Terms and Conditions of Participation

Employee-Owned (a Community of Practice on Slack)
Operated by Rewrite Capital Advisors Inc.

1. Agreement to these terms

These Terms and Conditions of Participation (the “Terms”) govern your access to and participation in Employee-Owned (the “Community”), operated and moderated by Rewrite Capital Advisors Inc. (“Rewrite”, “we”, “us” or “our”).
By clicking “I agree”, accepting an invitation to the workspace, or participating in the Community, you agree to these Terms, including the Community Code of Conduct in Schedule A (the “Code of Conduct”), which forms part of these Terms, and any channel-specific guidelines we post in the Community. If you do not agree, please do not join.
You participate in your individual capacity. You are responsible for making sure that what you share complies with your own organization’s policies, confidentiality obligations and any approvals you need from your organization, its trustees or its board.
If there is any conflict between the Code of Conduct and the rest of these Terms, the rest of these Terms apply.

2. Key terms

In these Terms:
1. “Competitively Sensitive Information” has the meaning in section 6.2.
2. “Content” means anything posted, uploaded, shared or transmitted in the Community, including messages, replies, files, images, links, reactions, huddle or call audio, and profile information.
3. “Member” means an individual who has been admitted to the Community. “Member Organization” means the organization a Member is affiliated with.
4. “Moderators” means the Rewrite personnel (and anyone Rewrite designates) who administer and moderate the Community.
5. “Slack” means the Slack platform provided by Slack Technologies, LLC and its affiliates, on which the Community is hosted.

3. Eligibility and membership

The Community is open to individuals who are owners, trustees, directors, officers, employees or employee-owners of an organization that has completed a transition to employee ownership (for example, through an employee ownership trust, an employee share purchase plan, stock option plan, management buyout, or another structure Rewrite considers comparable). You do not need to be, or to have been, a client of Rewrite.
Membership is by invitation. Rewrite may verify eligibility and may accept, decline or limit any membership at its discretion. Your membership is personal to you: do not share your login, give others access to your account, or invite other people to the workspace.
You agree to use your real name and to accurately represent your role and Member Organization in your profile unless an anonymous posting feature is offered under section 9. Please tell us promptly if you leave your Member Organization or if it ceases to be employee-owned, as we may then adjust or end your membership.
Participation is currently free of charge. We will not introduce fees for existing Members without advance notice and your agreement.
Rewrite personnel and invited guests (such as speakers or subject-matter experts) may participate in the Community. Guests must follow these Terms.

4. Conduct and acceptable use

You must follow the Code of Conduct, Slack’s User Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy, and all applicable laws when participating in the Community.
Without limiting section 4.1, you must not:
1. harass, threaten, bully, demean or discriminate against anyone, or make personal attacks on any person, including a person posting anonymously. Disagree with ideas, not people;
2. use profanity or abusive language;
3. post Content that is unlawful, defamatory, obscene, hateful, or discriminatory on any ground protected by applicable human rights law;
4. post personal information about any individual (including your co-workers, employees or other Members), such as an identifiable person’s compensation, health, performance or disciplinary information, without the legal authority to do so;
5. post confidential or proprietary information that you do not have the right to share, including information subject to a non-disclosure agreement, trust or fiduciary obligations, or solicitor-client privilege;
6. impersonate anyone or misrepresent your identity, role or affiliation;
7. post spam, chain messages, malware or anything designed to interfere with the Community or Slack;
8. scrape, bulk-copy, export or harvest Content or Member information; add bots, apps, AI note-takers or other integrations; or record or transcribe huddles or calls, in each case without Rewrite’s prior approval (and, for recordings, the consent of all participants);
9. input other Members’ Content into third-party artificial intelligence tools or services in a way that discloses it outside the Community;
10. attempt to identify a Member who has posted anonymously; or
11. use the Community for any purpose other than peer learning and support about employee ownership.

5. No selling or solicitation

The Community is a space for peer learning, not business development. You must not use the Community, or information about Members obtained through it, to advertise, market, sell or promote products or services, solicit business, investment or donations, or send unsolicited commercial messages to Members, whether in channels, by direct message, or outside Slack (for example, by email or on social media).
You may share a resource or name a provider you have used when another Member asks for it, provided you disclose any financial or personal interest you have in it. Please do not post job advertisements or recruitment messages except in any channel the Moderators designate for that purpose.
For clarity, nothing in these Terms restricts any Member or Member Organization from independently deciding whom to hire, recruit or do business with. Section 5.2 only governs how the Community itself is used.
Rewrite is an advisory firm, so we want to be transparent about our own role. Rewrite may share educational resources, events, research and its own publications in the Community, and Moderators may mention when a topic relates to work Rewrite does. Rewrite will not use the Community to directly solicit Members for paid services, and will not add you to any marketing list because you joined the Community unless you separately consent (see section 13).

6. Competition law and compliance

Members may compete for customers, contracts and employees. Canada’s Competition Act prohibits agreements between competitors to fix prices, allocate markets or restrict output, and agreements between unaffiliated employers to fix wages or employment terms or not to solicit or hire each other’s employees. Members must not use the Community to facilitate such agreements or share competitively sensitive information. These rules apply to all Members and to all conduct and communications within or connected with the Community.
You must not share, request or discuss “Competitively Sensitive Information”, which includes your Member Organization’s non-public:
1. current or future prices, pricing strategies, discounts, rates, margins or costs;
2. bids, tenders or proposals, and the terms offered to or by specific customers or suppliers;
3. customers, territories, market shares, capacity, output or expansion plans;
4. strategic, marketing or business plans; and
5. current or planned wages, salaries, bonuses, benefits, profit-sharing or distribution amounts, or hiring and retention plans, for specific roles or employees.
Generally, you may discuss how employee ownership structures work; governance, trustee and board practices; how you communicated with and engaged employee-owners; the transition process you went through; lessons learned; publicly available information; and information aggregated and anonymized by Rewrite or an independent third party so that it cannot be attributed to any organization. For example, describing in general terms how your organization designed its profit-sharing approach is different from sharing the specific amounts you pay or plan to pay.
You must never discuss, propose or reach any agreement or understanding with other Members (formal or informal, written or unwritten) about prices, bidding, allocating customers or territories, limiting output, refusing to deal with anyone, wages or other terms of employment, or not soliciting or hiring each other’s employees.
If a discussion moves toward any of these topics, please say so, stop participating in that discussion, and report it to a Moderator. Moderators may remove such Content immediately.

7. No professional advice

Nothing posted or shared in the Community, whether by Members, guests or Rewrite personnel, is legal, tax, accounting, financial, investment, valuation, human resources or other professional advice. Content is general information based on individual experience and it may be incomplete, out of date or not applicable to your circumstances.
Participating in the Community does not create a lawyer-client, advisor-client, fiduciary or any other professional relationship between you and Rewrite or any other Member. Rewrite provides advisory services only under a separate written engagement agreement.
Members who are professionals participate in their personal capacity and are not providing professional services through the Community. Before acting on anything you learn here, get advice from a qualified professional who knows your situation.

8. Confidentiality and trust

The Community works because Members can speak openly. You may use the ideas and information you learn in the Community for your own and your Member Organization’s learning, but you must not reveal outside the Community (a) the identity or affiliation of the Member who shared something, or of any other Member, or (b) any Content in a form that could identify who shared it or which organization it relates to.
You must not screenshot, copy, forward, record or transcribe Content for use outside the Community, and you must not publish, quote or attribute Content in any media, social media, presentation, article, research or other public forum, without the express prior consent of the Member who posted it.
Sections 8.1 and 8.2 do not apply to information that is already public (through no breach of these Terms), that you obtained independently, or that you are required by law to disclose (in which case, where lawful, please let us know first).
While we ask all Members to respect these obligations, Rewrite cannot guarantee that every Member will do so, and Content in a private workspace may still be subject to legal process. Please do not share anything you would be uncomfortable having disclosed.
Your obligations under this section continue after you leave the Community.

9. Anonymous posting

Rewrite may make available a way to post without your name being shown to other Members.
Rewrite and the provider of the anonymous posting tool may be able to identify you, and Rewrite may use that information to enforce these Terms or where required by law.
Anonymous posts are subject to all of these Terms. Removal for profanity or personal attacks under the Code of Conduct applies equally to anonymous posts and to posts directed at anonymous posters.

10. Your content

You keep ownership of the Content you post. You are responsible for your Content and confirm that you have the right to share it.
You grant Rewrite a perpetual, non-exclusive and royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce and display your Content within the Community, and to edit, hide or remove it, as needed to operate and moderate the Community.
Rewrite may prepare summaries of themes and frequently asked questions from Community discussions, and may share them with the Community and/or publicly. Rewrite will not quote you, or identify you or your Member Organization, outside the Community without your prior consent.
If you give us suggestions or feedback about the Community, we may use them without any obligation to you.
Materials that Rewrite shares in the Community remain the property of Rewrite (or its licensors) and may be used for your and your Member Organization’s internal, non-commercial purposes only, unless we say otherwise.

11. Moderation and monitoring

Rewrite is the owner and administrator of the workspace and actively moderates the Community. Moderators may review Content in public channels and in any private channels of which they are members.
Depending on the Slack plan and settings used, workspace owners may be able to access or export Content, including, on some plans, private channels and direct messages. Do not use the Community for anything you would not want the Moderators to be able to see.
Moderators may, at their discretion and where reasonable without prior notice: remove, edit or hide Content; move a discussion; issue a warning; restrict your ability to post; suspend you; or permanently remove you from the Community. As the Code of Conduct states, profanity or personal attacks will result in removal. Moderators may explain their decisions but are not required to.
Rewrite is not obliged to monitor any Content and is not responsible for Content posted by Members or guests. If you see something that breaches these Terms, please report it to a Moderator. You may also report content to Slack in accordance with Slack’s own processes.
If you believe a moderation decision about you was made in error, you may ask for it to be reviewed. Rewrite’s decision on review is final.
Messages and files in the Community may be retained for a period as determined by Rewrite, after which they may be automatically deleted.

12. Privacy

To run the Community, Rewrite collects and uses personal information including your name, email address, Member Organization, role, profile information, information you provide during onboarding about your organization’s ownership structure, your Content, and activity information that Slack makes available to workspace administrators.
We use this information to verify eligibility; operate, moderate and secure the Community; communicate with you about the Community (such as events and changes to these Terms); enforce these Terms; prepare anonymized summaries described in section 10.3; and comply with the law. We do not sell your personal information.
Your profile and Content will be visible to other Members. Slack acts as our service provider in hosting the Community, and your information may be stored and processed outside Canada, including in the United States, where it may be accessible to authorities under the laws of that jurisdiction. Slack’s own handling of information is described in Slack’s Privacy Policy.
Rewrite handles personal information in accordance with applicable Canadian privacy law, including British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act, and any applicable privacy policy. You may ask to access or correct your personal information, withdraw your consent (which may require you to leave the Community), or make a complaint by contacting the Moderator at community@rewrite.capital. You may also contact the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia.
You must not collect or use other Members’ personal information from the Community for any purpose other than participating in the Community.

13. Communications from Rewrite

We may send you messages about your membership and the Community through Slack or by email, such as announcements, event notices and changes to these Terms.
We will send you Rewrite newsletters, marketing or other promotional messages only if you have separately given express consent. You may withdraw that consent at any time using the unsubscribe link in any such message.

14. Slack and third-party services

The Community is hosted on Slack, a third-party service that Rewrite does not control. Your use of Slack is also governed by Slack’s User Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy and Privacy Policy. Rewrite is not responsible for Slack’s availability, security, features or changes to its terms.
Links to third-party websites, tools or resources shared in the Community are provided for convenience only. Rewrite does not endorse them and is not responsible for them.

15. Disclaimers

The Community is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Rewrite makes no representations or warranties about the Community or any Content, including as to accuracy, completeness, reliability or availability, or that other Members will comply with these Terms.
Content reflects the views of the person who posted it and not necessarily those of Rewrite. A mention of any person, provider or product is not an endorsement.

16. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Rewrite and its directors, officers, employees and contractors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data or goodwill, arising out of or relating to the Community, any Content, any decision made or action taken in reliance on Content, or the conduct of any Member, guest or third party.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Rewrite’s total liability to you and all other Members, in aggregate, for all claims relating to the Community is limited to CDN$5,000.
Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes any liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law.

17. Responsibility for your conduct

You agree to indemnify Rewrite and its directors, officers, employees and contractors against claims, losses and reasonable costs (including legal fees) brought by a third party and arising from your Content, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of any law or the rights of any other person.

18. Leaving, suspension and closure

You may leave the Community at any time by leaving the workspace or asking a Moderator to deactivate your account. Content you posted may remain visible after you leave unless you delete it beforehand (where workspace settings allow).
Rewrite may suspend or end your membership if you breach these Terms, if you are no longer eligible, if Rewrite deems your account not sufficiently active, or where reasonably necessary to protect the Community or its Members.
Rewrite may change, pause or close the Community at any time. We will give at least 10 days’ notice of closure where reasonably practicable.
Sections 5.1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12.5 and 15 to 20 continue to apply after your membership ends.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If you continue to participate after changes take effect, you accept the updated Terms. If you do not agree, you may leave the Community.

20. General

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada applicable in it. The courts of British Columbia, sitting in Vancouver, have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute relating to these Terms or the Community.
These Terms (including the Code of Conduct) and Rewrite’s Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and Rewrite about the Community. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. If we do not enforce a provision, we have not waived it.
Rewrite may assign these Terms to a successor or affiliate. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, employment or fiduciary relationship.

21. Contact

Questions about these Terms or the Community: community@rewrite.capital

Privacy questions: info@rewrite.capital

Mailing address:
Rewrite Capital Advisors Inc.
307-1477 W. Pender St.
Vancouver BC V6G 2S3

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Schedule A

Community Code of Conduct

Come to learn and share your experience. This is not a place to sell to other members or compete.
If you disagree, make sure you disagree with the idea, not the person (even if they are posting anonymously). Use of profanity or personal attacks will result in removal from the community.
Nothing posted in the community constitutes legal, tax, or financial advice.
Keep competitively sensitive information out, including pricing, wages, and anything members should not be coordinating on.
Rewrite moderates the workspace and may remove posts or members who don’t follow these rules.