Privacy & Data Protection

Barnes Bowling Club (“the Club”, “we”, “us”, “our”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information.

This policy explains how we collect, use, store and protect personal information about:

• members and prospective members
• guests who play or attend as a member’s guest
• visitors to our website
• anyone who contacts the Club or attends Club events

Barnes Bowling Club is the data controller for the personal information described in this policy. The Club is run by its elected committee, and questions about personal data should be directed to the Club Secretary at info@barnesbowling.club.

About members and applicants

• Name, postal address, email address and telephone number
• Membership application details, including your date of birth, your proposer and seconder, any previous membership of the Club and when you visited, together with your membership number and membership status
• Login and account details for the Members Area
• A passport-style photograph for your membership card, and the date your card was issued
• Records of clubhouse key deposits and whether you hold a key
• Subscription, guest fee, event fee and other payment records, including your account balance
• Competition entries, results, handicaps, match bookings and attendance records
• Messages and enquiries you send us, including complaints
• Messages, photographs and videos you post in the members’ Club Chat
• If you join the Club’s official WhatsApp group: your mobile number and anything you post there
• For Committee members and officers: expense claims and the receipts sent with them

About guests

Your name and the date you played or attended, recorded against the member who invited you, so guest fees can be charged.

About website visitors

• Technical information such as IP address, browser type, device information, pages visited and access times
• Cookie information (see section 9)

Photographs

• Photographs taken at matches, competitions and social events (see section 7)

We collect this information when you apply for membership, use the website, contact us, make a payment, play as a guest, or take part in Club activities.

We use personal data to:

• process membership applications and administer membership
• provide access to the Members Area
• issue membership cards and manage clubhouse keys
• manage subscriptions, guest fees, event fees, key deposits and member accounts
• process payments and issue receipts or statements
• run matches, competitions, bookings, leaderboards and social events
• communicate with members about fixtures, events, notices and Club business
• respond to enquiries
• run the members’ Club Chat, including checking messages, photographs and videos before other members see them (see section 5)
• record when you open an invitation link we send you, such as for the Closing Dinner, so we only send reminders to people who need them
• handle complaints, including complaints about how we use personal data, and keep a record of how each complaint was dealt with
• apply the Club’s Constitution and Rules, including any membership or conduct matters the Committee deals with under them
• keep minutes of Committee meetings and the AGM, and other records of Club business
• keep accurate Club records, including the Club’s historical archive
• keep the website secure and working properly
• meet our legal, accounting, insurance and safeguarding obligations

We do not sell, rent or share your personal data with anyone for their own marketing.

We only use personal data where UK data protection law allows it. We rely on:

• Contract — when you join and pay your subscription, you enter into a membership contract with the Club. You agree to the Club’s Constitution and Rules, and in return the Club provides you with the use of its facilities and member services. We rely on this contract to manage your membership, issue your membership card, run your member account, provide member services and apply the Constitution and Rules to your membership, including recording the Committee’s decisions about your membership in its minutes
• Legitimate interests — to govern and run the Club properly, including keeping minutes of Committee meetings and the AGM and other records of Club business (as the Constitution requires), recording guest visits, organising competitions, taking event photographs, sending Club news to members, and keeping a historical archive. We balance these interests against your rights, and you can object at any time
• Legal obligation — to keep financial and accounting records and meet other legal requirements
• Consent — for non-essential cookies, if we use them, and for any other purpose where we ask for your consent. You can withdraw consent at any time

The Members Area is only available to logged-in members. Within it, other members can see your name in match booking lists, competition draws, results and leaderboards.

Your contact details, account balance and payment records are not visible to other members. They can only be seen by Club officers and committee members who need them for Club administration.

Club Chat

Anything you post in the members’ Club Chat, including your name, messages, photographs and videos, can be seen by other logged-in members.

To keep the chat friendly and safe, each message is checked automatically before it appears, using a service provided by OpenAI. If a message looks as though it might break the Club’s rules, it is held for a Club moderator to look at, and a person makes the final decision. Photographs and videos are always approved by a moderator before other members can see them.

If a message is deleted, it is hidden from other members, but we keep a record of it so the Committee can deal with any complaint.

The Club’s WhatsApp group

The Club runs an official WhatsApp group for members. Joining is optional. If you join, everyone in the group can see your name as it appears in WhatsApp, your mobile number and anything you post. The group is run by Club administrators.

WhatsApp is provided by Meta under its own privacy policy. Messages in the group are held by WhatsApp, not on the Club’s website. If you leave the group, your number is no longer visible to new members of it.

As a member, you will receive essential messages about your membership, payments, fixtures, events and Club business.

We may also send members Club newsletters and news about Club events. Every newsletter includes a way to unsubscribe, and you can opt out at any time by contacting us.

Non-members only receive newsletters if they have signed up to receive them.

Event photographs

We take photographs at matches, competitions and social events. We may use them on the website, in the Members Area photo books, in newsletters, on social media and in the Club’s historical archive.

We will let people know when photography is taking place where practical. If you would prefer not to be photographed, or would like a photograph removed, please contact us and we will do our best to help.

Membership card photographs

We ask members for a passport-style photograph for their membership card. You can upload it yourself in the Members Area, or a Club officer can add it for you. These photographs are only used for membership cards and Club records, and are not published.

Children

We take particular care with images of children and young people. We will ask for parent or guardian consent before publishing an identifiable image of a child.

Online payments are processed securely by Stripe. The Club never sees or stores your full card details. Stripe handles your payment information under its own privacy policy.

Cookies are small text files stored on your device when you visit a website.

Our website only uses essential cookies. These are needed to log you in to the Members Area, keep your session secure and make the site work properly. Because they are essential, they do not require your consent.

We do not use advertising or analytics cookies. If we introduce them in future, we will ask for your consent first and update this policy.

Some pages include content from Google. The map on our home page only loads if you click “Show map”, and the video on our Open Gardens page is shown in YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode. If you choose to view the map or play the video, Google may set its own cookies, under its own privacy policy.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, but the Members Area will not work without essential cookies.

We use the following service providers to run the website and Club administration:

These providers are required to handle personal data securely and lawfully. Some act as processors for the Club, while others, such as payment providers, may also handle information under their own legal obligations and privacy policies.

We may also share personal data with our accountants, insurers or professional advisers where necessary, and with public authorities where the law requires it.

Some of our service providers are based in, or store data in, the United States or other countries outside the UK.

Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we rely on appropriate legal safeguards used by those providers, such as the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to standard contractual clauses.

We take reasonable steps to protect personal data from loss, misuse and unauthorised access.

The Members Area requires a secure login. Access to administrative data is controlled by role, so Club officers and volunteers can only see the information they need for their Club duties.

• Membership records — for the duration of your membership and up to six years afterwards
• Committee and AGM minutes — kept indefinitely as the Club’s permanent record of its affairs, as required by the Constitution
• Financial and payment records — up to six years, as required for accounting and legal purposes
• Membership card photographs — until your membership ends, then deleted
• Guest records — up to six years, as part of the Club’s financial records
• Club Chat messages — for as long as the Club Chat is in use, and reviewed each year. Deleted messages are kept on the same basis so that complaints can be dealt with
• Enquiries — for as long as needed to deal with them, normally no more than two years
• Complaint records — for three years after the complaint is closed, or longer if it relates to an insurance or legal claim
• Event photographs and historical records— the Club has a long history, with references to bowling in Barnes dating back to 1693 and the Club established circa 1725. We keep a historical archive, and event photographs, competition results and records of officers may be kept indefinitely for this purpose. You can ask us to remove a photograph of you at any time

When data is no longer needed, we delete it securely or anonymise it.

Under UK data protection law, you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information
• ask us to delete your data in certain circumstances
• object to, or ask us to restrict, how we use your data
• ask for a copy of your data in a portable format
• withdraw your consent where we rely on consent

To exercise any of these rights, please email info@barnesbowling.club. There is normally no charge. We will respond without undue delay and within one month. If your request is complex, we may extend this by up to two further months, and we will tell you within the first month if we need to. We may ask you to confirm your identity, or to clarify your request, before we respond.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, you can complain to us by emailing info@barnesbowling.club or writing to the Club Secretary at the address below.

• We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days of receiving it.
• We will look into it without undue delay and keep you informed of our progress.
• We will tell you the outcome and explain what we have done.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113. The ICO usually expects you to raise your complaint with us first.

You can also write to the ICO at: Information Commissioner’s Office, 4th Floor, No. 3 Circle Square, 5 Hawkshaw Street, Manchester M1 7BL.

Our website contains links to other websites, such as payment pages, social media and maps. We are not responsible for their privacy practices, and we recommend reading their privacy policies.

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be on this page, with the date it was last updated at the top.

For any questions about this policy or your personal data, please contact the Club Secretary: