On email fields, the default view is to include a checkbox that says “Opt-in to general club communication”.
This settings is to help clubs comply with Canadian Anti-Spam law which requires opt-in permission to send emails that are of a commercial or promotional nature. Clubs absolutely have a need, and the right, to contact members and send them information if that information is an intrinsic part of being a member of the club. For instance, information about a program a registrant joined is targeted and specific and members implicitly expect to receive that information as part of joining the club. Newsletter and notices about upcoming events though start to get into the grey area where some information may be more general and members may consider it to be promotional and unsolicited. This setting is useful to apply a slightly conservative definition so that information can be defined as “General” or not and sent to the respective recipients. For any given club communication, you can decide if you should include those that did not opt-in to general communication via the options in the Communication area as well as the EMail Export area (details above in How do I export a list of email addresses)
And in the EMail Export function in Custom Reports described above.
If you feel that all club communication is of a specific nature and part of joining the club and don’t feel that the information you send out could be construed by the recipient as commercial or promotional in nature, then you may be OK to disable the Opt-In field on your registration so that it does not appear. But keep in mind, the government definition (and ultimately your registrations definition) of unsolicited and/or commercial emails is an ever shifting concept and the use of the “General club communication” definition tries to strike a conservative balance that respects the wishes of participants while still allowing clubs to control what information they send out. To be on the safe side, you may want to put a Text Block above the email field explaining to registrants what information they can expect to receive so that it’s defined as part of joining the club.
