SAVE THE BLOG, please

This short posting of the Blog has only one purpose and that is to secure the future for Brian's Blog. Which will only continue if sufficient individuals give me personal authorisation to use their email addresses.

BACKGROUND
Recently a member emailed me challenging my right to email addresses provided for the use of Swansea U3A for my private blog.

I referred the matter to the committee at their very next meeting at which stage the majority view like mine was that it was not of concern because I merely alerted members to the fact that there was a new posting (chapter). Each individual decides whether or not to access the Internet and read the blog. In addition they are offered an opt out of receiving the email alerts.

(NB The latest version of the blog itself always resides in memory space on the Internet and thus does not affect the memory available on your computer.)

Further deliberation showed that it was insufficient to say, as was made clear from the outset, that it was Brian's Blog and not an Official Blog of Swansea U3A. Any reader will know that it gives my thoughts/opinions on a variety of topics several with no link whatever to the U3A and its activities. But even when triggered directly from a U3A activity - say a Politics and Citizenship Group discussion - it frequently deals with contentious issues. In fact it is just this freedom of expression on topics of the moment of particular interest to me, whether within or without the U3A, which provides the motivation to write.


CONCLUSION
The matter having been raised and the discovery that there was potential (though minor) infringement of the Data Protection and Charity Law the committee had no choice but to take action.

After some discussion I proposed that I issue a final Blog Alert requesting receivers to authorise me to use their email addresses for personal purposes (many, perhaps 50% such addresses, had been given personally to me on promise of sending the blog link). Personal purposes are foreseen only to be future issue of Brian's Blog alerts. The addresses will not knowingly be disclosed to third parties.

Future alerts will go only to those who authorise personal contact. That offer was accepted by the committee as the way out. The Chairman of the meeting described it as a 'statesmanlike gesture' which I thought was a generous remark.


I believe the blog has been a considerable asset to Swansea U3A, a thought that was expressed unsolicited by all the members present at that last committee meeting. If it is wanted by a worthwhile proportion of the membership then it will continue in more or less its current form in October. I'm hoping for an overwhelming show of support. In particular I hope that over the past two years and 54 postings I have won your trust, even when you disagree with my opinions or advice, which I like to think have been cogently argued. If you did not understand where I am coming from then this surely was made clear in the previous posting. 


ACTION by returning to your email and compose a message to me (or Reply to a message from me).


I suggest the SUBJECT be SAVE THE BLOG (which will help me identify such messages in my already busy Inbox)

I suggest your MESSAGE be
I authorise Brian Corbett to hold and use my email address for his personal purposes.