Membership/Process

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Application process

Once we have received an application, the process will roughly be the following:

As soon as the application is received:

• The date of receipt and whether payment was enclosed will be recorded
• The applicant will be sent an acknowledgment email (making sure the email goes through), and the date will be recorded.

At the next available Board Meeting:

• The application will be brought up for discussion, to decide approve/reject/defer (or similar terms)
• If "defer", then the application will be brought up at successive board meetings until a decision is reached.

When "approve" has been decided:

• Payment will be put into bank account (or requested),
  • If payment does not clear, then the applicant will be sent an email saying that their membership application was approved, but has not been accepted due to issues with the payment. Application will be held pending receipt of payment, and will be brought up at intervening board meetings
• When payment has cleared, the member will be accepted.
• Their name and information will be entered on the Register of Members
• The applicant will be sent a congratulations email
• The applicant will be subscribed to the email newsletter

If "reject" has been decided:

• The applicant will be informed by email (if they have provided their email address; otherwise by post) that their application has been refused, with the reasons for the refusal given.
• The applicant may send the Board any written representations about the decision that they want to, and this must be considered by the Board.
• If the Board decides "disprove", then the application will be notified (again by email if provided, otherwise by post) what the Board's final decision is.

Possible reasons for rejection of application

Membership applications may be rejected if it is considered by the Board to be in the best interests of the charity to do so - note that they must have a good reason for rejecting the application. Possible reasons for rejecting applications include (but are not limited to):

• Applicant has not provided, or has obviously fabricated, any of the required details on the application form
• Applicant does not agree to support the Object of the charity (indicated by signing the application form)
• Applicant does not agree to not bring the charity into disrepute (indicated by signing the application form)
• Applicant indicates that they are under 18 but form has not been signed by a parent or guardian
• Applicant has not provided payment of the appropriate membership fee

Invalid reasons for outright rejection of a membership application include behaviour, activity or inactivity on the Wikimedia Foundation websites. This excludes the sections used by WMUK2 that are hosted by WMF, i.e. (currently) the Meta pages, the mailing list and the IRC channels; the applicant's behaviour on these may be considered.

All rejected membership applications should be raised and discussed at the next available General Meeting (subject to the Data Protection Act).

Data retention

Membership details will be recorded in a single digital database. This will contain:

• Membership number (*)
• Class of membership (*)
• Name (*)
• Full address, including postcode (*)
• Country of residence
• Email address (if provided)
• Date of receipt of application
• Date of start and (if appropriate) end of membership (*)
• Indicators of whether they have paid the year's dues
• Derived values from the above (e.g. date on which membership reminder needs to be sent out)

Details marked with a (*) will additionally be part of the Register of Members. The register of members may be inspected, and a copy taken of, by any member without charge, and anyone can make a request to inspect and/or take a copy of it subject to a fee. The latter can be refused only by application to the court (see Chapter 2 of the Companies Act 2006, section 113 onwards). All other details will be removed from the database prior to any inspection, and will be restored afterwards.

The master copy of the database, including the Register of Members, will be held by the Secretary (otherwise notification must be given to the registrar: section 114 of the Companies Act 2006). A working copy of the database will also be held by the Membership Secretary, and copies may be held by any board member. The legal requirement is that member's names will stay on this register for at least 10 years from the date at which they cease to be a member.

In addition, successful membership applications will retained by the Membership Secretary until a year after the applicant ceases to be a member. Unsuccessful applications will be retained until after the General Meeting at which they are discussed.