Terms of use and membership

1. About these terms

Nedhunter500 (the platform) is a members' community that helps people secure board, trustee and non-executive appointments. It is run by Nedhunter Limited, a company registered in England and Wales (Nedhunter, we, us, our). The platform includes the website at nedhunter500.com, the Nedhunter500 iOS and Android apps, and the emails, events and services we provide through them.

These terms form a legally binding agreement between you and us. They apply whenever you visit the platform, create an account, apply for membership or use any part of the platform. Please read them carefully. By ticking the box when you create an account, or by using the platform, you agree to them. If you do not agree, please do not use the platform.

The following also form part of these terms:

• our Code of conduct, which sets out how we expect members to behave;
• our Complaints procedure; and
• if you use the platform on behalf of an organisation, our Organisation terms, which add to these terms and take priority over them where the two differ.

Our Privacy policy and Cookie policy explain how we use your personal information. They are not part of this contract, but please read them.

If you are using the platform for purposes wholly or mainly outside your trade, business, craft or profession, you are a consumer. Seeking a board or trustee role for yourself counts as consumer use. Some parts of these terms apply differently to consumers, and we say where they do. Nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights as a consumer.

2. Key words we use

Account

Your sign-in to the platform. You can have an account without being a member, for example while your application is being considered.

Member

An individual whose application for membership has been approved and whose membership has not ended.

Organisation

A charity, company, public body or other organisation that we have approved to post vacancies or search member profiles, and the people who use the platform on its behalf.

The founders

The people who lead Nedhunter and who speak with applicants, approve memberships and run the community. References to the founders include anyone they authorise to act for Nedhunter.

Board CV

The CV you upload to the platform.

Vacancy

A board, trustee, non-executive, committee or similar role advertised on the platform's Job Board.

Your content

Anything you add to the platform, including your profile, board CV, applications, cover notes, forum posts, messages and responses.

Qualifying appointment

An appointment of a type listed as ending membership on your Membership page (see Success and exit).

3. Who can use the platform

To create an account you must:

• be at least 18 years old;
• be an individual using the platform for yourself, or a person authorised to act for an organisation;
• give us information that is true, accurate and up to date, and keep it that way; and
• not have had a previous account or membership ended by us for breaching these terms, unless we have agreed in writing that you can return.

Each person may have only one individual account. Accounts are personal: you must not share your account or let anyone else use it.

The platform is designed for people seeking board roles in the United Kingdom. You may use it from elsewhere, but you are responsible for complying with any laws that apply to you there.

4. Your account and security

You can sign in with an email and password, a one-time email link, or your Google or LinkedIn account. If you use Google or LinkedIn, their own terms also apply to that sign-in.

You are responsible for keeping your sign-in details secure and for activity on your account. Use a strong password that you do not use elsewhere. Tell us straight away at hello@nedhunter500.com if you think someone else has accessed your account.

We may ask you to verify your identity, or to set up two-factor authentication, before you can use certain features. We may also suspend access to an account while we investigate suspected unauthorised use.

5. Applying for membership

To become a member you must complete an application, upload a board CV and take part in a short call with the founders. Membership starts only when we approve your application and confirm it to you by email. Creating an account or submitting an application does not create a membership.

Limited places. Membership is capped at 500 members at any one time. We open places in releases rather than all at once, and we may limit how many applications we approve each week. When the current release is full, new applications pause and you can register your interest; we will email you when more places open. If all places are taken, approved applicants may be placed on a waiting list. We decide who to approve from the waiting list; we usually work in joining order but we are not obliged to.

Our decision. Approval is at our discretion. We consider whether membership is likely to help you and whether you are a good fit for the community. We will not discriminate against you because of any characteristic protected by the Equality Act 2010. We may decline an application without giving detailed reasons. You will not be charged if your application is declined or withdrawn.

Invitation codes. We may give invitation codes to people we know. A code lets you apply for a particular membership type, but it does not activate membership by itself; the usual call and approval still apply. Codes are personal to the person we gave them to (unless we say a code may be shared), may expire or be limited in uses, and may be withdrawn. They have no cash value.

Promotion commitment. If you apply for a Founding membership or with an invitation code that asks for it, you agree to help promote the platform in reasonable ways that we discuss with you on your call, for example by sharing news of the platform with your network. We will never post on your behalf or use your name publicly without your separate permission.

Opportunity membership. Opportunity membership is for people who are unemployed or without regular earned income. You will be asked to tell us briefly about your circumstances. We decide eligibility on the call; we do not ask for documents. You must tell us honestly about your circumstances. Opportunity places are offered at our discretion and may be limited.

6. Membership types

All membership types give the same access to the platform unless we tell you otherwise before you join.

7. Free trial, payment and billing

This section applies to Standard membership, and to free members who opt in to Standard.

Saving your card. When you apply for Standard membership we ask you to save a payment card and a billing address. Your card is saved securely by our payment provider, Stripe. Nothing is charged at that point, and nothing is charged at all if your application is not approved.

Free trial. If you are approved, your membership starts with a 14-day free trial. We will email you before your first payment is taken. Your first payment of £20 is taken on the day the trial ends, and then every month on the same date. If you cancel before the trial ends, you will not be charged.

One trial per person. Each person can have one free trial. If you have had a trial before, including under a different email address, your first payment is taken when your membership is approved. If we find that someone has deliberately obtained more than one trial, we may charge for the membership from the start of the later trial or end the membership.

Paying monthly. Membership is paid monthly in advance. Prices include VAT at the current rate. We will make a VAT invoice available for each payment. You authorise us, through Stripe, to charge your saved card each month until your membership ends.

If a payment fails. We will tell you and ask you to update your card. You will keep access for a 7-day grace period. If payment is still not made after that, we may suspend or end your membership.

Price changes. We may change the membership price. We will give you at least 30 days' notice by email before a new price applies to you. If you do not want to pay the new price, you can cancel before it takes effect and you will not pay it.

Paid extras. Optional services and conference tickets are paid separately when you buy them. The price and what is included are shown before you pay. No extra is ever compulsory.

8. When a free membership ends

Opportunity, Founding and other free memberships last for the period stated in Membership types and then expire. We will remind you before your free period ends.

A free membership will never become a paid membership automatically. To continue, you must actively opt in to Standard membership from your Membership page. If you do, billing starts when your free period ends, at the Standard price at that time. Any extension of a free membership is a fresh decision for us.

9. Your legal right to change your mind

As a consumer you have a legal right to cancel a contract for services within 14 days without giving a reason (the cancellation period). For membership, the cancellation period starts on the day we approve your membership. For a paid extra, it starts on the day you buy it.

• Standard membership with a free trial: your free trial covers the cancellation period. Cancel before the trial ends and you pay nothing.
• Standard membership without a free trial: if you cancel within 14 days of approval, we will refund your first payment, less a proportionate amount for the days of membership you used before you told us you wanted to cancel. By applying, you ask us to start your membership as soon as it is approved.
• Optional services and conference tickets: if you cancel within 14 days of purchase, we will refund you in full, less a proportionate amount for any service already provided at your request. If a service has been fully provided at your request within the cancellation period, you lose the right to cancel it, and we will ask you to acknowledge this before it is provided.

To exercise this right, cancel from your Membership page or tell us clearly by email at hello@nedhunter500.com or through Chat with the founders. You do not have to use a particular form. We will refund you within 14 days of being told, using the payment method you used.

10. Cancelling your membership at any time

You can cancel at any time from your Membership page, without having to contact us. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period you have already paid for, and you keep access until then. No further payments will be taken.

Except as described in Your legal right to change your mind, or where we are at fault, we do not refund part-months.

Cancelling your membership does not delete your account. To delete your account and data, use “Delete my account and data” on your profile page (see our Privacy policy).

11. Success and exit

Nedhunter500 exists to help members get appointed, and to make way for the next member when they do. This is a core part of the membership you are agreeing to.

When you accept a qualifying appointment, whether you found it through the platform or not, you must tell us within 14 days by using “Report an appointment” in the member area or contacting us. The types of appointment that count are listed on your Membership page. An organisation may also tell us that it has appointed you through the platform.

We will then invite you to a short offboarding call. After that call we will confirm the end of your membership, stop any billing and release your place. You will not be charged for any period after the end date we confirm. You are welcome to apply again in future, for example when you are looking for another role, subject to availability.

We would love to celebrate your appointment, but we will only publish your name, story or testimonial with your separate, explicit permission, which you can withdraw at any time.

12. Inactivity

Places are limited, so we expect members to use the platform. Only signing in counts as activity; we will never judge you on how often you post or attend.

If you have not signed in for 45 days, we will send you a reminder. If you have not signed in for 60 days, we will send you a notice, and you will have 7 days to sign in or reply. If you do neither, the founders will review your membership and may end it. We will tell you if we do. If you are going to be away, for example because of illness or caring responsibilities, tell us and we will take that into account.

13. What membership includes, and what it does not

Membership gives you access to the Job Board, training resources, events, member forums, the Member Profiles directory, direct messaging with the founders, and any other features we describe on the platform. We may add, change or remove features from time to time (see Changes to the platform).

Membership does not guarantee that you will be shortlisted, interviewed or appointed to any role. Organisations make their own recruitment decisions, and we cannot control them. Training, events and guidance are general in nature and are not legal, financial or professional advice about your own circumstances.

Many board and trustee roles are unpaid. Where a vacancy is paid, the organisation will say so in its advert. Before accepting any appointment it is your responsibility to check that you are eligible and able to take it up, for example under charity trustee or company director disqualification rules, and that it does not conflict with your other roles or employment.

14. Vacancies and applications

Vacancies are posted by organisations, or by us on an organisation's behalf. We approve organisations after an onboarding call and review vacancies, but we do not verify every detail. Please do your own due diligence before accepting any role.

When you apply for a vacancy, the organisation can see your profile, your board CV and your cover note for that application. Please apply only for roles you are genuinely interested in and able to take up, and make sure your application is truthful.

Each vacancy accepts a limited number of applications per round (currently 20) and closes automatically when that number is reached. Organisations commit to giving every applicant an outcome and feedback. Where we manage a vacancy for the organisation, we take on that responsibility. If you do not receive an outcome, please tell us.

Organisations that are approved can also search the profiles of members who have chosen to be included in CV search, and approach those members through the platform. You can switch this on or off at any time on your profile.

15. Acceptable use

You must use the platform lawfully, in line with the Code of conduct, and only for its intended purpose: finding and preparing for board roles and taking part in the community. In particular, you must not:

• post or send anything that is unlawful, harassing, threatening, abusive, discriminatory, defamatory, obscene or misleading, or that encourages anyone else to break the law;
• post anything that infringes someone else's intellectual property, privacy or confidentiality, including other people's personal information without their permission;
• use information about other members or organisations for any purpose other than taking part in the platform, including copying, compiling, selling or passing on member details, or contacting members to sell them goods or services;
• join or use the platform to recruit for third parties, act as a recruitment agency, or collect candidates' details, unless you do so as an approved organisation under the Organisation terms;
• send spam, chain messages or unsolicited promotions, or post advertising in the forums unless we allow it;
• impersonate anyone or misrepresent your experience, qualifications or connection with any organisation;
• use bots, scrapers or other automated tools to access, copy or monitor the platform, or use any content from the platform to train or improve artificial intelligence or machine-learning models;
• try to get around access controls or membership limits, probe or test the platform's security, or access any account, data or area you are not authorised to access;
• upload viruses or other harmful code, or do anything that could disable, overload or impair the platform; or
• copy, modify, reverse engineer or create derivative works from the platform, except as the law allows.

If you discover a security weakness, please report it to us at hello@nedhunter500.com rather than exploring it.

16. Your content

You own your content. You are responsible for it and for making sure you have the right to share it.

You give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, display and process your content, for as long as it is on the platform, to the extent needed to run the platform and provide it to the people you choose to share it with. For example, we show your profile to organisations only in the circumstances described in our Privacy policy. The licence also lets us make backups and moderate content. It ends when your content is deleted, except for copies in backups, which are overwritten in the normal course, and except where we must keep information to comply with the law.

Your board CV should be a professional document. Please do not include information you do not need to share, such as your date of birth, a photograph, or details of your health, religion, ethnicity, sexuality or political views.

If you send us suggestions or feedback about the platform, we may use them freely without owing you anything.

17. Moderation and reporting

We moderate the forums and other shared areas. If you see content that you think is illegal, harmful or breaks these terms or the Code of conduct, please report it through Chat with the founders or by email at hello@nedhunter500.com, saying where it is and why you are concerned. We review every report and aim to act on reports of illegal content promptly.

We may hide, remove or refuse any content that we reasonably believe breaks these terms, the Code of conduct or the law, and we may report illegal content to the police or other authorities. If we remove your content or take action on your account, we will usually tell you why. If you think we have got it wrong, you can ask us to review the decision under our Complaints procedure.

We do not check all content before it is posted and are not responsible for content posted by members or organisations. Views expressed by other users are their own.

18. Confidentiality in the community

The community works because members can speak openly. Discussions in the forums, at events and in event recordings are confidential to the community. You may use what you learn, but you must not share who said what, or pass on information that another member or organisation has shared, outside the platform without their permission. Information in vacancy adverts that an organisation marks as confidential must also be kept confidential.

19. Our content and intellectual property

The platform, including its design, software, text, training resources, event recordings and the Nedhunter and Nedhunter500 names and logos, is owned by us or our licensors and protected by intellectual property laws.

While you are a member, we give you a personal, non-transferable, revocable licence to view and download training resources and recordings for your own non-commercial use. You must not share, resell, publish or distribute them, or remove any copyright notices. All other rights are reserved.

20. Third-party services and partners

Some parts of the platform are provided using other companies' services, such as Stripe for payments, Calendly for booking calls, and Zoom or Microsoft Teams for events. When you use them, their terms and privacy policies may also apply.

The platform may link to other websites and list partner organisations. We tell you on the Partners page when we have a paid partnership or referral arrangement. We are not responsible for other websites, or for goods and services provided by partners, and including them does not mean we endorse them. Your contract for a partner's goods or services is with that partner.

21. Our mobile apps

We give you a personal, non-transferable licence to install and use the Nedhunter500 app on devices you own or control, under these terms and the rules of the app store you downloaded it from. Updates may be needed to keep using the app.

If you downloaded the app from Apple's App Store:

• these terms are between you and us, not Apple, and we, not Apple, are responsible for the app and its content;
• Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app;
• if the app fails to meet any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund any purchase price for the app (the app is free); to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the app;
• we, not Apple, are responsible for dealing with any claims relating to the app, including product liability claims, claims that the app fails to meet legal or regulatory requirements, consumer protection claims and claims that it infringes a third party's intellectual property rights;
• you confirm that you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as a “terrorist supporting” country, and are not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties; and
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

22. Changes to the platform and availability

We work to keep the platform available and secure, but we cannot promise it will always be available or free from errors. We may suspend it for maintenance, security or reasons beyond our control. We will try to give notice of planned downtime.

We may update and change the platform, for example to reflect changes in what members need, in technology or in the law. If we make a change that significantly reduces what a paying member receives, we will tell you in advance and you can cancel; if you do, we will refund any amount you have paid for the period after the change.

23. Suspension and ending of membership or accounts by us

We may suspend or end your membership or account, or restrict your use of particular features, if:

• you seriously or repeatedly breach these terms or the Code of conduct;
• you do not pay, as described in Free trial, payment and billing;
• you gave us false or misleading information in your application;
• your membership ends under Success and exit or Inactivity, or because a free membership has expired; or
• we reasonably need to, to protect members, organisations, the platform or ourselves, or to comply with the law.

Where it is reasonable, we will warn you first and give you a chance to put things right. If we end a paid membership for a reason that is not your fault, we will refund any amount you have paid for the period after it ends.

We may also close the platform entirely. If we do, we will give members at least 30 days' notice and refund any amount paid for the period after closure.

24. Our responsibility to you

If you are a consumer: we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or our failing to use reasonable care and skill. Loss or damage is foreseeable if it is obvious it will happen, or if you and we both knew it might happen when the contract was made. We are not responsible for loss or damage that is not foreseeable. We provide the platform for your personal use in seeking board roles; we are not responsible for loss of income or business opportunity, except where the law does not allow us to exclude it.

If you are using the platform for business purposes: we will not be liable for any loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or anticipated savings, or for any indirect or consequential loss.

For everyone:

• we are not responsible for the decisions, acts or omissions of organisations or other members, for the accuracy of vacancy adverts or member profiles, or for what happens in any appointment you take up;
• we are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, but we will tell you and take steps to minimise the effect; and
• subject to the paragraph below, our total liability to you in connection with the platform is limited to the greater of £100 and the total amount you have paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot be limited or excluded by law, including your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 for services not provided with reasonable care and skill or as described.

25. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example to reflect changes to the platform, our prices or the law. The date at the top shows when they last changed.

If we make a change that materially affects you, we will tell you by email at least 30 days before it takes effect. If you do not agree, you may cancel your membership or close your account before the change takes effect, and if you have paid for a period after that date we will refund it. If you continue to use the platform after the change takes effect, the new terms will apply. We may make changes that are required by law, or that do not disadvantage you, with immediate effect.

26. Complaints and disputes

If you are unhappy with anything, please tell us. Our Complaints procedure explains how we handle complaints. We will try to resolve any dispute with you quickly and fairly.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a consumer, you can bring legal proceedings in the courts of England and Wales; if you live in Scotland you can also bring them in Scotland, and if you live in Northern Ireland you can also bring them in Northern Ireland. If you are using the platform for business purposes, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

27. General

• Transfer. We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation, for example if Nedhunter500 is sold. We will tell you if this happens and make sure the transfer does not reduce your rights. You may not transfer your rights or membership to anyone else.
• Other people's rights. Apart from Apple (see Our mobile apps), no one other than you and us has any right to enforce these terms.
• If a court finds part of these terms invalid, the rest will continue in force.
• Delay is not waiver. If we do not insist immediately on something you are required to do, or delay taking action, we can still do so later.
• Notices. We will contact you using the email address on your account, so please keep it up to date. You can contact us at hello@nedhunter500.com.
• Language. These terms are available in English only.

28. Contact us

Nedhunter Limited, a company registered in England and Wales.

Email: hello@nedhunter500.com. Members can also use Chat with the founders.