Privacy Statement

Regarding the new EU privacy law and what it means for you with regard to us, we will have to say some things that seem to be rather compulsive and unnecessary to say. But we'll do it anyway, since we don't want to disrespect people's rightful concerns and since we want to abide by the law.

Let us state a couple of obvious things: this is a club, participation is entirely voluntary, and you've given us an email address to use to communicate with you and others in the club about the club.

We are not a "registered" group per the way such things are often done in Germany ("eingetragener Verein"). There are no official rosters or duties or officers and there are no fees. There are no cookies on our website and there are no ads. Ditto, no marketing. There is no income. Those who do something for the group are volunteering to keep things running. We are about a dozen active parfticipants who want to meet. We let other insterested people know about our doing by email that they have given us and via this web page. It's not complicated and it shouldn't become so, in our view.

We are a rag-tag group of friends. You're here for you, not for us.

Since the site is run by one volunteer, Dallman Ross (that's me), I will switch to first-person pronouns for the rest of this notice.

So what about this new law? Well, I know your email address. I have put it on a server in an account I have access to. Nobody else has access to it. Your name (other than what's obvious from your raw email address) and other data are not stored on the server; only the address. Nobody's giving your address out or selling it or renting it or leasing it.

The way the list works is, anyone whose address is on my server in the designated area and who writes to the list address from the address so authorized can have the email go to all others on the list.  The sender's email address is shown in the From line. Other addresses aren't shown.

Occasionally group members want other members to know their email addresses. That's up to you as a private person to work out and decide. It's above my pay scale, in other words. I don't give out your email address to others, even other group members, unless you've specifically asked me to or unless you originate a message to the group address and cause your address to be shown in so doing.

Is it possible for the server to be hacked? Well, sure, things like that are always possible. It has never happened as to us that anybody (including me) is aware of, in 24 years.

I hand-coded the automation of the list about 14 years ago and I put in a couple of hoops to keep spammers at bay. Could a spammer ever-ever-ever find a way to write to us all via this list? Well, yes, it's not impossible, if he were to try with some cleverness or if he were to obtain your email address and impersonate you.  But it's not happening so far. I get, I dunno, about 10 tries a month (give or take 20) :-) from spammers who want to write the list. So far, they're not succeeding.

Here at my home, because I'm the unofficial secretary and because I know you, I might have old email from you on my private computer.You might have old email messages from me, as well. Your computer or my computer or anybody's computer could become insecure and others could gain improper access to such messages that way. (A computer virus or malware can "mine" email, for example.) That has always been how computers and email have worked and it has nothing directly to do with this group.

If you don't want to be on the list, you can leave it! That has always been the case, and it's not changing. You can leave automatically by following the one-line instructions in the footer of all list messages. Alternatively, you can contact me directly in any way you wish and ask me to remove your name. (Write to me, not to the entire list!)

I'm sure I've said way, way, way too much on this subject now. But I wanted to do a complete job and to give you something to smile about in the process.

Last updated: 15 June 2018