So far since April 2019 Sunderland Harriers have registered 67 new members, and re-registered 191 existing members, with England Athletics.

To do that we needed all the information that is requested on our Membership Form, particularly dates of birth, postal addresses, and email addresses. Remember that whilst your postal service can generally deliver correspondence to a poorly spelt address, one scribbled character in an email address destines the message to failure.

From April 2020 all this becomes more important when England Athletics registration packs are going exclusively digital.

Many existing members of Sunderland Harriers have probably changed address, email address, telephone numbers, even names since they first joined. You can see that if there are changes to personal details it would greatly help administration to be told.

Those too few of us who are "users" of our website can also amend our details on our "dashboards".

Anyway, this is the notification we have received from England Athletics....

"We recognise the importance of embracing digital innovation to respond to changing demands and we are always seeking ways to evolve and enhance the user experience for our athletes.

As part of our digital strategy we ran a trial during 2019/20 to send out digital athlete registration packs by email and also gave athletes the option to opt-out of receiving physical registration packs. This trial proved successful so when our new affiliation year starts on the 1st April 2020, we will be sending out all registration packs to athletes in digital form, via a link in an email, rather than sending printed packs.

The new digital registration packs will benefit athletes by:

.. enabling them to have key information, including their digital registration card with unique registration number (URN), at their fingertips. The digital pack can be viewed on desktop computer but is also optimised for use on tablet and mobile devices, meaning athletes can access information when on-the-go.
.. giving athletes the ability to save their digital registration card to their desktop, tablet or phone meaning they can easily access their URN details at the click of a button.
.. faster delivery of registration packs (within 48 hours of registration) plus we are also able to update the content of the packs throughout the year, meaning new or re-registering athletes will be supplied with the most up-to-date information and partner offers.

England Athletics is committed to sustainable practices as an organisation and limiting our paper printing not only reduces our carbon footprint but also helps us to relocate funds to support our members. We will also be reducing waste as a number of physical packs are returned to us each year when athlete postal address details have not been updated or are incorrect.

We are making clubs aware of this change in advance so that they can:

.. ensure that, when registering new athletes, the club provides a personal email address for each athlete submitted to ensure each registered athlete can be sent their digital pack.
.. highlight to any renewing athletes at the club that they should login to the myAthletics portal and check that their email address is correct in their personal details.
.. respond to any new/renewing athletes who enquire about how they will receive their 2020/2021 registration pack.

Please note we will be communicating this change directly to athletes from next week.

It is vital that clubs ensure that a correct email address for each registered athlete is provided to ensure each athlete can receive their registration pack.

Thank you for your assistance and if you have any questions then please contact Member Services on registration@englandathletics.org

England Athletics Member Services - 3rd February 2020"