).
9. Check who received it
Click the Send History button to see the list of members who received your message, with their email address, the send date, and who sent it.
That’s it. You’ve sent your first message.
Composing — the things worth knowing
A few features make a real difference once you’re past your first send.
Personalising with merge tokens
You can drop the same three tokens anywhere in your email body, as many times as you like:
| Token | What it becomes |
|---|---|
| {memberFirstName} | The recipient’s first name |
| {memberFullName} | Their full name (first + last) |
| {orgName} | Your organisation’s display name |
Personalised greetings (`Hi {memberFirstName}, …`) measurably lift open rates. We recommend using them.
Adding attachments
Use the File Upload field in the Edit Message drawer to attach a file. Limits:
– Maximum size: 2 MB per file (Max 5MB total files per message)
– Allowed types: images (JPG, PNG, GIF, WEBP), PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, plain text
Anything else gets rejected with a clear message. If you need to send something larger, host it online (your club website, a public Drive link) and put the link in the body.
After uploading, the file appears in the Attached Files table inside the dialog. Click the red bin icon to remove an attachment before sending.
Embedding an image with a hyperlink
Useful for things like lottery promos or event flyers. The pattern is:
1. Host the image on a public HTTPS URL (your club website is ideal).
2. Write the HTML in a plain text editor:
“`html
<a href=”https://yourclub.com/lottery/subscribe”>
<img src=”https://yourclub.com/images/lottery.jpg”
alt=”Subscribe to the lottery”
width=”600″ />
</a>
“`
3. Paste the HTML directly into the Email Body field. The editor preserves it.
4. Preview to confirm it renders as a clickable image.
A few notes on images in emails:
– Most email clients block external images by default. Recipients see a “Click to show images” prompt unless they trust the sender. Always include an `alt=` attribute so the link is still meaningful when images are blocked.
– Stick to **JPG or PNG**. Avoid WebP — Outlook desktop doesn’t render it.
– Resize to a sensible width (under 600px) so it loads quickly.
Targeting recipients
The Member Selection page gives you several filters to narrow the list before you tick people:
| Filter | What it does |
|---|---|
| Status | Active / Inactive / All members |
| Section | Select members with selected Section (e.g. Junior, Senior) |
| Membership type | Select members with selected membership category |
| Min. Active Membership Date | Excludes members whose membership lapsed before this date |
| Past Recipients | Any / Exclude past (re-sends) / Past only (follow-ups) |
The Past Recipients filter is particularly useful for multi-wave campaigns. Send wave 1 to everyone, then set the filter to “Exclude past” and send wave 2 — the people who already got wave 1 don’t appear.
You can also use this for “New Joiner” emails to ensure this is only sent once to each member.
Members who’ve unsubscribed
If any member has used the unsubscribe link from a previous email, they appear in the list with a red UNSUBSCRIBED badge in the Status column. You can still see who they are (and their email address), but you cannot send to them — the row’s checkbox excludes them from the selection automatically.
If you tick a mix of subscribed and unsubscribed members and click Send, a notification at the top of the page tells you how many were skipped, so the math always adds up. The same logic catches members with no email address on file.
This isn’t something you can override. Members who unsubscribe have a legal right not to receive further marketing (under GDPR/PECR), and the system enforces that automatically.
Validating your selection
Once you’ve ticked members, check the Validate Selected Members box. The list refreshes to only show your chosen recipients.
Test/Live mode — your safety net
The Test/Live switch at the top of the Select Members region is the single most important control in this feature. It defaults to Test every time you load the page.
What Test/Live mode does
When Test mode is selected:
– A single email is sent to your own admin address
– The email has a bright yellow TEST MESSAGE banner that says “THIS HAS NOT BEEN SENT TO YOUR MEMBERS”
– No row is added to the Send History
– The message’s status is not changed to “Sent”
– The unsubscribe link in the footer is deactivated (so accidentally clicking it doesn’t unsubscribe the real member)
When Live mode is selected:
– The email goes to every selected member
– Each receives a personalised copy with merge tokens resolved against their record
– Every recipient is logged in Send History
– The message’s status flips to “Sent”
– The unsubscribe link is the real one
See Step 7 above
Use it freely
Test mode is for testing. Use it every time you change the body. Send it to yourself five times if you want — no member sees any of it. The cost is one email to your own inbox per test.
Going live
When you flip to Live mode and click Send Emails, a confirmation dialog appears:
> **Send LIVE email to 47 Member(s)?**
> Message: “AGM Reminder 2026”
> Once submitted, these will be added to the email queue and delivered to your members.
> *Click the **Open Email Queue** to view — or delete — all queued emails. Once sent, they cannot be retrieved.*
This is your last off-ramp. The send is irreversible after this point.
If you click OK and immediately realise you’ve made a mistake, you have a short window to act:
– Click Open Email Queue on your dashboard
– You can can see all of your emails that have been queued but not yet sent
– Delete the email queue
Once an email has actually left the queue and reached the recipient’s mail server, **it cannot be recalled** — for the same reason you can’t unsend a regular email. Use Test mode generously.
Who your emails come from
By default, member messages arrive from mail@clubtreasurer.com, showing your organisation’s name as the sender. Your members see the message is from your club, and replies come back to the reply-to address on the message — but the underlying address is ours, not yours.
For most clubs that is exactly right, and there is nothing to set up.
Using your own domain instead
If your organisation has its own domain — say `nutfordyyc.org` — you can have member messages sent from an address at that domain, such as `secretary@nutfordyyc.org`, instead of the Clubtreasurer default. (This can also apply to your invoices and statements.)
Please note that there is a on-time £50.00 fee for setting up your custom domain.
Why you might want this:
– Recognition. Members see a familiar address rather than a third-party one, so the email reads as genuinely from the club.
– Deliverability. A properly authenticated club domain is less likely to land in spam.
– Replies. Responses go to an address you already own and monitor.
What’s involved
Email support@clubtreasurer.com with the address you’d like to send from, and we’ll:
1. Clubtreasurer will configure your organisation account, register your domain with our email provider and send you a short list of DNS records (DKIM, SPF and DMARC).
2. You’ll need to ask whoever manages your domain — often your web host or IT volunteer — to publish those records. This is usually a ten-minute job.
3. Verify the domain once the records are live.
Two different addresses
You can use one address for member messages (this feature) and a different one for invoices and statements — for example `news@yourclub.org` and `accounts@yourclub.org`. Both must be on the same domain, and each is switched on independently, so one can go live before the other is ready.
Points worth knowing
– Nothing changes until verification completes. Until your domain is verified, messages keep going out from the Clubtreasurer default — so a half-finished setup never blocks a send or bounces a message.
– This covers member-facing emails – Messages, Invoices and Statements – only. Clubtreasurer’s own system emails — password resets, subscription notices — always come from `@clubtreasurer.com`.
– Unsubscribe links and consent are unaffected. They work exactly the same on a custom domain.
– Keep the DNS records in place. If they’re removed later, verification lapses and sending falls back to the default address.
Members who unsubscribe
Every email you send carries a small-print unsubscribe link at the bottom — automatically, without you doing anything. It looks something like:
> *Don’t want member messages from Acorn Yacht Club? [Unsubscribe here]. (You will still receive any membership-related emails such as invoices, statements, and renewals.)*
What happens when a member clicks it
1. They land on a dedicated Clubtreasurer page that confirms who they are and which organisation’s emails they’re managing.
2. They see their current state (subscribed or unsubscribed) and a single button to toggle it.
3. Clicking the button records the change in Clubtreasurer’s audit log along with their IP address and the time.
What this means for you
– Members who have unsubscribed appear in your Select Members list with the red UNSUBSCRIBED badge, but cannot be selected for sending.
– They still receive invoices, statements, and renewal reminders — the unsubscribe applies only to your member-update emails, not to transactional emails about their membership.
– A member who changes their mind can click their unsubscribe link a second time and re-subscribe — there’s no permanent ban.
– You can see who has unsubscribed by looking for the badges in the Select Members list. (A dedicated admin report is on the roadmap.)
Designing your inline link
If you’d prefer to place the unsubscribe link somewhere other than the auto-footer (for example, inside a custom-styled paragraph), use the merge token `{unsubscribeLink}` in your email body. The send process replaces it with the member’s unique signed URL. You can wrap it in a hyperlink the usual way:
“`html
<p>Not interested in these emails? <a href=”{unsubscribeLink}”>Click here to unsubscribe.</a></p>
“`
The auto-footer still appears either way — having two unsubscribe paths is fine.
After sending — Send History
Once you’ve sent a message at least once, the Send History button on the Select Members page lists every member who received it:
| Field | What you see |
|---|---|
| Member | Their name (and organisation if you’ve used multi-section setup) |
| Email address | The address the email went to |
| Send date | Date and time the send completed |
| Sent by | Who sent it |
| Status | Currently always “SENT”. Please contact Clubtreasurer Support if you believe an email has not been received. |
This is the official record of who received the message. If a member asks “did I get the AGM notice?” — this is where you check.
See Step 9 above
Sending the same message again later
You can send the same message to a different group of members later — for example, a “wave 2” of an announcement. Use the Past Recipients filter on the Select Members page to control behaviour:
– Any — show everyone, regardless of past sends
– Exclude past — hide people who already received this message
– Past only — show only those who already received it (useful for “did you read it?” follow-ups)
Clearing send history
If you want to reset a message’s history (for example, to test the same draft repeatedly), the Delete History button on the Send History dialog wipes the record for that message and resets its status to Draft. Use sparingly.
FAQ / Troubleshooting
Q: I can’t see the Send Emails button.
You haven’t selected any members yet, or all the members you selected are excluded (no email, or unsubscribed). Pick at least one valid member.
Q: An image isn’t showing for some recipients.
Most email clients block external images by default. Recipients need to click “Show images” or trust the sender. Always include an `alt=` attribute so the message still makes sense if the image is blocked.
Q: Outlook is mangling my formatting.
Outlook desktop is the strictest mainstream email client. Stick to inline `style=”…”` attributes rather than `<style>` blocks, avoid CSS positioning, and test from an Outlook account if you can.
Q: My file upload spins forever.
Very rare — usually a transient network issue. Refresh and try again. If it persists with files between 1 and 2 MB, contact support.
Q: A merge token shows as `{memberFirstName}` instead of the member’s name.
Confirm you typed it exactly as shown — curly braces, no spaces, camelCase (lowercase ‘m’, uppercase ‘F’). The preview only resolves tokens against a real member; placeholder tokens like `[Member First Name]` are normal in preview when no member is selected.
Q: I see `[Member First Name]` in the preview.
That’s the placeholder shown when no member is selected. Real names appear when you preview after ticking members.
Q: How do I stop an email that’s already been sent?
You can’t, for the same reason you can’t unsend a regular email. Use Test mode first — every time.
Q: A member says they didn’t get the email but Send History shows their name.
The message was sent to their inbox provider. Likely culprits: their email address has changed, the message went to spam, or their mailbox is full. Check the email address shown in Send History against what you have for them.
You can also ask Clubtreasurer Support to check the email logs. Please open a support ticket and provide relevant information so we can track down the email.
Q: A member unsubscribed by mistake. Can I re-add them?
They can re-subscribe themselves by clicking the same unsubscribe link in any previous email. The page they land on shows their current state and lets them flip it back. You cannot re-add them yourself (this is a deliberate GDPR safeguard).
Best practices
– Don’t over-send. One or two messages a month is plenty for most clubs. More than that and recipients start tuning out — or unsubscribing.
– Subject lines matter. Short, specific, and not all-caps. “AGM 14 March — please RSVP” beats “AGM INFORMATION”.
– Always test. Test mode every time you change the body. Cost: one email to yourself.
– Keep attachments small. Under 1 MB ideally. Large attachments are an open invitation for overzealous spam filters and slow loaders.
– Use the merge tokens. Personalised emails (e.g. “Dear Joe” …) read like emails, not like junk mail.
– Respect unsubscribes. When a member opts out, that’s their right. Don’t try to work around it.
Need help?
This is a Beta feature. If something doesn’t work, doesn’t make sense, or you have a feature request, email support@clubtreasurer.com — your feedback shapes the next version.
*Last updated: September 2026. Version: Beta.*