Cottage Garden Society Lancs & North West Group
Privacy Policy 2021
Cottage Garden Society Lancs & North West Group (CGS L&NWG) treats your privacy rights seriously. This privacy policy sets out how we will deal with your ‘personal information’, that is, information that could identify, or is related to the identity of, an individual. This policy is also fully compliant with the Data Protection Act 2018.
What personal information do we collect?
When you become a member of CGS L&NWG you will be asked to provide certain limited information necessary for the successful administration of CGS L&NWG. This includes:
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your name
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home address and postcode
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email address
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telephone number
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your subscription preferences
How do we collect personal information?
All the information collected is obtained directly from you. This is usually at the point of your initial registration and collected via your membership application form. The lawful basis for collecting and storing your information is due to the contractual relationship that you, as a member, have with CGS L&NWG. In order to inform you about the activities and events that you can access as a member we need to store and process a certain amount of personal data.
How do we use your personal information?
We use your personal information:
- To provide information about CGS L&NWG activities and services to you
- For administration, planning and management of CGS L&NWG
- To communicate with you about CGS L&NWG events
- To monitor, develop and improve the provision of CGS L&NWG activity
We may send you messages by email, post, other digital methods and telephone to advise you of CGS L&NWG activities.
When sending emails we will always use blind carbon copy (Bcc) when sending group emails to conceal your email address from other recipients.
With whom do we share your personal information ?
We may disclose information about you, including your personal information
- Internally – to Committee Members and Committee Attendees – as required to facilitate your participation in CGS L&NWG activities.
- To organize and conduct committee business.
- To communicate membership and subscription details to the National Cottage Garden Society administrator.
- CGS L&NWG will never provide your data to a 3rd Party, for example for marketing purposes.
How long do we keep your personal information ?
We need to keep your information so that we can provide our services to you and fulfil our accounting obligations. We will keep information on the membership database whilst you are a member which will enable us to check renewal information. Annual Membership forms will be destroyed after 3 years.
How your information can be updated or corrected
To ensure the information we hold is accurate and up to date, members need to inform CGS L&NWG as to any changes to their personal information. You can do this by contacting the Membership Secretary by email membership@nwcgs.org.uk
Should you wish to view the information that CGS L&NWG holds on you, you can make this request by contacting the Membership Secretary as detailed above. There may be certain circumstances where we are not able to comply with this request. This would include where the information may contain references to another individual or for legal, investigative or security reasons. Otherwise we will usually respond within 28 days of the request being made.
How do we store your personal information ?
We have in place a range of security safeguards to protect your personal information against loss or theft, as well as unauthorised access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. Your membership information is held in an encrypted database managed by the Membership Secretary who may occasionally provide encrypted copies or extracts to a very restricted number of Committee Members. The Treasurer also keeps limited information relating to subscription payments and attendance. Paperwork is kept in a secure locked cabinet.
Photographs
Photographs are also personal information and we may use photographs taken at CGS L&NWG events or at NGS gardens in the Newsletter or website. Anyone taking photographs for inclusion in the Newsletter or website should seek your permission and tell you that they are taking them for that purpose. If you wish at any time to have your photograph removed from the website then you should contact the Membership Secretary. They cannot however be removed from Newsletters that have already been printed and distributed.
Cookies on the CGS L&NWG website
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is downloaded on to your computer when you visit a website. Cookies are used by many websites and can do a number of things, e.g. remembering your preferences, recording what you have put in your shopping basket, and counting the number of people looking at a website. We do not collect any personal information via cookies but the cookies we use help us collect anonymous information about how people use our website to benefit future visitors. We use Google Analytics for this purpose. Google Analytics generates statistical and other information about website usage by means of cookies, which are stored on users’ computers. The information collected by Google Analytics about usage of our website is not personally identifiable and is stored for 12 months. The data is collected anonymously, stored by Google and used by us to create reports about website usage. Google’s privacy policy is available at http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html.
Availability and changes to this policy
This policy is available on the CGS L&NWG website or by request to the Secretary. This policy may change from time to time. If we make any material changes, we will make members aware of this via the newsletter, the CGS L&NWG website, email or at meetings.
Further Information
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new, Europe-wide law that replaces the Data Protection Act 1998 in the UK.
More information can be found the Information Commissioner’s website:
Contact
If you have any queries about this policy, need it in an alternative format, or have any complaints about our privacy practices, please contact the Secretary,
Email: secretary@nwcgs.org.uk
Or the Membership Secretary at the above address.