How we handle what you share

If you request an invitation or write to the hosts, we keep exactly what you type into that form: your name, your email address, your home city, the name of anyone who referred you, and your note. Nothing else is gathered about you from anywhere else.

If you become a member, we keep your profile name and email, the role a host assigns you, your replies to invitations, the guests you bring, any dietary or accessibility notes you choose to give us, and anything you write in the private forum.

We also keep a plain record of consequential actions taken inside the members area, such as a host approving a gathering or publishing notes. That record exists so the hosts can answer the question of who decided what, and when.

We do not ask for payment details, identity documents, or anything about your health beyond a dietary or accessibility note you volunteer.

Every request is read by a person. Nothing is approved automatically, and no score, ranking, or software decides whether you are invited.

While your request is open, the hosts and the coordinators who help them can see it. It sits in a private queue that no member and no visitor can reach.

A host either marks your request for an invitation or declines it. If you are invited, we email you a personal invitation link. If you are declined, we keep nothing beyond the record that the request was reviewed and closed.

You can ask at any time where your request stands, or ask us to withdraw it and delete it.

When you reply to an invitation we keep your answer, the date you answered, whether you are bringing a guest and that guest's name, and any dietary or accessibility note you add.

Your reply is visible to the hosts and coordinators who run the room, and to nobody else. Other members cannot see who has replied, and the guest list is never shown on a public page.

Dietary and accessibility notes go only to the hosts and to the people arranging the meal. They are not shown in the member directory, in the seating plan we print, or in the notes afterward.

Venue details, addresses, and arrival instructions are released only to confirmed guests for that gathering. Public pages show the month, the speaker, and the subject, nothing more.

If you cancel, we keep the fact that you replied and cancelled so the hosts can manage the seat count and the waiting list. Ask us and we will remove your note and your guest's name.

The forum is visible only to signed-in members. Posts, comments, and reactions carry your name to the other members who can see them, and are never published on a public page or shown to search engines.

Saving a post or reporting one is private. The author is not told who saved their post, and a report goes only to the hosts.

Editing a post replaces what other members see, but the hosts keep the earlier version so a moderation question can be answered honestly. Deleting a post removes it from the forum for everyone.

Notes from a gathering are drafted by a coordinator, reviewed, and published by a host. Members read only the published version. Source notes, recordings, transcripts, and the review history stay with the hosts.

Where a gathering runs under the Chatham House Rule, the published notes carry the substance of what was said without attributing it to anyone by name.

Hosts and coordinators can see requests, replies, guest lists, dietary and accessibility notes, and everything in the members area. Coordinators can prepare work but cannot make the final decision to publish anything.

Members can see the member calendar, the private forum, published notes, and the entries of members who have opted into the directory. Members cannot see requests, replies, guest lists, or anyone's private notes.

Visitors to the public site see only the pages you are reading now: the gatherings a host has released, with the month, speaker, and subject.

The member directory is opt in and is never public. If you do not opt in, other members cannot see your entry at all.

There is no password. You enter your email address and we send a single-use link that signs you in on that device.

The site is invitation only, so a sign-in link is only ever sent to an address a host has already invited. If an address is unknown, the page shows the same neutral response either way, so nobody can use the form to learn who is a member.

Your session lives in your browser. Signing out on a device ends it there. Tell us if you lose a device and we will end your sessions for you.

Information is stored in the site's own database, hosted on managed infrastructure in the United States, and reachable only through the site with the permissions your role allows.

We use no advertising, no advertising trackers, and no third-party analytics that profile you. There are no marketing cookies on this site.

Email to members is sent through an email delivery service, which by nature sees the address it is delivering to and the content of the message.

We use what you share to consider your request, to plan and seat a gathering, to prepare the meal correctly, to send you the notes afterward, and to keep the community small and appropriate.

We do not sell it, rent it, trade it, or share it with anyone outside the hosts and the coordinators, except where the law requires it.

A request that does not lead to an invitation is kept while the hosts are considering it, then removed.

Member records, replies, and forum posts are kept while you are a member, so the community has a continuous record of its own conversation.

When you leave, we remove your profile, your contact details, your dietary and accessibility notes, and your directory entry. Published notes from gatherings you attended remain, as does the record that decisions were made, without your personal details attached.

You can ask to see everything we hold about you, correct it, or have it deleted.

You can leave the directory, change or remove your dietary and accessibility notes, or stop receiving messages, from your member settings.

You can ask us to withdraw an open invitation request, or to remove a post you have written.

To make any of these requests, write to the hosts using the contact form on the home page. A person replies.

Many gatherings run under the Chatham House Rule. What is said in the room may be used afterward. Who said it may not be repeated outside the room. We ask every guest to hold to that, and we hold to it in everything we publish.

If how we handle your information changes in a way that matters, we will update this page and tell members by email. The date at the top of this page shows when it last changed.