Revision as of 15:20, 2 December 2011

This page describes the various different kinds of membership we offer in our association, how to apply for them, and what their benefits are.

Membership is a prerequisite for obtaining certification as a director, sanction for a club, or playing in a tournament.

Quick Links

• new member application
• renewal application

How to Join

We currently offer several different kinds of membership, as listed below. Our current rates took effect on 2010-09-01 and will be valid through 2011-08-31. All prices are given in U.S. dollars, though there is a way for Canadian residents to pay in Canadian funds.

To apply for membership, please complete our online application. You will be given a choice at the end of then paying online by Visa or MasterCard, or saving your information and mailing us a check. See also our page of general information on how to make payments to NASPA.

If you are a NASPA director with an upcoming tournament, we will extend you temporary credit so that you can activate your players’ memberships as required before your tournament; you then pay for the memberships together with your tournament participation fee.

Regular Memberships

A regular membership lasts one year and costs $30. If you pay for additional years of membership at the same time, up to a total of five years, the subsequent years cost $25 each. So, for example, a five-year regular membership costs $130.

If you are joining NASPA for the first time (even if you were an NSA member), you can name the NASPA member who referred you to the association. They will get a free month’s membership, and receive other referral bonuses.

One-Week Memberships

If you play in only one tournament per year and are not interested in the other benefits of NASPA membership, you may prefer to pay $19 for a one-week membership. This should be enough to play in a weekend tournament, including early bird and late bird events. You may not extend this membership to any other sort of membership.

Trial Memberships

First-time tournament players (those who do not have an NSA or NASPA tournament rating) are eligible to pay $15 for a trial six-month membership. If you buy a trial membership, you have the option to extend it to a full membership by sending in an additional $15 at any time during the six-month trial period.

Youth Memberships

Members who are not yet eighteen years old on the first day of their membership pay only $15 for a one-year membership. You may buy additional years of membership, up to a total of five, at this rate, as long as you will not yet be eighteen years old on the first day of each new membership year.

Vanity Memberships

Membership numbers are assigned consecutively. If you want to choose a specific as yet unassigned number, you can pay $50 for a one-year vanity membership.

How to Renew

The easiest way to renew a membership is using our online renewal tool. You’ll need the NASPA ID of the member whose membership you want to renew. As usual, you can pay using any of several payment methods. In particular, if you sign onto your NASPA account as a director, you can charge several renewals to your account before paying for them in one credit card transaction, saving yourself the effort of entering your billing information more than once.

Renewal costs $30 for a year. If you renew at least a month early, it’s only $25. If you renew for more than a year at a time, you save $5 on each additional year. For example, renewing at the the last minute for three years costs $30 + $25 + $25 = $80; renewing early for four years costs $25 + $20 + $20 + $20 = $85.

Youth members pay only $15 per year until they turn 18, and are not eligible for further discounts. For example, if a member pays for an early two-year renewal on his 17th birthday, he pays $15 + $20 = $35. Eligibility for the youth rate is based on the member’s age at the start of each membership year.

If you do not have access to the Internet but want to renew your membership, please ask your nearest club or tournament director to process your renewal through the director section of our Member Services page.

Benefits of Membership

The main current benefits of membership are:

• Eligibility to play in NASPA tournaments. These are rated, sanctioned SCRABBLE tournaments. NASPA is the only organization in North America licensed by Hasbro to use the registered name, “SCRABBLE”. These events are played with an accepted tournament word list with rules for both play and comportment and a system in place to ensure that these rules are adhered to. Effective 2009-07-01, NSA membership is no longer accepted for tournament eligibility.
• Eligibility to run and vote for elected positions on some committees, such as the Canadian Committee and Advisory Board
• Eligibility to apply for director certification and then run a sanctioned club
• An official membership card
• Access to member-only services
• Sanctioned recognition of individual achievements in tournament play
• Subscription to the NASPA Bulletin in electronic form

In addition, NASPA members are entitled to guest privileges from our partner associations when travelling overseas, including:

• Member discounts on tournament entry fees at events sanctioned by the Association of British Scrabble Players (ABSP)

More benefits will be added as the NASPA Membership Committee prepares them.

Players who have a specific number that they want for their membership number may obtain it by paying a higher membership fee of US$50, provided the number is still available.

Members will be required to comply with a Code of Conduct, which took effect on July 1, 2009.

Current Members

The NASPA membership database has been online since April 6, 2009, and may be used to verify a person’s membership status.

Membership Numbers

NASPA membership numbers consist of AA followed by six digits, and are normally assigned in sequential order. Members may request larger numbers out of sequence by paying $50 rather than $30 for their membership.

Committee members pay the same fees as regular members, but are recognized with special membership numbers beginning with “CM”; regular members have numbers beginning with “AA”. Membership numbers CM000001–CM000016 are reserved for Steering Committee members.

Refund and Privacy Policies

There are no refunds.

In order to keep track of your membership, we need to record information about you. How we handle this information is described in our Privacy Policy.