Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your use of Scoutworks, which is operated by Seventeen Things Ltd (“we”, “us” or “our”), a company registered in England and Wales under company number 16620173, with its registered office at Bartonbury House, GL71UZ.

“Scoutworks” means:

• the web application at my.scoutworks.app, which also installs as a progressive web app on phones and tablets, including the Parent Portal, Youth Member Portal and District Portal, and Young Leaders’ access to the leader app;
• this website at scoutworks.app, the knowledge base and the free tools;
• the shared demo sandbox at demo.scoutworks.app; and
• our support channels.

By creating a group, registering a district, or otherwise using Scoutworks, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into them. If you are accepting on behalf of a Scout group, district or other organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to do so, and “you” means that organisation.

2. Eligibility and youth accounts

2.1 Adult accounts

To create a group or district, or to hold a leader, group admin, trustee or parent account, you must be at least 18 years old and have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms.

2.2 Youth accounts

Scoutworks includes accounts for young people: the Youth Member Portal (“My Scouting”) for Scouts and Explorers, typically from around the age of 10½, and Young Leader accounts for Young Leaders aged 14 and over. These accounts work differently from adult accounts:

• A young person cannot create their own account or accept these Terms.
• A Youth Member Portal account is created, and can be reset or removed at any time, by the young person’s parent or guardian, who accepts these Terms on their behalf and is responsible for their use of it.
• A Young Leader account is created by the group’s leaders from the Young Leader’s existing member record, and the group is responsible for its use.
• Youth accounts have no peer-to-peer messaging and no leaderboards. Activity suggestions made through Youth Voice are moderated by a leader before other young people can see them, and anything a young person submits goes to a leader for review.

The Privacy Policy’s section on young people’s data describes these safeguards in more detail.

3. The service

Scoutworks is a platform for running a Scout group — membership, events, badges, communications, payments and finance — and, through the District Portal, for districts to connect and support their groups. We add features regularly and may modify or retire features; where a change removes something you rely on we will give reasonable notice.

The District Portal is free of charge. Districts register directly, with no trial period and no card required, and there is no charge for district-managed groups (such as Explorer Scout Units) created from it. Groups that connect to a district pay their normal subscription and choose what data to share.

4. Beta features

Some features are released early under the Beta Programme, which a group admin can switch on in the group’s settings. Beta features are marked as such in the app. They are provided so that you can try them and help shape them, and therefore:

• they may be incomplete, change substantially, or be withdrawn without notice;
• they are excluded from any availability or support commitment we make for the rest of the service; and
• you should not rely on a beta feature for anything you could not manage without it.

You can leave the Beta Programme at any time by switching it off again.

5. AI features

Some features use an AI provider to produce a draft — a term programme, an email, or suggested risks and control measures. These features assist you; they do not decide for you.

• Output is a draft, and you are responsible for it. AI output may be wrong, incomplete or unsuitable for your group. You must review it before you publish, send or rely on it. Nothing an AI feature produces is advice, and it does not discharge any duty you hold — in particular, an AI suggestion never replaces a leader’s judgement on safety or a risk assessment sign-off.
• What is sent is limited to the context described in section 6.5 of the Privacy Policy. Do not type personal data about a young person into a field that feeds an AI feature.
• Fair use. Groups using our AI provider get a monthly allowance of successful generations. The current allowance is shown in the group’s settings; we may change it, and may suspend AI access for a group that uses it abusively or automatically.
• If you connect your own AI account, your agreement with that provider governs their processing and their charges, and you are responsible for both. You are responsible for keeping the key valid; if the provider rejects it, AI features stop for your group until you replace it. We do not fall back to our own provider.

6. The demo sandbox

The demo at demo.scoutworks.app is a shared copy of the real app, seeded with example data, that anyone can explore without an account. When you use it you accept that:

• it is shared — anything you add is visible to other visitors, so you must not enter real names, contact details or any other personal data;
• it resets — everything is wiped and re-seeded every Monday morning, and we may reset it at any other time without notice;
• nothing goes out — emails and payments are intercepted and not delivered or charged; and
• we make no commitment about its availability, and it is not covered by section 12.

7. Your account

• You must provide accurate, complete information when you create an account and keep it up to date.
• You are responsible for keeping your sign-in details confidential and for everything done under your account. Accounts are personal and must not be shared.
• Tell us immediately at [email protected] if you believe your account has been accessed without authorisation.
• Group admins control who has access to their group and at what level, and are responsible for removing access when someone leaves.

8. Acceptable use

You agree to use Scoutworks only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You must not:

• break any applicable law, or your Scouting organisation’s safeguarding rules;
• infringe anyone’s intellectual property or privacy rights;
• upload malicious code or attempt to disrupt, overload or gain unauthorised access to the service or its data;
• harass, abuse or harm other users, or use the service to contact young people outside your Scouting role;
• resell the service or use it for purposes unrelated to Scouting without our written permission; or
• scrape or bulk-extract data other than through the export features and API keys we provide (section 8.2).

8.1 Reasonable usage

Your subscription includes unlimited members, sections and storage for normal use by a Scout group. If usage significantly exceeds what a group would ordinarily need — for example heavy automated requests — we may contact you to agree a way forward, and will give you notice and a chance to adjust before restricting anything.

8.2 Automated access

A group admin can create an API key so that a spreadsheet, automation or script can read the group’s data. The key works with our public API at /api/v1, which is the only supported way to access Scoutworks automatically. While API keys are in the Beta Programme, section 4 applies to them too.

• The app’s other endpoints exist to run the app. They are not a supported interface, and we may change, remove or rate-limit them at any time without notice.
• If you script those endpoints with a signed-in session, you do so at your own risk. We may rate-limit the account that does it, and we do not support scripts that break when the app changes.

9. Content and intellectual property

9.1 Your content

• You (or your members) own the content and data you put into Scoutworks.
• You grant us a limited licence to host, process and display it solely to provide the service to you.
• You confirm that you have the right to upload whatever you upload, including photographs of young people.

9.2 Our content

• Scoutworks, its software, design and documentation are owned by Seventeen Things Ltd.
• Our name, logo and brand elements may not be used without permission.
• You may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer or redistribute the service.

10. Privacy and data processing

For the personal data your group enters about its members and volunteers, your group is the data controller and Seventeen Things Ltd is the data processor. This section, together with the Privacy Policy, forms our data-processing terms. As processor we will:

• process member data only on your documented instructions — which include these Terms and your use of the app’s features — and never for our own purposes;
• keep it confidential and apply the security measures described in the Privacy Policy;
• use only the sub-processors listed in the Privacy Policy’s sub-processor list, under written terms, and update that list when a provider is added or removed;
• help you respond to requests from members and parents exercising their data-protection rights;
• tell you without undue delay if we become aware of a personal-data breach affecting your data;
• let you export your data at any time, and delete it in accordance with section 14 when your subscription ends; and
• make available the information reasonably needed to demonstrate our compliance.

As controller, you are responsible for having a lawful basis for the data you enter, obtaining any consents needed (including parental consent), informing members and parents, and responding to their requests.

11. Free trial, fees, renewal and refunds

11.1 Free trial

Every new group gets a six-month free trial with full access to every feature. You will not be charged during the trial. If you decide not to continue, your access ends when the trial does and section 14 applies to your data.

11.2 Subscription price

• After the trial, Scoutworks costs £150 per year per group, payable annually in advance.
• The price is flat: unlimited sections, unlimited members, unlimited storage, and every feature we add during your subscription, with no per-member or add-on charges.
• The District Portal is free (section 3).
• We add no platform fee to payments parents make to your group. Those payments are collected by GoCardless, whose own transaction fees apply and are set by GoCardless.
• Subscription payments are processed by Stripe. We never hold your card details.

11.3 First payment and refund window

• If you continue after the trial, your first payment is taken at the end of the trial, and your subscription year runs from that date.
• You may cancel for a full refund within 30 days of your first payment. Refunds go back to the original payment method.
• After that 30-day window, and for renewal payments, fees are non-refundable for the remainder of the subscription year — although you can still cancel so that you are not charged again.

11.4 Renewal and price changes

• Your subscription renews automatically each year at the price current at the time of renewal, unless you cancel before the renewal date.
• We will give you at least 30 days’ notice before any price change takes effect. A change never affects the subscription year you have already paid for, and you may cancel before renewal if you do not accept it.
• We will remind you before each renewal.

11.5 Cancelling

You can cancel at any time by sending us a message — there is no cancellation form or minimum term. Your access continues to the end of the period you have paid for, and nothing further is charged.

11.6 Discount codes

We may offer discount codes or promotional pricing from time to time. Each is subject to its own stated conditions, cannot be combined with other offers unless we say so, and may be withdrawn at any time. Misuse of a code may result in it being cancelled.

12. Service availability

We work hard to keep Scoutworks available around the clock and publish live status at uptime.scoutworks.app, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access and do not offer a contractual service-level agreement. We may carry out maintenance that briefly affects the service, and we are not responsible for interruptions caused by events outside our reasonable control. Beta features (section 4), AI output (section 5) and the demo sandbox (section 6) carry no availability commitment at all.

13. Liability and disclaimers

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law. Subject to that:

• the service is provided “as is”, and we exclude all implied warranties, including fitness for a particular purpose;
• our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the amount you paid us in that period (and, during a free trial, to £150);
• we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of data that you could have prevented by using the export tools we provide; and
• you are responsible for decisions you make on the basis of information in Scoutworks — for example, a risk assessment drafted with AI assistance must still be reviewed and approved by a suitably experienced leader.

You agree to indemnify Seventeen Things Ltd against claims arising from your breach of these Terms or from content you upload in breach of someone else’s rights.

14. Ending your subscription and your data

14.1 By you

You may cancel your subscription (section 11.5) or delete your group from the app at any time.

14.2 By us

We may suspend or end your access if you seriously or repeatedly breach these Terms — in particular the acceptable-use and safeguarding provisions — or if a subscription payment remains unpaid after we have reminded you. We will give notice and a chance to put things right wherever it is reasonable to do so.

14.3 Your data afterwards

Sections 8, 9, 12 and 15 continue to apply after your subscription ends.

15. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the new version here with an updated date and a note of what changed, and for material changes we will email account holders at least 30 days before they take effect. If you do not accept a change you may cancel before it applies; continuing to use Scoutworks after that date means you accept the new Terms.

16. Governing law and general terms

• These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute.
• If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest continue in full force.
• These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and Seventeen Things Ltd about Scoutworks.
• You may not transfer your rights under these Terms without our consent. We may transfer ours to a successor business that takes on our obligations.
• Nothing in these Terms affects any statutory rights you have as a consumer.

17. Contact