Guest Lists & Search Function in Membership Management

These are suggestions coming from a fellow TM that I know if my District:

-- Guest list is limited to just 100 and remain on the site for just 366 days. Was that implemented for a specific reason? Would it be possible to expand the guest list total and/or keep guests on the site until they wish to be removed? 

-- A search function that allows searching for members, guests, and former members by typing in names in addition to scrolling. 

This is pretty much the question I just came here to post. I see the GUESTS and FRIENDS list now have a warning that they will be deleted after 366 days. I can say from my VPPR experience in this club over the past 13 years that on more than one occasion a guest returned and became a member YEARS after their first visit, due to the fact that they were still receiving our announcements and updates. To me, our mailing list is one of our best tools for recruiting. Everyone has the ability to opt out if they choose. Very few do. I see the PROSPECTS list does not have the same DELETE message. Would moving GUEST emails that are about to expire to PROSPECTS allow us to keep them indefinitely? 

If the prospects list becomes a haven of abuse like guest and friends it to will get the same limits.
There are just too many clubs who never cleared out their guests and friends list and FTH became listed as a spammer because the various clubs kept sending emails to people who long forgot that they listed themselves.

 

I understand the trade-off.  It’s not a problem since we’re way under 100. I was just hoping they wouldn’t be automatically deleted if over a year old.  Many guests show up, disappear and wind up coming back a year or more later.  Cutting them off from the reminder emails we send out defeats the purpose of maintaining a mailing list.

If they haven't joined in a year, you need to look at your marketing. 
After 12 months by spam rules we are required to re authenticate non members our mail log show the the majority of email addresses after 1 year are stale and then we get dinged as spammers sending to non existing email addresses. There are no winners in the world of spam and internet email.