Release 190826
The following improvements will be released to the Demo environment on Wednesday 5 August. As there are significant changes, requiring more detailed understanding through the additional support resources that will be provided, we are extending the time on Demo to two weeks. The release to production (live) sites will then be on 18 or 19 August – precise date to be confirmed.
Gift Aid improvements
Please note: these only affect u3as with Gift Aid enabled in System Settings.
Full details and essential information will be provided in various formats. You should not make any changes to your Beacon site until you have fully understood these but a summary of the changes is provided below.
Membership classes: Gift Aid eligible setting
HMRC rules and guidance may result in a u3a’s membership fee being assessed as only partially eligible for Gift Aid. The new setting requires each membership class to have both a membership fee and the Gift Aid eligible amount recorded.
Gift Aid declaration: wording change
To reflect the advice published by the Third Age Trust in March 2026, the Gift Aid declaration wording has been updated. This now states the amount of the fee that Gift Aid can be claimed on, as well as specifying that there is no “personal right to use facilities or services”.
Email: new Gift Aid email and token
A new option to Send Email has been added to the Gift Aid declaration screen. This makes it easy to let members know about their Gift Aid details at the time a claim is being submitted.
Two Gift Aid tokens are also now available. The existing #GIFTAID shows the Gift Aid date while #GIFTAIDLIST provides a comma-separated list of date and amount. This was introduced to support the need to provide this information to members, so that they have accurate figures for their own tax returns.
Gift Aid: joint membership calculations
Following the Trust’s updated Gift Aid advice, we’ve changed how it is calculated for joint memberships.
The combined Gift Aid eligible fee, for both members, will be recorded against the paying member, if they have made a Gift Aid declaration. This only applies to membership classes that are set up to be 1 of 2 people at same address (HMRC Family membership). Two individual memberships are not affected.
Online joining form: accessibility improvements
Following feedback, we have made improvements to both the responsiveness and accessibility of the online joining form. This will be much more mobile friendly, making it easier for new members to join. We’ve also improved its accessibility, with larger fonts and increased contrast (black text on a white background). Replacing asterisks with the word “required” also helps with clarity and screen reader navigation.
PayPal: upgraded integration
This only applies to u3as who use PayPal for online joining and/or renewal of their members.
We have completed work on implementing the new PayPal integration and will begin rolling this out to u3as between mid-August and the end of September.
The existing PayPal integration can provide an inconsistent and confusing experience for joining or renewing members. The new integration allows users to pay by credit or debit card without leaving the Beacon portal. Only those choosing to log in with their PayPal account will be redirected there.
Full information, guidance and a release schedule will be sent to all u3as using PayPal in w/c 3 August.
Release 090626
The following improvements were released to the Demo environment on Thursday 18 June. They will then be released to production on Thursday 16 July. No action is required. These changes were outlined in the Beacon Newsletter earlier in May.
Consistent application of session timeout settings
In some situations, following an automatic logout, it was possible for users to open a new tab or window and be logged in without using their credentials. This has been resolved. Users who have been logged, out due to session inactivity, will now always have to enter their credentials to log in again.
Session timeout increased
The session timeout setting of 20 minutes has now been increased to 40 minutes. Inactivity of 40 minutes or more will result in the user being automatically logged out. This has been set as the default duration but can be reduced in Personal preferences under Misc on the Beacon dashboard.
The interface of this setting has also been improved to clarify the timeout setting. This had previously made it appear that it might be possible to set the timeout to 99 minutes.