Guest passes and the false growth letter
How day-pass uploads inflate membership counts when guest records share the paying-member ID field.
Several guilds upload guest day-passes into the same member identifier field used for paying seats. The monthly “growth” chart then spikes after an open house, and a cheerful chair’s letter goes out before anyone notices.
Separate guest records at the source. If the app cannot, add a flag column and teach chapter secretaries to use it. Monthly Reading Retainers often catch this within the first two cycles because the spike fails a simple consistency check against renewal cash.
False growth is not fraud; it is a tired upload habit. Correcting it early keeps trust when the real renewal numbers arrive thinner than the open-house week suggested.