New Accounts

NEW ACCOUNTS

50.  Paragraphs 1 to 9 are found on page 'All RNZE', 10 to 29 are found on page 'Members' & 30 to 49 are found on page 'Join Association', all seperate to this page.

General

51.  If your new account is for becoming a new member, welcome to the Sappers Association [NZ] Inc! If you're an existing member, well done on creating your new account! In both cases, you can now see pages hidden from the public. Some pages are restricted to being viewed by the email smart group created from the boxes you have checked.

Allow Contact Details

52.  The Association runs a Allow Contact Details scheme which encourages members to keep an eye on their close mates. This scheme is also used to advise you of mates you would think about visiting if they were in hospital or perhaps send him/her a 'snail mail' card. Or just send a text message.

53.  If this scheme interests you, please:

(a)  Go to page 'Era Decade Sappers/Era...' your 'Era Members' page, plus look at the 'Era Members' page before and after your own Era page. There you will see some of the people you joined up with. On the same line their name is on is a two digit number in the right hand column.

(b)  Jot on a piece of paper the two digit number of the close mates you would allow to be given your contact details and perhaps want them to be notified if you go into hospital. Note that there is a hospitalization opt out option explained in para 26(c).

(c)  Open your profile [top right].

(d)  Scrol down to near the bottom to find 'Allow Contact details to selectedf members of my Eras' [you should have left this blank as per para 14(b)].

(e)  Check the two digit boxes of the people you noted in (b) above.

54.  Filters are set within TidyHQ that home in on the member in hospital by his/her two digit number checked. Numbers 10 to 99 cover 90 numbers. These are divided in lots of 30: 10 to 39, 40 to 69 & 70 to 99. Each lot is allocated to an Era. Arranged on echelon, each double digit number might be used up to seven times by that many Eras covering a period of 100 years of enlistments. Hence the importance of checking your own Era. Background reading on this is found in paragraph 26(b).

55.  One reason for this, on first impression, round-a-bout system is security for sappers on active service overseas. If surnames were listed in the public profile, terrorists could track down families of service people and threaten them. In May 2021 NZDF was invited to try and hack into our memberhip database to see how secure it is. To date they haven't done this, or if they have, we don't know about it.

56.  Handing out your contact details will, in part, still be a manual process:

(a)  Upon receiving a request for your contact details from a member, the Secretary or Membership Clerk will need to look at your profile to see if you have checked that person's number. If it is checked, then the details are handed to that person without asking you.

(b)  If not checked, the Secretay or Membership Clerk will hand the requesting person's contact details to you. It will be up to you if you liaise with the requesting person and provide your contact details fo him/her.

User Name & Password

57.  Some people find saving User Names and Passwords a real pain. A consequence of this is an avoidance of internet systems that require logging on. Another is using the same password for everything, which is quite insecure. But we are increasingly moving this way, even the Ministry of Social Development and Manage My Health now needs User Name & Password login to see your mail if avoiding the post option. Some people use 'save your password on this device' but nobody has explained how easy it is for crooks break the simple entry password after they steal 'this device'. Some computer savvy people use programmes such as Bitwarden, LastPass, KeePass, NordPass, 1Password or Dashlane for automated passwords. But for non-computer types [most of us], a suggested solution is a two book system, as outlined below:

(a)   Acquire a roughly A4 size lined book with a ruled margin. On the cover perhaps call it 'Computer' or some other misleading name.

(b)  Each year buy a small pocket sized appointment diary.

(c)  In the book (a) above write the date in the margin and the website / safe serial number / ATM card number etc, then User Name.

(d)  In the diary (b) above write the Password or PIN on the same date as (c) above.

(e)  The date is the link between the two books [see 7 Apriil 2014 in User ID Password attachment below].

(f)   Some tricks: Try and avoid or otherwise exaggerate upper an lower case letters that look similar Cc Kk 0Oo Pp Ss Uu Vv Ww Xx Zz. Keep a clear line between entries in the book so there is room to write things like see a future date where you have updated / changed a password or user name.

(g)  When travelling overseas, put the big book in your checked luggage and keep the small diary in your cabin bag, both seperate. Thieves will only get one, which is useless without the other.

(h)  Perhaps the small diary could normally be left in the glove box of your car. It could also be used for your grocery lists. That way it is away from the other book when you're away out of the house. But remember that some computer systems time out [presumably this is so criminals don't have all day to try and break into your password at their leisure]. So do the route march to your car and get the password diary before attempting to login.

(i)  The new diary each year is an opportunity to change passwords as recommended by banks etc. Do this over a period of months with emphasis on those needed for the next trip overseas.

(j)   Your mobile phone could replace the small appointment diary in (b) above. Use the initials of a Contact instead of the date as the link to the big book. Make the initials as random as possible. Put the password in Notes with no other indication of it's use. In this fashiion the password will usually be out of the house with you and a house burgler will only get the user name big book. If a pickpocket gets your phone, the password's use are unknown.

(k)   Try and keep the book date the same as the actual date the computer entry was done. Sometimes you can see the computer history and if this is the same as your manual book entry you are on more surer ground.

(l)   After activating a new password, it is good practice to go back in the big book to the old date and write in pencil to 'see new date'. In this way, you avoid trying to login using a superceded password.

(m)  The serial number of a house safe itself goes in the big book, but the serial number of any backup manual keys to the safe should go in the small book [treated as if it were a password]. It's a good idea to do the safe password and safe backup key months apart in your two books. A password and what looks like key number close together is a give away to a buglar that the they are related and probably lead to a safe.

(n)   In your mobile phone the sprnz.tidyhq.com password could go in the Notes of a fellow sapper Contact. The user name email address should be in a different fellow sapper Contact Notes. Don't use Sapper Association President, Secretary etc [a bit too obvious if your phone is stolen].

(o)   Some backgroung reading is in a Readers' Digest article attached below called the Dark Web. It is about always changing your passwords.

58.   When getting a new email address, it is important to keep the old email address active and receiving emails for a month or so. Many websites using email addresses as the User Name [Microsoft, Google, Xero etc] need the old address to send reset password ability to, Tidy HQ being one of them. It is best to go through all of your email address login websites and update them with your new email address as soon as possible after activating your new address. Relying on diverts to your old address for a limited time is tempting fate, as the time will soon run out. When divert time on the old address does run out, it is impossible to do a password reset. You will be forced to set up a new account as per Members page para 13. Please keep this in the back of your mind in the years ahead. If you lose one of your user ID or password books, don't panic! Most interactive websites have a 'lost password' reset procedure. And providing you've kept your email in each website current, it can be used to activate a new password.

Shifting Homes & Visiting

59.  When shifting to a new district, Tidy HQ Smart Groups automatically shifts with you if you login and undate your address. The crucial entry is the 'Region' between 'Country' and 'City'. The 'Region' gives a choice of districts based on Wikipedia data base. This is what Tidy HQ homes in on. Tidy HQ refreshes each Smart Group about once a week [probably when there is some cheap computing time available in the cloud or something]. Refreshing takes a bit of computing effort in that it checks to see if a person is a member of the Sappers Association [this service is only for those who have paid for it], checks to see if email address is being rejected [waste of time being on a email group if email address doesn't work] etc. So wait a week before trying to find the page of your new district. Also remember that many districts have not organised themselves to run and update a page, so there may not be a page in your new district.

60.  When visiting a district away from home, you may like to see if the local sappers are up to anything. If so, login and go to your profile and scrol down to the bottom [past the 10 to 99 numbers]. Check the 'View other District page' district[s] you are visiting. Then wait a week [reason in para 58]. If the district you want is not listed, it is because the locals have not got off their bums and started to run it. The local District Moderator is geared up to send emails to the local Smart Group, not the visiting Smart Group. So don't expect email triggers from the locals. Viewing their page is as good as it gets. You may wish to send an email to the DM in Menu / Organisation / Regional Branches saying that you intend to visit their district on certain dates. S/he may elect to put something in the the local page and raise an Event to have a Local Gathering while you are there perhaps as guest of honour draw card. If an Event ticket is raised [drinks, food etc], it needs to be printed out and produced at the function. Being a visitor on the move, you will probably be nowhere near a printer [Events give about six days notice]. Email the DM asking him/her to print out the ticket and bring it to the function for you.

Paper Filing

61.  For those that are interested, there is suggested paper filing system outlined on page Administration / Personal Systems. It has an emphasis on reducing build up of paper war.

Office Holder Contact Details

62.  It's a good idea to enter the email address of Sappers Association office holders likely to be important to you onto your system at an early stage. This is done by Roles, not by personal name. We attempt to change all office holders every three years, so names will always change. But the Role will always be there. The office holders are found at Menu > Organisation > Executive Council or Regional Branch etc [ @sprnz.tidymail.co that redirects to the office holder]. Good idea is to put 'Spr' in front of each Role so you can find them all in one place. Perhaps priority is: Membership Clerk, your District Moderator, your Era Moderator [if active]. Then maybe your Branch Clerk [sometimes two jobs: Minute Clerk & Finance Clerk] and your Branch Chair. If most of the previous are inactive then Secretary, Treasurer and President. Don't record the Membership Clerk email address as this is in the public view and has been subject to spam, scam & phising and needs to be changed regularly.

63.  Phone numbers are personal, not by Role. They are found under Menu > Organisation also.

Sappers Helping Sappers 

64.  Those members who want to do a bit more than just turning up and having a beer now and then, can volunteer to do unpaid work as a District or Era Moderator [Moderator is a Facebook term for someone that monitors language and tones things down]. A few notes:

(a)  This sprnz.tidyhq.com website has the contact information of a reasonable percentage of our members already set up. You don't have to put together a data base on your system. You just become an Admin and start setting up Events and sending out emails to already established Smart Groups that come directly from each member's profile account.

(b)  You're only expected to do about two years in that job. There'll probably be one Decade Do social function or a dozen local District social functions during that time. At the end of that Decade Do social function or two year's worth of District social functions, a call is made to replace you. If nobody steps up to take your place, you just walk away and the job goes vacant. The members data base you helped improve, by urging people to login and update their profile details, sits there in this website waiting for somebody else to put their hand up to use it.

(c)  If you can login to this website already [and to be reading this page, you must have logged in], that's all you need to be an Admin. Updating your District or Era page is easy, being no more hassle than typing a short email.

(d)  There is a strategy aimed at compelling members to login regularly. This is so they update their contact details whilst there. Out of the 500 odd members on our books, only about 200 of them have contact details that still work. The other 300 members are lost to us. To this end, Events only give so much information and to find the rest, login is required. For instance, the total numbers attending is displayed in the Event, but their names are listed in the District or Era webpage needing login. This turns some people off, but without this strategy more members will become lost to the Association. Low attendance by some at social functions is an accepted consequence in exchange for other members keeping their contact details correct.

(e)  We are avoiding bombarding members with emails. Some members have totally switched off with all things army and perhaps only ringing them might get them to a social function. See Menu > Sappers > Members > paragraph 24 for more detail on this. If stepping up into a District or Era that is in really bad shape, a extra mate who does ringing around while you concentrate on the website page may be a good idea to get things moving.

(f)  Social function organisation is roughly at two levels:

   (i)  District social functions are low key. They should be based on you going to your local RSA to have dinner. If any other sappers turn up, that's nice. If nobody turns up, you're still having the eat out dinner you intended to [you don't lose any sleep over it]. You may like to adjust your profile to view the Bay of Plenty page which has been operating for a few years [the lack of turn out is presumably due to no ringing around done].

  (ii)  Decade Do social functions are a lot harder. People need to know that, after travelling perhaps 500 kilometers, there are a whole lot of people they know at the venue. So, a hard core of 10 people saying they'll attend is needed before hitting the 'Go' button. See (d) above for listing names. A lot of Facebook reminders, ringing around etc may be needed. If no phone answer, alway have a prepared prattle to leave a voice message.

(g) Photos of venues for potential Decade Do social functions can be found on Menu > Era Decade Sappers > Venues Decade Do's. Photos are also available on some District pages.

(h) If a fellow sapper is visiting a district, it's not a bad idea to build a special social function around that person's visit. Locals may be getting tired of meeting the 'same old, same old' people. An outsider, whom some know, is an interesting change to talk to. And it could be that those that know the visitor haven't seen him/her in a long while.

(i)  It's a good idea to hold Decade Do social functions as close to the middle of New Zealand as possible so Sappers can get there for extreme north and south. This would be mainly in Wellington.

  (i)  The Porirua RSA is one of the few 'true' RSAs still operating in the Wellington area. It has a restaurant. See Era Decade > Venues page > paragraph 14.

 (ii)   The Army Leave Centre in the Wellington CBD could be booked and sub-let using the Event ticket system. See Era Decade > Army Leave Centres page > paragraph 25.

65.  Some organisation aspects involving being a District or Era Moderator:

(a)  You are not a bank signatory, so you'll need to invite someone with a Sappers Association Visa card to pay for drinks, food etc over the counter. This could be the Regional or Era Decade Branch Chair or Branch Clerk up to President, Secretary, Treasurer etc. This person should make a short speech and facilitate picking your replacement in (b) above. If fund raising, a BNZ cash deposit card can be provided which gets the money into the correct account plus annotates the bank statement with your District or Era to ring fence it as your money. This shows up in the Branch Performance and Position end of year financials and keeps left over money for your next social function. Until your District or Era is on a sound enough footing to be fund raising, Vail Hubner has been in the habit of donating money to have a free drink at social functions, and with his agreement beforehand can be done for your social function. There's some background reading on Menu > Sappers > All RNZE > paragrapht 4.

(b)  As a District or Era Moderator, you will automatically be on your Regional Branch or Era Decade Branch committee. Typically, these branch committes meet via Zoom from home about five times a year. A District or Era doesn't need to keep minutes. Anything that needs recording is put in the higher Branch minutes. This covers things like noting preapproved payments for a future social function and ratifying payments afterwards etc. These minutes reassure your invitee (a) above to login to the Bank of New Zealand and shift money from the Branch account to the Visa account knowing everything is all kosher.

66.  Public Events verses Login Pages:

(a)  A Public Event can be seen by the venue management and for that reason liasion needs to start early. Enthusiasim by the venue management often requires reporting numbers attending back to them. Other work involving an Event is finding a photo to put in it.

(b) Login Pages are not seen by the public, and therefore not seen by venue management. By restricting a social function to login page only, a half dozen or so attendees can turn up at a venue unannounced and probably not be noticed by bar staff as anything to report back to management. This also fits in with paragraph 64 (f) (i) above.

Lapel Badges

67.   Posting lapel badges to new Financial Life Members is now subject to problems with NZ Post. In the past the thickness of the lapel badge escaped the maual processing then in place. But with automatic sorting now the norm, this thickness is fouling the machinery and the the letter sometimes is rejected. To remedy this problem, each badge has it's stem bent with two long nose pliers. This gets the badge thickness down from about 12mm to approximately 8mm. The letter categories are a $2.00 Kiwi stamp up to 6mm thick and a higher cost $3.30 stamp up to 10mm thick. So the bent stem sits in the higher 6mm to 10mm postage. The use of two long nose pliers aims to bend away from the base with a gentle curve which if broken still has some of the stem for the clasp to grip. This avoids a fatique fracture at the base which the clasp has nothing left to clamp onto. The badge probably needs two long nose pliers to straighten the stem again.

68.  Lost lapel badges are sometimes replaced free to members activily socialising with fellow Sappers at an Event venue [not mailed out]. The badges cost money, but members who are regularily attending Events can have 'a blind eye turned to' for free replacement. Members who have 'gone to ground' and not attending organised social functions perhaps should need to question wanting a free replacement lapel badge if they are seldom seen at Sapper activities.

14 Feb 2025 last updated.