Several years ago we were asked to enable non-members to join our forums and therefore to post without becoming GAGB members. This was agreed and resulted in two databases, one recording GAGB membership and another recording forum membership.

The use of two databases has resulted in confusion (for example people don’t understand why they can’t vote as GAGB members even though they are forum members if they haven't joined both, and sometimes the incorrect status is shown in forums) and results in an ongoing maintenance overhead to keep records correct. The ever increasing number of users has resulted in the databases becoming increasingly unmanageable.

We recently polled our members on this subject and they voted 136-6 to move to a single database which has now been ratified by the committee. People who are currently Forum Members and not GAGB members (as shown in their forum title or in their profile) will have their accounts locked unless they change to GAGB members before the 1st June 2012. This can be done by contacting upgrade@gagb.org.uk People who do not become GAGB members will still be able to read our public forums as a guest and their previous posts will still be recorded.

We will attempt to contact Forum members who have joined in the last 18 months to invite them to upgrade but cannot guarantee that such messages will get through or that contact will be made.