To help meet its objectives, MERRA needs to collect some personal information from residents and ratepayers. MERRA is committed to ensuring that the personal information that it collects is kept safe, and only used for the purposes that it was collected.

This policy complies with the Privacy Act 2020 (“the Act”). It contains authorisations about the storage and use of personal information. If personal information is provided to MERRA with notice of this policy the person/s providing it will be deemed to have authorised us to collect, hold, and use it for the purposes, and in the manner, set out below.

In this policy “you” and “your” refers to any person who has provided personal information to MERRA.

“We” “our” and “us” refers to MERRA.

“Personal information” means information about you, as this term is defined under the Act.

What personal information do we collect?

We collect the following personal information from you:

• Name
• Address
• contact information (e.g., email and/or telephone)
• membership and subscription status
• community activities that you wish to be involved with (e.g., fire team, pest control)
• other information of a similar nature required for the purposes described

What do we use it for?

We use personal information for the following purposes and objectives:

• Communication with MERRA members (including the collection of membership fees)
• Communication with residents and ratepayers, including regular MERRA newsletters
• Notices of MERRA meetings, events, and other community activities
• Local network notifications via street coordinators
• Neighbourhood Support co-ordination and notifications
• Other communications, notifications or actions considered by us as helpful for the safety or welfare of MERRA members and residents.

Where do we hold personal information and how do we protect it?

We keep your information safe by storing it in a secure Google spreadsheet database that is kept on our server. Access to the database is limited to those such as MERRA committee members, contractors, volunteers, and co-ordinators involved in meeting stated purposes and objectives.

Relevant contact information is also shared with appropriate local network street coordinators. This enables us to help keep our community safe by getting information to neighbours quickly and efficiently.

In addition to this we may share information we hold with other agencies where we consider that is helpful or necessary for your safety or welfare. By way of example we may for these reasons pass on your details to emergency services, Harbourmaster or Coastguard and Police personnel.

Personal information stored on the database will not otherwise be made available to third parties

Providing personal information is optional. However if you choose not to provide requested information, we may be unable to communicate with you, or otherwise to meet our objectives of keeping you informed and looking after your safety and welfare. You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. You also have a right to ask for it to be deleted (and/ or to ask us not to communicate with you), however if you do so you may then lose the benefit of MERRA communications intended (amongst other things) to keep you informed and to keep you and your property safe.

If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, please contact us at

Merrasecretary@gmail.com