Importing and managing your membership roster

Your membership roster is the heart of the Association Hub. You import it once, members claim their own rows, and their standing drives the public directory and the verified-member badge. Everything here happens in the Roster Import and Members sections of the Hub (creatures.com/association/hub).

Importing a roster (CSV)

You can paste CSV text or choose a .csv file. The columns are:

• name: the member's name (optional, used until they claim).
• email: the member's email. This one is required, and it must be a valid address. It is how a member later matches and claims their row, so accuracy matters most here.
• member_number: your membership number for that member (optional).
• status, effective_at, expires_at: optional. If you leave status out, the row imports as active. Include an expiry date to have the row stop counting as good standing on its own once that date passes.

Two things to know:

• The import is all-or-nothing. If any single row has a missing or invalid email, the whole import is rejected and nothing is added, so you fix the file and import again cleanly. You never end up with a half-loaded roster.
• Emails are trimmed and normalized before matching, so stray spaces or capitalization will not stop a member from claiming.

What an imported row is

An imported row is an unclaimed membership. It is not yet tied to a Creatures account; it is waiting to be matched to a member by verified email. Members claim their own rows (there is no approval queue for a claim). See Claiming your association membership.

The standing statuses

Each member's Standing is a dropdown with five values. Set it and choose Update:

• Pending: an application is in, but the member is not active yet.
• Active: a current member.
• Lapsed: was active, and the membership has lapsed (for example a missed renewal).
• Expired: the term ended, either because the expiry date passed or because you set this status directly.
• Revoked: the membership was pulled.

Good standing is computed live

A member is in good standing only when their status is active and their expiry date is either empty or in the future. This is worked out live every time it is read, never stored as a boolean and never flipped by a scheduled job. The implication is simple: to change who appears publicly, you just change a member's status or expiry date, and standing catches up on its own. Only good-standing members show in the public directory and carry the badge. This is also the exact rule a sanctioning show checks: when a show sets a discounted member entry fee, only members in good standing here qualify for it. See Creating a show and Finding and entering a show.

The Members table

The Members table has five columns:

• Member: the imported name and email, or, once claimed, the member's Creatures profile and their member number.
• Public subject: who carries the public listing and badge (the member's own profile or a farm organization they linked), shown with a pill: Directory eligible (good standing), Hidden from directory (not in good standing), or Badge revoked.
• Standing: the status dropdown plus Update.
• Benefit: the member's Pro grant status (Granted or Not granted) and who received it.
• Controls: Set subject and the badge controls (below).

The badge subject: personal profile vs a farm organization

A claimed member can carry their badge and directory listing on their personal profile or on a farm organization they own or co-own. The member picks this when they claim, and at claim time the chosen profile is the one that appears in the directory, carries the badge, and is credited with the free year of Pro. As an admin you can change the subject later with Set subject (choose an organization, or "Use member profile"): that moves the directory listing and badge to the new subject, but it does not move a Pro benefit that was already granted at claim time.

Remove from directory, and reinstate

Sometimes a member is a paid, current member but should not appear publicly. The Remove from directory control hides that member from the public directory and pulls their badge without changing their membership status. It is a badge-only action. Reinstate badge undoes it. So you can keep someone's dues and standing exactly as they are while controlling whether they are shown.

Reports

Reports from visitors about public directory listings appear in the Hub's Reports section, where you resolve each with a note. See The Association Hub: member directory and badges.

The free year of Pro

When a member in good standing claims their roster row, Creatures gives the chosen profile a complimentary year (12 months) of Creatures Pro, the full benefit, including the marketplace seller-fee waiver. It is minted directly, with no checkout. The grant is conditional in two ways: the membership must be in good standing at the moment of the claim, and a recipient can receive this once, ever, so a profile that already used its lifetime grant does not get a second. A claim that does not qualify still completes normally; there is simply no Pro grant with it. If the recipient already pays for Pro, the free year is added on after their current coverage rather than wasted. It is a real, tangible reason for members to keep their membership current with you. For what Pro includes, see Creatures Pro: pricing, benefits, and managing your plan.

Related information

• The Association Hub: member directory and badges
• Claiming your association membership
• Reviewing registration applications

Updated on: 17/07/2026