On Thu, September 11, 2008 01:27, Chris McKenna wrote:
Looking at the application for membership forms for WMUK v1 (WER), I note that applicants for guarantor membership must be 18 or over (presumably for legal reasons).
Yes.
For supporting members the form also asks for a date of birth, but I don't understand why this is needed? The acompanying text states: I am not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that the signature of a parent or guardian is not requried for this type of agreement for those aged 13 or over. And, even if it is required, I do not beleive that we need to know that it is a parent/guardian's signature rather than the applicant's signature.
I say this because if we do need to know whether someone is under 18 or not, there is no need for us to ask about it. If there is no way of knowing the age of a person from their form, then I cannot see that requiring a CRB check of those processing the forms is legal.
iirc the reasoning was along the following lines ...
If someone is under 18 then by asking for the actual date we could do a follow-up inviting that person to guarantor (member) status when they turned 18. As regards the actual signature I believe it is required to know whether it is the individual or someone signing on their behalf in order that we retain a signature for comparison purposes on subsequent forms (votes, proposals, etc).
So far I've seen nothing proposed that would seem to *require* CRB checks to be carried out prior to getting everything started (as opposed to the long delays that would likely ensue if that route were taken)
Alison