The Provision of Members' Contact Details To Snowsport England

Reporter: Alan Brown

The club is a member of Snowsport England (SSE), the national governing body for snow sports. SSE's activities include the provision of information and support to members, facilitating contacts across the snow sports community, acting as a conduit for funding and arranging third party liability insurance for members, all of which activities are relevant to the club.

SSE has informed the Club that as a condition of the club's continued membership it must provide contact details (names, addresses and email addresses) for all the club's members at the next renewal date, 31st October 2012. The committee was concerned that if such information was to be passed over at all it should know on what basis and how this information might be used and therefore queried the position with the SSE's chief executive. In response the committee has been provided with the following statement agreed by the SSE board.

The board has agreed the following statement:

"The SSE board is aware of the concerns regarding clubs passing the contact details of their members onto Snowsport England. We can confirm that this is a requirement that has been imposed on us by the insurance company. The reason for this is that all the club members are insured through the policy and in the case of any claim that is made we need to have the contact details available to give to the insurance company. We will hold the data and only pass this onto the insurance company if there is a claim made. Snowsport England will only send one email to the address given, which members would then have to opt into the Snowsport England Newsletter to receive any further direct communication. The data would not be used for any other purpose. We also do not require an email address for members under 16 years old."

The committee believes that it is reasonable to provide the information as requested on this basis. It is necessary that the club is in a position to obtain third party insurance and it is sympathetic to SSE's need as the governing body to endeavour to engage with the snow sports community as widely as possible. Following submission of the information, club members would receive one, and only one, communication directly from SSE inviting them to sign-up to receive newsletters etc. If members declined to sign-up there would be no further communication.

Members will be notified through the newsletter when this information has been passed over.