Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Who we are

Our website address is: http://chesshub.org.za (hereinafter referred to as the “Site”).

South African Chess Hub is a FREE Online Chess Community for chess players, coaches and organisers.

The South African Chess Hub’s mission is to promote and develop chess in South Africa as a sport, recreational and educational activity by increasing participation in chess related activities thereby increasing opportunities for local chess players and coaches.

The following are the policies and terms of service. By using or visiting the Site, you expressly agree to be bound by these Terms. We reserve the right to change these Terms at any time, effective immediately upon posting on the Site. Please check this page of the Site periodically.

Disclaimer

The South African Chess Hub does not promise that the Site will be error-free, uninterrupted, nor that it will provide specific results from use of the Site or any Content, search or link on it. The Site and its Content are delivered on an “as-is” and “as-available” basis. The South African Chess Hub cannot ensure that files you download from the Site will be free of viruses or contamination or destructive features The South African Chess Hub will not be liable for any damages of any kind arising from the use of this Site, including without limitation, direct, indirect, incidental, and punitive and consequential damages.

The South African Chess Hub disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions and conduct of any third party users, The South African Chess Hub users, advertisers and/or sponsors on the Site, in connection with the The South African Chess Hub service or otherwise related to your use of the Site and/or the The South African Chess Hub service. The South African Chess Hub is not responsible for the products, services, actions or failure to act of any venue, Tournament Organiser or other third party in connection with or referenced on the Site.

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold The South African Chess Hub, officers, agents and other partners and employees, harmless from any loss, liability, claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your use of the Site.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

We are committed to protecting your private data. We will collate the information which you give to us to provide you with services and personalize your use and visits of this site. We may also use such information to inform you, the user, about changes in the services we offer and/or about features we think you would find of interest.

Profiles for children under 13 must be created by their parent or legal guardian. We do not knowingly contact or collect personal information from children under 13 without parental or guardian consent. If you believe we have inadvertently collected such information, please contact us so we can promptly obtain parental consent or remove the information.

South African Chess Hub and Tournament Organisers may only use your personal data for the purposes of executing transactions concluded with you or for the administration of events / tournaments that you enter and participate in. We may communicate with the participant through e-mail, WhatsApp and/or SMS channels.

South African Chess Hub may also send you information regarding upcoming chess events by e-mail or SMS, within our regular newsletters or our once-off promotional offers. We will also make your personal information available to the Tournament Organisers in order to enable them to host and administer chess events or tournaments. By using our services and by submitting your personal details, you consent to these outlined terms and conditions.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

Personal particulars will be shared with Tournament Organisers for all events you register a booking. When registering for an event using the booking function on the website you agree to your personal data being shared with the Tournament Organiser for the purposes of hosting and administering the event concerned.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Tournament Bookings

South African Chess Hub sells entries or tickets on behalf of Tournament Organisers (i.e. Chess Clubs, Schools, Arbiters, Chess Players, Chess Unions and other chess related organisations). Tournament Organisers are responsible to deliver the tournament, pay advertised prize funds and for any refunds due to entrants. Occasionally, events are cancelled or postponed by the Tournament Organisers for a variety of reasons. If the event is cancelled, please contact the Tournament Organiser directly.

It is your responsibility to ascertain whether an event has been cancelled and the date and time of any rearranged event. If an event is cancelled or rescheduled, we will use reasonable endeavours to notify participants of the cancellation once we have received the relevant authorisation from the Tournament Organiser. We do not guarantee that participants will be informed of such cancellation before the date of the event.

Any participant that fails to arrive on time or misses the start of the tournament forfeits all entry fees and will not be entitled to a refund unless they notify the Tournament Organiser earlier of 72 hours in advance of the event or 24 hours before the registration closing date. The Tournament Organiser, and not South African Chess Hub, remains responsible to refund any or all of the entry fee in terms of the tournament/events rules. The Tournament Organiser reserves the right to levy a cancellation fee.

This event/tournament entry is issued subject to the Rules and Regulations of the Tournament Organiser. The Tournament Organiser reserves the right to refuse admission should participants breach any Rules and Regulations. Any participant found to be cheating or breaking fair play rules issued by the Tournament Organiser forfeits all prize moneys.

Entries are sold subject to the Tournament Organiser’s right to alter or vary the programme due to events or circumstances beyond its reasonable control without being obliged to refund monies or exchange tickets. Tournament Organisers reserve the right to combine divisions or sections at their discretion.

The Tournament Organiser, venue or South African Chess Hub accept no responsibility for any personal property.

Neither the Tournament Organiser nor South African Chess Hub shall have any further liability beyond the price of entry paid by the participant.

In respect of online chess events, the Tournament Organiser or South African Chess Hub accept no responsibility for connectivity or device issues experienced during the tournament including any technical issues or failure by the relevant online chess platform.

Booking Process

To book entries to chess events with us, you will be required to complete the prescribed booking form. You must be over the age of 18 and able to conclude binding contracts to submit a booking to us or, if you under the age of 18, you must have obtained the consent of your parents or legal guardian to submit a booking to us. If you do not comply with the aforesaid you may not submit any booking for tickets via our site. We may require you to provide us with suitable documents proving your age and/or the consent of your parents or legal guardian prior to accepting any booking from you.

Please note that while we will try to send to you a confirmation email for every valid booking request we receive from you, we cannot guarantee that such confirmation notice will be received by you, nor that, if they are received by you, that they will be legible and uncorrupted. Your failure to receive such confirmation notice will not affect the validity of the agreement concluded between us in respect of a booking.

If you do not receive a confirmation email after submitting your payment information, or if you experience an error message or service interruption after submitting your payment information, you should confirm with us whether or not your order has been received and processed. Only you may be aware of any problems that may have occurred during the booking process. WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSSES YOU MAY INCUR IF YOU ASSUME THAT A BOOKING WAS NOT PROCESSED BECAUSE YOU FAILED TO RECEIVE OUR CONFIRMATION NOTICE.

Payment

You will be required to provide the necessary payment account details (such as credit card details) when submitting your booking request via the Payfast payment system. By submitting a booking request to us , you authorise Payfast to debit your designated account with the relevant amounts due for the tickets ordered. Such authorization will allow us to obtain payment via Payfast. We will not be obliged to issue any tickets to you prior to receiving full payment of the full agreed amount payable in respect of such tickets. Should we be unable to duly effect such payment for any reason your booking may be cancelled and your entry may be resold to another participant without further notice. You warrant that you are duly authorised to make payments from the account designated by you.

Tournament Organisers

Application to be Tournament organiser on www.chesshub.org.za

In order to utilise the event booking system on the Site including Payfast payment functionality, Tournament Organisers must apply by email to events@chesshub.org.za to be granted this functionality. South African Chess Hub reserves the right to request certain basic information from Tournament Organiser including but not limited to copy of identity document, proof of banking and proof of address.

Tournament Organisers may be required to sign an agreement or memorandum of understanding to confirm these terms of service.

Fees for Utilising the event booking system on www.chesshub.org.za

Tournament Organisers agree that a Transaction Charge will be levied at a fixed rand/percentage rate per transaction will be withheld from all proceeds received from the sale of entries / tickets via the Payfast facility.

In addition, the Tournament Organisers agree that a Fixed Cash Withdrawal Fee may be levied by the South African Chess Hub and withheld from all proceeds received on behalf of the Tournament Organiser, to cover the charges levied by Payfast.

Where no participant entry fee is required to enter the event, no fee will be charged by the South African Chess Hub.

The South African Chess Hub reserves the right to amend the Transaction Charge and Fixed Cash Withdrawal Fee from time to time and will undertake to notify all Tournament Organisers timeously in advance of said amendments.

The Transaction Charge & Fixed Cash Withdrawal Fee will cover the Payfast fees, administration costs involved in the event management system and the maintenance and development of the site (www.chesshub.org.za). Any excess will be donated to the Promoting Pawns Chess Foundation NPC (Reg. Number: 2020/449444/08) to be utilised for chess development and social upliftment within the poor and needy communities of South Africa.

Payment to Tournament Organisers

The payment to the Tournament Organiser of nett proceeds received from the sale of entries / tickets via the Payfast facility (after deducting the Transaction Charge and Fixed Cash Withdrawal Fee) will be made as soon as practically possible up, to 4 business days after the booking have closed, into the designated bank account. Advance payments can be made by prior agreement between South African Chess Hub and the Tournament Organiser.

Responsibilities of the Tournament Organisers

The Tournament Organiser is responsible to deliver the chess event / tournament in terms of rules and regulations as published on the website or any other means including brochures, posters or other social media posts.
The Tournament Organiser is responsible to comply with all FIDE, Chess SA, provincial bodies’regulations in hosting their chess event / tournament.
The Tournament Organiser is responsible for all refunds to participants and the payment of published prize funds to the tournament winners or lucky draw winners.

Social responsibility

Tournament Organisers are encouraged, but not obligated, to donate a percentage of their entry fees to the Promoting Pawns Chess Foundation NPC (Reg. Number: 2020/449444/08) to be utilised for chess development and social upliftment within the poor and needy communities of South Africa. We also encourage Tournament Organisers to donate or sponsor entries to their events to the poor and needy chess players. Please feel free to contact events@chesshub.org.za to find out more or refer to https://chesshub.org.za/charity/ to learn more about this organisation.

Membership

Membership to www.chesshub.org.za is FREE.

Membership to www.chesshub.org.za is open to all South Africans, persons resident/living in South Africa or chess players participating in South African online chess events.

Registered members of the website must comply with the following:

  • Members must use the same name that you use in everyday life
  • Members must provide accurate information about yourself and keep this up to date
  • Members may only create one account
  • Members shall not share their password
  • Members shall not use foul or discriminatory language or pictures in their events or profiles
  • Members shall not post events that are fictitious or misleading
  • Members shall only use this platform for the development and enjoyment of chess
  • Members shall not use this platform for any matters unrelated to chess
  • Members shall not use copyrighted material on this platform

South African Chess Hub reserves the right to request proof of personal particulars of any user transacting on the site.

South African Chess Hub reserves the right to delete users for serious or repeated offences, remove or restrict access to content that is in violation of the above provisions without first notifying the user.