Combined Legal Policy, Terms Of Membership, Privacy Policy & Terms Of Use

Purchasing insurance isn’t like any usual transaction or purchase – it needs to be carefully considered prior to purchase as all insurances once transacted with the insurer are strictly non-refundable. More importantly, you need to be confident it is fitting for your purposes and accurately fitting to your needs. We can not offer advice on whether or not insurances are appropriate for you or your club, but we can offer you guidance as to what is available from us and the terms of insurance. You will always have to decide whether or not it is suitable for you, and we’ll take your membership application as confirmation that you’ve made an informed decision as to its suitability having considered the scope of cover, policy schedule and policy wording. All of the required information to make an informed decision is available in our handbook (handbook.bmaba.org.uk) and on the main website, bmaba.org.uk/clubs, but you should contact our office if you have any concerns or questions outstanding.

When purchasing your insurance along with membership it’s particularly important you are well informed on the product you are paying for and that you are confident it will meet your requirements and needs as best possible. Because your purchasing membership that is inclusive of insurance via our group cover policy we’ll be allocating you cover against a level of indemnity / liability already purchased with our insurers.

We do not undertake any form of regulated activity, nor do we pass your details to any third persons. We are not the insurer, but as you’re coming under our group cover policy we’ll often refer to the insurer and you to clearly illustrate the importance of you keeping within the policy’s general conditions and requirements. Because of this it’s really important you take the time to ensure the data you enter is both accurate and genuine. All memberships are strictly non-refundable once they’ve been activated and we can’t refund the membership with insurance for you regardless of the circumstances once the cover aspect has been issued so if it’s not fitting or right for you it’s important you check that now before completing your application to join us.

Because you’re incepting membership combined with insurance we’ll need to assume you’ve fully read and understood our terms and conditions and that you also fully understand the policy, the product, what it covers & what it does not. If you are unsure about any of this please do check the policy information on the relevant page or contact us BEFORE completing your purchase. To remind you once more – we are unable to refund any applications once issued regardless of the circumstances as we will incur charges from our insurer when allocating cover to you.

By making a purchase you agree to be fully accountable and liable for any consequences, whether direct or indirect, which may arise from assuming cover via our group cover policy.

The fee payable is for your membership affiliation to our association, which is inclusive of insurance via our group cover policy. You are not paying for an insurance policy or an insurance product as a standalone provision.

In the event of a claim, or any possible claim, you must contact our office in writing within 24 hours to alert us to the circumstances of the incident. Do not admit liability. We can only support the claim process where you have followed association guidelines and regulation. It’s important to remember that as we are not the insurer, but instead the policy holder, we will liaise with the claims assessor on your behalf initially. You may need to communicate with them directly or indirectly, but either way you are obligated to assist in any such matters. If you are in any doubt please, please contact us first.

We will only declare to the insurer active policies in such that the instructor has marked themselves other than 'pending confirmation' or 'not currently teaching' in respect of the Suitability Vetting, and the necessary checks confirmed after 28 days from inception. If the suitability (audience) vetting is not updated to reflect the correct student audience to whom the instructor is teaching, and the subsequent required checks (first aid/DBS etc) are also not evidenced within 28 days of setting the vetting status, we shall deem you to not be currently teaching, and we will withhold without remuneration the allocation pending compliance with the policy requirements.

Upon issuance of your insurance confirmation documents, please consult the relevant help desk articles in our Handbook which outline managing instructor, club and student cover, with specific articles written on all other aspects of cover. It's super important you read all of this as soon as your membership is issued, per the confirmation emails and issuance letter. If you are reading this, please contact us on webchat for a free bottle of wine or ten pound Amazon giftcard.

You have a duty to disclose all material facts to us when requested, or should a circumstance change (during membership). This includes anything that may or may not affect our ability or decision to license, certify, represent, associate or otherwise communicate with you as an instructor.

Should you not disclose key material information or any fact, information, adverse event or other such related piece of information (that shall be assessed at the discretion of our association) you are liable to expulsion from the organisation or to other disciplinary action as relevant.

This may include criminal convictions or adverse publicity - both should be disclosed in advance. You must also advise us if you have ever had an insurance policy cancelled, terms imposed, have been declared bankrupt or have had any other terms imposed likely to impede the group cover insurances effectiveness.

Prior to joining, and at every occasion on which you renew membership, purchase goods or services, or opt into certain services including (but not limited to) other specific points of disclosure - such as the Club Colours application process - you will be agreeing to no material change to circumstance and having nothing material to disclose to the association.

For the avoidance of doubt, both at the point of joining, and at any other time during the course of membership, a material disclosure would would include;

We are not a government appointed national governing body. We are a trade body, which focuses on the highest levels of professional standards. You are under no obligation to join our association and as such, do so voluntarily. As you join us on a voluntary basis you agree to follow our association issued regulations and compulsory requirements. Failure to comply with key regulatory information may result in disciplinary action or expulsion.

It is your obligation, responsibility and duty to ensure you are fit, safe and legally entitled to teach your students.

If this includes working with vulnerable adults and / or children and/or any other person that require safeguarding provisions, it is solely your responsibility to ensure you have conducted due diligence and have in place the correct checks, policies, qualifications and procedures.

As an association we may or may not issue guidance, regulation or compulsory requirements however this should not be deemed or assessed to be adequate for your own personal or professional arrangements. You MUST ensure you have properly assessed this key criteria before teaching and if any doubt, please contact our safeguarding officer or our office directly if you have any concerns or question.

It is your responsibility to ensure you are properly and adequately insured for all activities, disciplines or classes you instruct. Purchasing or activating BMABA insurance – be it event, instructor or student does not necessary mean you have covered all of your legal requirements and you should consider each cover’s range, scope, exclusions, conditions and structure to ensure it is sufficient for your needs.

We reserve the right to refuse insurance on any basis without notification or justification, or to withdraw insurance at any point provided written notice in some form is offered.

It is solely your responsibility to ensure any insurances are renewed, activated or otherwise administered in accordance with your needs and / or any conditions set forth in the policy.

You are responsible for ensuring you are properly insured for any teaching you undertake. We may, at our discretion, with-hold cover issuance if you have not verified key criteria on your account which is required by the insurer - such as DBS and first aid. In such instances, we will honour a full year of cover (as appropriate) once conditions have been met. Until such a time, we reserve the right to manage exposure and withhold cover issuance accordingly. This is not dependent upon the issuance or non-issuance of confirmation documents and accordingly, we remind clubs of the importance of ensuring their accounts are verified and up to date.

You are required to hold relevant first aid training and a relevant first aid qualification in order to teach. It is your responsibility to ensure you have met any and all legal requirements and are properly trained, qualified and equipped to deal with any medical emergency. Any guidance or help offered by our association on this subject should be taken as non-binding and is not advice. You must ensure you have assessed your suitability properly prior to teaching.

We are fiercely committed to offering the best possible services, licensing, features and Associationship available in the market however, we are hereby released from any liability that may arise from external factors beyond our control, such as government or industry regulations that prohibit, limit or stop any service, licensing and/or membership feature (advertised or non-advertised). This also includes release from liability in the event that our body should ever be required by law, regulation or requirement to stop trading, to change the services we provide or to change the members we are able to serve or if the entry criteria we require should change, any situations of non-membership that may arise.

You agree that you understand events beyond our control will not be held against us and that you knowingly except any associated risk that may arise from use of our services, Association, licensing or other product(s). In such a circumstance it is likely that no refund will be possible, however the association will do all possible to accommodate changes in regulation in a way that is favourable to you. This is done without obligation.

We are an association designed to help our members share, collaborate and develop. That said, our organisation is strictly for those already qualified to teach. It is your responsibility to ensure you are fully DBS checked, first aid trained and insured appropriately for the training or class you’re running. You must have a safeguarding policy in place that will protect your members – this is really important and something you should already have prior to joining us. We will not tolerate any person(s) failing to disclose important information relating to safeguarding, child protection, past convictions or other such legal / safety issues.

As we represent more than 150 styles and disciplines; we can’t put into place individual guidelines on safeguarding, protection and insurances for each style. Therefore, it is your responsibility to ensure you have checked that your current circumstances are appropriate. We will endeavour to provide general advice and guidance fitting to as many clubs as possible, but you must assess guidance for suitability to your specific style and/or club.

All information provided to us from you is accepted with utmost faith however we exercise the right to check and challenge, any documentation or information presented to us. Where information is provided that leads to verification of a certain aspect of your instruction, it is your responsibility to ensure this remains a true and accurate reflection of your circumstance.

You must ensure you have not been previously registered to BMABA by any instructor who is still registered to us, and if you do have active registration you may not re-apply for an independent account without said lead instructor’s written blessing. To do so could result in an immediate or future mid-term termination as the lead instructor shall retain all authority for your account under our ‘first past the post’ policy.

All advertised services and membership features, benefits, licensing and/or insurance are advertised in good-faith. We do reserve the right to change or revoke any selected membership feature, licensing, insurance or member benefit and any other product / service at our sole discretion without notice or reason for any required purpose, however we will always do all possible to ensure our members and potential members are only supplied accurate information at all times, and with a reliable service.

As part of our efforts to maintain standards and facilitate safer martial arts, we create publicly searchable records for all instructors, assistant instructors, officials, teaching staff and senior graded students. These records contain, but are not limited to, name, date of birth, registration and renewal dates, disciplines practiced and the status of several factors including insurance, DBS, safeguarding, first aid and more. We will always create these records and update them as and when required throughout the course of your membership. Beyond your membership, records may also be retained. Your application and/or use of our services signifies agreement to this.

We reserve the right to maintain both a public national instructor record for you showing your expired BMABA membership, however we also reserve the right to automatically delete any public records relating to your affiliation to BMABA at any time after membership has expired.

Central records (held securely within our specialist CRM) are retained indefinitely for the purposes of record keeping, any future account reactivation and our ongoing safeguarding obligations. On request any contact information can be erased, but we can not delete records in full for atleast 9 years.

BMABA provides a range of technologies to assist clubs in excelling online. This includes, but is not limited to, websites, web hosting, Wordpress website management, club management software, domain name registration and management, webmail hosting and more.

All services are offered on an 'as and when' basis without warranty, guarantee or liability - whether implied or otherwise. BMABA will always endeavour to communicate clearly changes, failures or terminations to services across our infrastructure but it may not always be possible. You agree to arrange in advance, specifically in writing, any required assurances for services, sites, data, hosting, webmail and other related technologies that may be crucial, mission-critical or valuable to your club.

We reserve the right to curtail, change, edit, modify or terminate any services - in part or in full - based on commercial, engineering or technical requirements decided by the association at our sole discretion.

Any domain names and websites, including data retained on our servers, that is inclusive as a membership feature or benefit, remains under the ownership of BMABA Limited and is made available to the instructor subject to the service offerings and continued membership.

Upon termination of membership by us or the instructor, or should the membership be changed to no longer include an advertised service, the association shall retain the right of ownership and may dispose of hosting, domains, sites or data in due course as we see fit. Any costs incurred in making sites or domains available for transfer elsewhere, or in maintaining them within BMABA's infrastructure, will be charged directly to the instructor.

There is no automatic right of transfer for domain names, email hosting, website hosting, clubmanager hosting or any other software, hosting or technology offered by BMABA in any capacity whatsoever. This includes fully managed wordpress hosting. We reserve the right to decline to transfer out any domains and hosting where it has been setup by BMABA, hosted by BMABA or purchased by BMABA as part of a membership provision. If we do decide at our discretion to do so, it will be subject to a charge of £150.00 per Wordpress instance, £25 for any domain name and any other fee we see as reasonable based on the costs to us in staff time for other services. We shall play no part in any transfer of data or services - this shall be completed by the person or company wishing to migrate away from our services, and this will be completed at your time and cost without warranty or responsibility to the association.

Access to MyBMABA, including all contents within (this is inclusive of, but not limited to, messages, notifications, connections, shared and saved files, forum posts, orders, payment methods, course records and certification along with completion dates) will be suspended immediately upon expiry. No later than 90 days thereafter (but not necessarily up to 90 days later; it can be sooner) your MyBMABA account will be permanently erased. This will remove any and all associated content, course progress, community actions and everything else contained on MyBMABA. This is irreversible. We can not recover in the future any deleted accounts or the data contained within. This does not affect your main central record with BMABA.

All training and qualifications and awards are offered as is without warranty or guarantee. Whilst we will always do our best to make sure information presented within online learning modules and associated third party material is accurate, factual and professional, it is not always possible. Accordingly, BMABA is released from any warranty or liability in respect of course content or external referenced materials. Likewise, suitability of training is not guaranteed and it should be for the club to assess as to whether one or more qualifications is acceptable to any specific venue, contract or service, and whether or not it is sufficient in terms of training and certification for any associated usage, including any insurances. Unless specifically endorsed otherwise, all qualifications and awards are internal awards only, however most training is still highly recognised by external organisations. If you have to undertake training for legal reasons, or for a specific venue or contract, please ensure BMABA internal awards are sufficient before doing so.

The office and staff shall do their best to respond to questions, concerns or queries as quickly as possible, offering contact via as many channels as possible to be accessible to all instructors and clients. There is no guaranteed response time, and owing to a small team managing the entire membership, it is important to stress that a vast majority of contact should be managed digitally. Likewise, many of our services and offerings are exclusively available online and must be accessible online only, with no support via phone or in-person.

Termination of any membership(s) and, where applicable, insurances, shall be only considered as a last resort by the association. This does not prevent the association from immediately terminating a membership, without compensation, when one or more terms of membership have been breached. This is often centered around professional requirements, duty to disclose, or safeguarding concerns.

For the avoidance of doubt, as outlined in our handbook, LADO allegation outcomes shall be considered the final measure for consideration in terms of suspensions and terminations. If a LADO allegation meeting substantiates a complaint, even where no DBS or Police investigation is relevant we shall be duty bound to follow this guidance and to follow the requests of LADO, including where relevant to remove and expire membership(s) and insurance(s). Where this is actioned, it is done so without liability or warranty from BMABA and no refund shall be offered. By agreeing to membership, or the renewal thereof, you agree to be bound by the LADO allegation findings for the purposes of barring, suspension and termination of membership. The specifics can be found here. Our detailed policy on Membership Suspensions, Terminations, And Investigations can be found here and forms part of this overall terms of membership.

Our websites and services are provided ‘as is’ and accordingly the association accepts no liability whatsoever for any such use – direct or indirect – of our software, content, products, services or sites. All content provided should be used as information or guidance only, and does not constitute any form of legal or professional advice, nor does it constitute any warranty or guarantee.

All content is strictly copyright (c) BMABA Limited. All other content / data is used with permission where applicable. All posts, articles, pages, content, data, material and / or other media / publications are provided ‘as is’ and we are not to be held accountable, without any limitations, for any results or effects of using the website, service, products or data. We must inform you that you are viewing and interacting with our site entirely at your own risk. By viewing any part of our website (or affiliated websites) you are agreeing in full to these terms.

All content is provided ‘as is’ and is believed to be accurate to the best of our knowledge at the point of publishing, however there is no guarantee information provided is up to date or free of errors and omissions.

The association shall do all possible to ensure products, services and clothing, including merchandise, is advertised accurately and is fitting for use. You agree to exclude BMABA from liability for any equipment or uniform supplied. Where any specific items of merchandise, clothing or equipment is included, we will do all we can to ensure it is retained and kept available. If for any reason stock availability means an item is not available, we shall provide the closest available alternative or we shall offer a full refund. Where an item is included in membership or as a specific extra, we'll provide an alternative as we see fit.

As a private organisation we are under no legal or statutory requirement to provision membership, insurance or any other services, support or endorsement. As joining and using BMABA is a purely optional service you voluntarily enter into, we reserve the right to refuse service, membership, insurance or any other aspect of our offering to any club or individual, at any time, without justification or reason. This remains the same as your obligation to us - you may refuse to use any service and refuse to register or renew for any membership and/or insurance as you see fit without obligation to us.

We may refuse to offer membership or renewal, or we may choose to terminate membership, insurance, or service, at any point. Such times may include, but are not limited to;

For the period that any application is still pending proof of grade or being considered by the association, any fees payable shall be fully refundable should the application be rejected by the association, or cancelled by you.
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At such a point as either;
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​A: An automated sign up link is completed, granting access to MyBMABA
or
​B: Any documentation is issued digitally, with access to MyBMABA being made available

All fees paid are strictly non-refundable. This is because at this point, you have access to the annualised membership documentation, instructor certification and any associated insurance documentations. You also have immediate access to MyBMABA, through which you can download exclusive content, complete courses, access reserved members blogs, and so much more.

If you decide to terminate your membership at any point within the year of membership, fees payable are non-refundable and non-transferrable. Furthermore, should you fail to make the monthly payments are arranged, these shall fall due in full.
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At renewal, you are invited to consider renewing. If you do not action this renewal with an order or instruction to our team, no renewal shall take place. No fees shall be charged by us and you will not be considered a member, no required to follow our membership terms. At this point, you are not authorised to use any BMABA insignia on branding, websites or literature, and you must immediately stop using certification, templates, forms. software and any other intellectual property downloaded from, obtained from, or produced by BMABA.

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As clearly stated on the website whilst signing up or renewing, monthly payments are not a finance product and instead us trying to make membership and appropriate cover as affordable and accessible as we can. To do this, we offer clubs the option to spread their payments over 12 intervals, to protect cashflow. This comes at our cost, and whilst we recover some of these fees in a slighter higher membership cost for monthly plans, there is considerable transaction processing fees, staff time, system costs and associated with providing this type of service. Therefore, as the membership terms and conditions clearly state at the time of signing up / renewing, this is strictly non-cancellable by clubs mid-term, unless agreed at our sole discretion. If multiple payment failures lead to the automatic suspension and further termination of membership, you shall be considered to owe the full outstanding balance for the remaining period of membership. We reserve the right to collect this fee from you, using third party collection agencies if we deem it necessary. This remains at our discretion, and whilst we will typically not enforce this unless there is a large on-going cost to BMABA, it is something we reserve the right to utilise where needed, and it is a contract you enter into when taking out a monthly membership. Where we decide not to take further action with collections upon the defaulting of a membership, you will never again be permitted to undertake monthly payments and should you wish to re-join or re-assume membership, you will be expected to clear any outstanding balance, and pay any future membership fees in advance on an annual basis. We reserve the right to add up to 10% of the total amount outstanding in a late collection fee, termination fee or re-joining fee to cover the extra time and cost to us in assessing, contacting, locking down and unlocking accounts.
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INTRODUCTION

We take our responsibility to safeguard your personal information and privacy extremely seriously. Accordingly, we’re registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to ensure we maintain our legal responsibility to be accountable for our actions. Our registration number is ZA241917.

INFORMATION & DATA WE COLLECT

As a membership based association we need to collect large amounts of personally identifiable information to ensure we can offer a robust service to our clients. We also have an obligation to retain certain information to ensure we can safeguard the public.

We may collect data in a number of ways, including, but not limited to, you visiting our site, completing web forms or marketing forms, applying to join us, interacting with our content or via any other means.

You may be asked for certain information, some or all of which will be compulsory in certain circumstances. We ask only for the minimal amount of information required to offer the services advertised. You may always refuse to supply personally identification information, however it may prevent you from engaging in certain Site related activities or from us being able to offer you certain features and services.

COOKIES

Our Site may use “cookies” to enhance your experience. Your web browser places cookies on your hard drive for record-keeping purposes and sometimes to track information about you. You may choose to set your web browser to refuse cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you do so, note that some parts of the Site may not function properly.

HOW WE USE INFORMATION PROVIDED TO US

Information provided to us is usually used specifically to facilitate membership, or that of a third party member (i.e: student). We may also use information provided to us to personalise your experience, improve customer service, improve our site or services, to run promotions, process payment and/or send occasional newsletters.

RETENTION OF INFORMATION FOR RECORDING KEEPING PURPOSES

We believe you have the right to have information about you removed when you are no longer using our services, however as a membership based association that also has a duty to safeguard the public we may need to retain certain information even after you leave our organisation or stop using our services. This information may include, but is not limited to, your disciplines, grades, date of birth, name, membership period and other relevant information on key criteria such as insurance, DBS checks and so on. For the purposes of insurance, we may also need to retain this information on you or your registered students too. Accordingly, we will not delete information held for as long as we deem it necessary to retain details for our records, or for our public verification systems. We will only retain a minimal amount of information. If you have any concerns, please speak with us. You have the right to ask what data we hold on you, and why we are retaining it.

IMPLIED OR EXPLICIT CONSENT TO DATA USE

We will always ask for your explicit consent to use your information on public databases or through our association when it is possible to do so. In some circumstances we may need to use information about you with your implied consent. This is given by electing to use a service or membership product where such application is necessary.

For example, by joining our association and agreeing to our terms and conditions you agree to have a publicly available record created showing your membership and insurance details. We won’t specifically ask you for permission, as it is implicitly given when signing up.

You will always be made aware of where and how information will be made available to third parties before any services are rendered. Please speak with us before joining if you have any concerns.

PAYMENT PROCESSING

We do not see or store any payment information on our systems or databases, nor do we store any hard copies of payment information that is personally identifiable. We permit BACS and cheque payment – both of which are managed by you. Our online payments are PayPal and Stripe, both of whom are PCI Compliant and take care of the security of your personal information. We have no access to any card details.

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION

We take the security of your privacy and information extremely seriously. Our websites are built using specialist and industry leading software which is always kept up to date. We also use an active site security software and firewall to help prevent any instances of hacking or infiltration. Personally sensitive or complete information is never stored locally on our website.

We also use third party software providers for services such as data storage and record management. We ensure our passwords are extremely secure, and that information is only available to select and vetted members of our senior management. Our CRM is record-based, meaning it is very unlikely any information can be cross-contaminated from one account to another.

Staff are trained thoroughly on the importance of maintain data integrity, and the use of our software and systems to prevent where possible human error.

In the event of any hack, leak or loss of data we will contact persons concerned immediately and we will refer ourselves to the ICO without delay.

SHARING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We do not share your personal information with any third party organisations, persons or companies, without exception, unless you have specifically and explicitly agreed that we may do so unless we are required to do so by law.

The only instance in which we may share information about you to a third party without your prior consent is where we are required to do so under our obligations to safeguard.

For example, if you disclose a criminal record to us prior to joining, and mention that you are actively teaching already, we may be obliged to inform the local area designated safeguarding officer, who may in turn take action. At such a time we may need to provide information – such as your name, club details and any other relevant information including your alleged conviction. In this circumstance, as safeguarding is paramount, we may not be able to ask your permission for disclosure. This is of course not a typical example as it is very rare in occurrence, but by communicating with us in anyway or by using any of our services, you agree to us sharing personal information on a strictly needs-must basis with law enforcement or protection services.

ADDITIONAL

By using this Site, you signify your acceptance of this policy and terms of service. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our Site. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes to this policy will be deemed your acceptance of those changes.

All clubs, instructors, assistants, volunteers and stakeholders are required to prioritise safeguarding as an intrinsic part of their practice. Accordingly, all interactions, renewals, registrations and use of BMABA in part or in full, in anyway, is contingent on our national safeguarding policy being followed fully.

Please read this in full below;