SAFEGUARDING CODE OF CONDUCT

This code of conduct applies to everyone attending GTA events.

In this code, "child" means any person under 18. 

Basic principles:

   -  everyone should feel safe, valued and respected

   -  everyone should take responsibility for their own behaviour

Dos and don’ts at GTA events (most of this should be covered by normal good manners):

 

You should	You should NOT
·       treat everyone with respect	·       be disrespectful or intimidating to anyone
·       respect everyone's personal space	·       touch anyone inappropriately
·       take responsibility for your own behaviour	·       take photographs of any child (apart from your own)
·       remember that children are dependent and vulnerable	·       offer alcohol (or drugs) to any child
·       tell one of the Safeguarding Officers about anything that worries or concerns you	·       if you are a child: drink any alcohol at an event, nor turn up to an event under the influence of drink
	·       take or offer any controlled drugs at an event, nor turn up to an event under the influence of  drugs

 

Consequences will depend on the circumstances and might involve the Safeguarding Officer:

   -  offering appropriate emotional or practical support to a child on the spot,

   -  referring an issue to the child's parents or to a child protection agency,

   -  having an appropriate discussion with an adult member,

   -  in an extreme case, invoking the expulsion provisions of the GTA Constitution.

 

Our Safeguarding Officers, responsible for our child protection policy, are:

Steve Callaghan:

Barbara Ford:

 

   - one or other (or both) will attend every GTA event.

   - do report any worries or concerns to them immediately.  They will take you seriously.

 

SAFEGUARDING POLICY

Policy, purpose and scope

The Guildford Twinning Association ("GTA") seeks to provide a safe environment for children who participate in any of our activities and to promote a climate where children will feel confident about sharing any concerns they may have about their own safety and well-being.

In this policy, a “child” means any person under the age of 18, a "private event" means an event organised by the GTA which is open to GTA members and their guests only, and a "public event" means all other events organised by the GTA.

This policy applies to all GTA members.

Safeguarding Officers

We have appointed two Safeguarding Officers, who will have been subject to an enhanced DBS (Disclosure & Barring Service) check.  At least one of them will carry out an appropriate risk assessment, ensure any appropriate measures are put in place and be present and identify themselves at every event in which children could participate.

Children and anyone else should report any concerns to them immediately.  They will assess the situation, help where possible, and where appropriate refer the issue to the parents or the appropriate agency, probably Surrey Children's Services (see below).

Photographs

Identifiable photographs should not be taken at any GTA event of children without the consent of the child and the child’s parent/carer.

 Alcohol

Alcohol should not be served to children at any GTA event.

Child members

Before accepting a child as a member, we will ask for contact details of the child’s parent or carer.  We will keep these confidential and secure in line with our Privacy Policy (published on our website and also available on request). We will seek consent of the parent/carer to the child's participation in our activities.

Support expected from members

Given that children are dependent and vulnerable, all GTA members are expected to treat children participating in our activities with even more consideration than they afford to adults, as set out in our Safeguarding Code of Conduct (see above) including, at our events:

• respecting each child's personal space and refraining from touching them;
• not taking photographs of children or supplying alcohol to them; and
• if they become aware of any risk to a child, taking action to prevent any immediate danger and in any event bringing this risk to the attention of one of the Safeguarding Officers immediately.

Surrey Children's Services

If for any reason neither Safeguarding Officer should be available, and there is an emergency, contact Surrey Children's Services:

• 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday: phone: 0300 470 9100
• Out of hours emergency duty team: phone: 01483 517898.

 

INTRODUCTION 

Welcome to the privacy notice of the GUILDFORD TWINNING ASSOCIATION (“GTA”). This notice was last updated in September 2020: any changes will be posted at the foot of this page.

1.  IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHO WE ARE 

 a)     PURPOSE OF THIS PRIVACY NOTICE       This privacy notice tells you how the GTA collects and processes your personal data, including any data you may provide through this website or otherwise, for example when you join us as a member, email or telephone us, or buy or order a ticket or product (such as a Christmas card) from us.

Note that the GTA is an unincorporated association; therefore when we say in this notice “GTA”, “we”, “us” or “our”, that includes, as appropriate, the GTA’s members, officers and committee members.

 b)     DATA CONTROLLER           The GTA is the data controller, which means we determine the purposes and means of processing personal data. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights (see below), please contact our Chair, using the details set out below.

 c)      CONTACT DETAILS  

 Full name of unincorporated association: Guildford Twinning Association

 Chair: Barbara Ford, 31 Mountside, Guildford, GU2 4JD

 Email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Please mark any emails “Data protection query” in the subject line.

 d)     THIRD-PARTY LINKS           This website includes links to some third-party websites. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for them. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

2.  THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU 

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.

We may process (that is collect, use, store and transfer) different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:  

• Identity Data includes name, marital status, gender, photograph.
• Contact Data includes email address and telephone number(s).
• Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and details of products/tickets you have purchased from us or reserved through us. 

3.  HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL DATA COLLECTED?  

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity and Contact Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. We may photograph you, for publication in our newsletter or on our website, when you attend one of our events: if you do not want us to do so, please let us know.
• Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from public sources or various third parties such as PayPal, which shares the name, email address and billing address of purchasers (you) with the payee (us).

 4.  HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA AND FOR WHAT PURPOSES 

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you, for example to communicate with members including by publication of our newsletters both in print and on this website.
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests, for example to monitor use of our website or to manage our accounts.
• Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, for example to comply with data protection legislation.

Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data except in relation to publishing photographs taken of you at our events or which you send us. You have the right to withdraw consent to publication at any time before we publish by contacting us (see Contact Details above).

5.     COOKIES           We do not use cookies (small text files that a website stores on your computer). You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.

6.  DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA 

We may have to share your personal data with the parties and for the purposes set out below:

• Service providers, acting as processors, who provide IT and system administration services.
• Professional advisers, acting as processors or joint controllers, including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers who provide consultancy, legal, banking, accounting and insurance services.
• HM Revenue and Customs, regulators and other authorities, acting as processors or joint controllers, who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.

 We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law.  

 7.  INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS  

Our IT service providers, such as Google, Apple and PayPal, may be based at least in part outside the European Economic Area (EEA) in which case their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

8.  DATA SECURITY  

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those Committee members or members and to those third parties who have a business need to know. Those third parties will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

9.  DATA RETENTION - HOW LONG WILL WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA FOR? 

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

10.  YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS  

 Under certain circumstances, you have the following rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data: 

• Request access to your personal data, commonly known as a “data subject access request”. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of your personal data.
• Request erasure of your personal data: we may however be unable to erase it entirely if it has been stored on back-up disks prior to 25 May 2018.
• Object to processing of your personal data.
• Request restriction of processing your personal data.
• Request transfer of your personal data.
• Right to withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact our Chair (see Contact details at 1 c) above).

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Change history:

• September 2020: following our installing a "page hit" facility on the website:

(i): in paragraph 4, second bullet, the words "to monitor usage of our website or" were inserted.

• March 2020:

(i): as a result of SurreyCommunityInfo withdrawing as our hosting service provider, deleted previous reference to cookies which SurreyCommunityInfo may have used; and

(ii): corrected previous paragraph numbering inconsistency

• May 25, 2018: following the vote at the AGM on May 24 to change the Association's name:

(i) at the head of this notice, the former reference to the "GUILDFORD-FREIBURG ASSOCIATION" is changed, to a reference to the "GUILDFORD TWINNING ASSOCIATION";

(ii) "GFA" is changed to "GTA" throughout this notice; and

(iii) contact email address changed to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

• May 23, 2018: GFA Privacy Policy published

 

Committee members:                                                             Last updated: 20 April, 2026

	Chair:	Barbara Ford
	Vice Chair and Arts Liaison:	Ros Calow
	Treasurer & Membership Secretary:	Martin Stringfellow
	Secretary:	Hilary Richardson
	Education Liaison:	Steve Callaghan
	Council Representative:	Cllr. Jane Tyson
	Other members:	Cllr. Dennis Booth
	To contact any member, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Committee meeting dates:

All meetings held via Zoom till further notice

	2026:	January	Tuesday 13th	4.30pm
		April	Tuesday 14th	4.30pm
		May	Thursday 21st	4.30pm
		July	Tuesday 14th	4.30pm
		October	Tuesday 6th	4.30pm

We are a voluntary and apolitical association formed in 1979 to support the formal twinning that year of Guildford with the beautiful city of Freiburg im Breisgau, in Baden-Württemberg, in South-west Germany.  That twinning was one of a series of co-operation agreements between towns and cities across the world, particularly Europe, aimed at post-war reconciliation, collaboration and – yes – world peace.  Those aims are today at least as relevant as they ever have been - just look at the world around us.

The twinning was a formal agreement between the Councils of both towns: the GTA therefore works with Guildford Borough Council to achieve those aims. Broadly, our Council concerns itself with the official and commercial issues, while the GTA deals with the "softer" side. 

The GTA seeks to help the citizens of the two towns to come together and learn about each other, we help with sporting, artistic, musical, social, educational exchanges – and at the same time we have a lot of fun. We rejoice in our differences and our similarities.

For more about us, see:

- our Committee

- our Newsletters

- our policies (privacy and safeguarding)

To join the GTA, see how to join us

To contact us, simply click This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.