Forms of i-church Membership

THIS IS A DRAFT DOCUMENT AND CURRENTLY BEING REVISED

This page documents the different categories of membership within i-church.

Membership

People wishing to join i-church supply an email address; a login name of the form ‘John Smith’ or ‘John S’; an assurance that they are over eighteen years of age; and confirmation that they agree to the Terms and Conditions of membership. Members then have access to i-church discussion forums, and to the live chat facility. The accounts of people who join i-church can be removed by the Web Pastor or an Assistant Pastor, if the member in question is breach of the Terms and Conditions. See also Procedures for Resignation and ‘Lost’ Members.

Community Membership

Community Members are members who have chosen to sign the Community Roll.

The Community Roll system records their name, address, telephone number, date of birth, (and, for statistical purposes, whether or not they are baptized/ordained/Anglican), in addition to the data held for members who have not signed the Roll. This information is only available to the Web Pastors, Assistant Pastors, and the member’s Pastoral Group Leader, and is only used for pastoral purposes and to verify identity for elections etc.

Members who have signed the Roll can choose to belong to a Pastoral Group if they wish. Groups are led by a Pastoral Group Leader and optionally an Assistant Leader. Group members are expected to contribute to the life of their Pastoral Group and i-church generally.

A group member may withdraw from a Pastoral Group at any time or change groups at the discretion of the Pastoral Group Leader of the group they wish to join. Group members are generally expected to accept the ethos of the Group as laid out in the Group Statements.

All members who have signed the Community Roll are entitled to vote in elections for the i-church Council. See also Procedures for Resignation and ‘Lost’ Members.

Terms and Conditions of Membership

1: General

• Joining i-church as a member or guest or posting on the i-church website is neither a declaration of faith nor membership in the Church of England, another Anglican church or of any church.
• i-church does not charge a fee for membership, including guest membership. i-church is funded by member donations and by fund raising initiatives. We are delighted if people choose to make a donation, but it is not a requirement for participation. If you would like to make a donation, please view the details at http://www.i-church.org/roll/giving.php
• Contributions of time and talents to i-church are always welcome and appreciated.
• i-church reserves the right to remove posting privileges on the website if in the opinion of the moderators Lead Moderator these privileges have been abused. Our Forums Rules represent our expectations of behaviour on the external site and inside i-church.
• By agreeing to these terms and conditions you agree to abide by these expectations of behaviour in i-church.

2: Using the facilities of i-church

• Members may not use i-church to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually explicit, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or in violation of any law. The above applies equally to Private Messages (PMs) and emails. Should there arise in your mind at any time any confusion about this item, follow this simple guideline: When in doubt, don't.
• Contents of PMs and personal emails (either direct quotes or paraphrases) may not be included in a public posting without the express permission of both the sender and recipient of the message.
• For the protection and privacy of all members, the posting of postal addresses, phone numbers or email addresses (even your own!) in a forum or chat room is not permitted except in the following special circumstances:
  1. A member is an officer of i-church and has an i-church.org email address s/he wishes to make available.
  2. A member working on an official i-church project who feels the need to post her/his personal email address for project contact purposes, may request special permission from the Lead Moderator. Keep in mind that except is unusual circumstances it is safer to use i-church's email or PM facilities.
     Moderators may - with or without consultation -- remove such personal contact details unless informed by the Lead Moderator that special permission has been granted.
• Messages posted in i-church express the views of their authors and not the views of i-church or any of its other members.
• Our website is a forum for conversation and is not a venue for counselling or medical services. The Lead Moderator will insist that anyone attempting to use the boards for inappropriate purposes such as these should seek professional advice and services elsewhere.
• Participants in the i-church conversation agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by i-church, or is expressly permitted by the copyright holder and correctly attributed. Assume that anything published in any format in the last 100 years is copyrighted and link to the material in its original context rather than reposting long passages of text in i-church.
• Forum Personnel:
  • Each forum has at least one moderator who is responsible for seeing these rules are followed. Moderators are supported and supervised by the Lead Moderator.
  • The Lead Moderator’s authority to arbitrate on these posting rules is final.
  • Respect the moderators. They volunteer their time and talents so that the rest of us can have an ongoing conversation together. Be grateful.

3: The provision of service

• Levels of service and access to the system are not guaranteed and may be withdrawn, because of technical problems or for other reasons, without notice. Nonetheless, we will endeavour to give as much notice as practicable of any downtime.

4: The use of data

• The only data entered into the system is that which you provide. This is stored in the system in the usual way for a bulletin board/forum system, and is governed by UK law.
• We respect privacy, and email addresses are not made available to i-church members (unless you give your email address to another member by emailing them or are permitted to include them in a post having sought permission from the Lead Moderators.
• The Web Pastor, Assistant Pastors and certain other pastoral and technical leaders do have access to email addresses.
• Email addresses will not be given to any other organization or used for any purpose other than the operation of i-church. We will never pass on your personal details to any other person or organization without your permission, unless required to do so by law.
• By participating in the i-church conversation you are agreeing to the principles set out in this document and you give permission to i-church to store data about you as described above.

Resignation and Leaving Policy

For a variety of reasons, members may feel the need to leave i-church.

Should the leaving be temporary, a member need not do anything. A brief PM to the Registrar is suggested so he/she is made aware of the member's absence. In the absence of such notice, inactive members will be contacted periodically to determine if there is a problem. In the event that contact with the inactive member continues to be unsuccessful, membership will be deactivated during regularly scheduled renewal periods.

If a member feels a formal resignation is needed, notice needs to be given to the Registrar. Do expect a pastoral response, which will explore the factors involved in the proposed resignation and allow the member time to reconsider. Should the resignation be confirmed, the member should expect to wait at least a week before the membership is deactivated. During that time, the resigning member may go to "My Controls" and select "Board Settings" to turn off the ability for other members to send PMs to the member, and "Email Settings" to block emails from being sent to the member within the i-church messaging system.

Those who resign and later wish to return to i-church are welcome to apply in the usual way.