Data Protection

• Processed fairly and lawfully
• Obtained for specified and lawful purposes.
• Adequate, relevant and not excessive.
• Accurate and up to date.
• Not kept any longer than necessary.
• Processed in accordance with the “data subject’s” (the individual’s) rights.
• Securely kept
• Not transferred to any other country without adequate protection in situ.

The Secretaries records are stored in two forms Paper (hard records) and electronically (soft records).

The hard records comprise mainly meetings, membership, shows and external correspondence.

Hard meeting minutes are kept in a live file for 10 years and then archived in a secure box for posterity. Recent minutes are also kept in soft format for as long as necessary before being deleted.

Hard membership information i.e. renewals and applications are kept for one year and then disposed of. Note that membership information is duplicated in soft form updated as and when and soft records are not kept any longer than necessary. New applications proposer and seconder are recorded in the committee minutes for posterity.

Marked up show catalogues and schedules are kept in a live file for 10 years and then archived for posterity. Entry forms, award board slips, steward’s returns licences and judges contracts are kept for 12 months then disposed of. The judges subcommittee manage their live and archived records separately.

Hard correspondence is kept in a live file for 12 months then disposed of or archived at the discretion of the secretary (in line with committee guidelines) who will determine what needs to be kept and for how long.

Soft records are kept on the secretaries P.C. and also on a memory stick (or similar device) and treated in the same way as hard records save some soft records will be saved to the archive as hard records for posterity. It is recognised that soft records may not be a reliable format for archiving for posterity.

The clubs important records are fairly complete going back to the early 1990s they then thin out and nothing now exists later than the 1970s. Some of the pre 1990s material is only important for historical interests and gives a fascinating insight into the history of how the club was managed.

The club still generates enough hard paperwork to fill two lever arch files every year (even though we live in the electronic age). The ETTC has been on the go for 80 years now and had officers in the past not pruned the files we would end up today with 160 lever arch files.

The current secretary’s inventory comprises:

• 12 live current lever arch files.
• 1 pilot’s bag
• 4 boxes of stationary and miscellaneous items
• 2 very large plastic box with lid of archived material
• 2 cardboard boxes of material deemed to be for disposal. It is these two boxes that the committee need to decide if the judgement of the secretary and membership secretary is sufficient to have the material disposed of or if someone or some group from the committee should sift through it to determine if anything needs to be kept. It is worth noting that a number of items in the disposal boxes are duplicates of items already archived and if these duplicated items are deemed to be “keepers” that will require time and effort to prove they are duplicates by cross matching with the archive.

The secretary and membership secretary have spent two days diligently sorting this material out after it was handed over in November. The committee need to recognise that in addition to the material mentioned here the show material is also stored at the secretary’s address and there is a limit to what can be conveniently and safely stored.

This material is currently stored in a spare bed room adjacent to our bedroom and poses a fire risk. Disposal of the two cardboard boxes and relocation of the archive to the garage will mitigate the fire risk and clutter in this room.