TOPIC:

Hello,

My club is 397 Blue Bell. Is there a way a club web site can be set up for a new or existing member use a paypal to pay dues? Can the membership application be set up so it can be download from the club website?

Thanks
Cheryl

support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/p...mail-friendly-button

My club uses it: www.mindfulcommunicators.org/paydues.html

Hi Steve,

Thanks for answering my question.

Cheryl

I like what you did for your club, and I looked at the HTML source code at www.mindfulcommunicators.org/paydues.html to see how it was incorporated, since I hand code in HTML all of my Web pages, including those for FTH. My question: how much of the FORM code do I write and how much is provided by PayPal? Specifically, is the code on lines 377-392 in the source file coded by you?
Art

You need to take what PayPal gives you and tweak it a little bit, but careful how much tweaking you do. (and make sure you test it... pay your club a penny or something like that to test) They will give you the "raw controls" that you insert in the full page, but you need consider how you will handle future updates. Put comments or markers (e.g. hidden divs with notes for yourself) in the HTML to remind yourself later what to keep and what to replace (from PayPal) later when you need to update the page.

I have sort of figured out that PayPal intentionally does some things with the HTML for security reasons. I had originally tried monkeying around a lot with the HTML, but I sort of figured out "the hard way" that PayPal seems to actually check the HTML you are actually using vs what they gave you. They store a copy of the HTML form controls that they give you in their server for later comparison.

Some changes to their HTML you can get away with... However, other changes will cause the PayPal submittal to not work.

I recommend using the Donate control as a fall-back way to pay the club. We have used that a couple of times to pay the club for unusual circumstances.

The last thing I do recommend is to come up with a reusable Excel spreadsheet for the dues calcs (including PayPal fees) and hold onto it for the future. (maybe store it in your website member files area) We have already used our spreadsheet at least 3-4 times since we created it because of changes in National dues, club dues, PayPal fees ... etc. We just put the new 6 month national dues, club dues, and Paypal fees in, and the spreadsheet calcs what to put in the drop downs.