Privacy

The Shepton Mallet Area History Group (‘the Group’) is a registered charity No. 800161.  

Details of the Group’s Trustees are available on the website of the Charity Commission.  

This statement sets out how the Group stores, handles and protects any personal data which you provide when you join or renew your membership, participate in or support any of our activities, or use our websites.  

This statement was adopted on 5 May 2025. It will be reviewed annually and updated from time to time as necessary.

Personal data 

We collect and store your personal data so that we can honour our contract to provide the services promised to our members and to others participating in or supporting our activities. 

We do not collect personal data from any other sources or store or handle any information deemed to be ‘sensitive’ under any existing UK or EU legislation or on any ‘protected characteristics’ listed in the UK Equality Act of 2010.  

This is therefore the legal basis upon which the Group collects, stores and handles your contact data, including your titles and awards, if any; your name and postal address; your email address if available, and your telephone number if voluntarily given. 

Membership 

As the Group is a membership-based organisation, we also record when you join, when your membership becomes renewable, and when and if you choose to renew.  

We also use personal contact data to collect Gift Aid on any payments made where this has been agreed with you, as a member, or with any other qualifying donor, under the guidelines issued by HMRC.  

Members will be reminded, if necessary, of the date when their membership is due for renewal. If a member fails to renew, their personal contact data will be retained for no more than 12 months from this renewal date.  

We rely on members, or anyone wishing to communicate with the Group, to provide us with their correct contact details and, as far as possible, to keep these up to date.  

Anyone wishing to check, correct or delete any personal data held by the Society should contact us by email to info@sheptonmallethistory.co.uk.

Resignation of membership 

Members may choose not to renew their membership, or to resign, at any time.  

If a member advises us in writing that they wish to resign, or if anyone asks for some of or all their personal data to be deleted, this will be done as soon as possible, subject to the availability of staff members and normally within two weeks from any such request being made.  

External services and websites 

We prefer to communicate with our members via email services using a distribution provider such as Mailchimp for newsletters, meeting and membership renewal notices, or by post to any address provided by members where an email address is unavailable or where hard-copy communications are preferred by the member or required by our Constitution.  

Using Mailchimp as a distributor for our emails ensures that not only is there a mutual legitimate interest in storing and using your personal contact data, but also that there is little or no risk to anyone involved in this process. Mailchimp has its own privacy policy which can be viewed online.  

We will always include addresses as blind carbon copies (BCC) in bulk emails that are not sent through Mailchimp, for example with information for those who have signed up for courses or visits. 

We will only contact members by telephone if a suitable number has been provided, and if other routes are unavailable or inappropriate, or in an emergency.  

We do not in any circumstances share your personal data with any other organisation.  

We collect membership and other payments by a variety of means including PayPal and online bank transfers. We do not have access to any financial or other data provided by anyone to these organisations. PayPal has its own privacy policy which you can view online.  

Google also collect data about anyone visiting our websites using small text files called ‘cookies’. Cookies help websites work more efficiently and provide their owners, in this case the Shepton Mallet Area History Group, with anonymised information on their users worldwide to help improve the running and content of each site.  

Google has their own privacy policies, which you can view online.  

Web browsers allow you and other users to control the extent to which these cookies collect and store your personal data.  The Group's websites, emails, newsletters and other communications may provide links to the websites of other organisations, each with its own privacy statement, which can be consulted in advance before visiting the website.  

This statement on the use of cookies refers only to the websites owned and operated by this Group.  

Queries and complaints 

If you have any queries relating to this statement, please contact us as above.  

If, after making a formal complaint, you remain dissatisfied with the way the Group has stored, handled or protected your personal data, you may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.  The helpline number for the ICO is 0303 123 1113. Its website is https://ico.org.uk, where you can find further information on your rights to privacy, or can register a complaint, as above.