Version 2.2, Sept 26th 2021
The terms and conditions below will be updated regularly at these early stages of fast growth of our Virtual Village. We will ask you to accept any new updates. Please feel free to help to make the T&C’s as fair and transparent as they can be by joining the discussion inside.
Objective of the Virtual Village
The purpose of this platform is to help achieve the aims of Rubha Phoil and to facilitate connection between like minded people and businesses. To create an online regenerative village and economy. It is a forum and social media platform but is more than that too. It is a Virtual Village where we together create a new world AND a new fair economy.
It is a virtual village, where everything works like you’d expect in a normal village in a future permaculture world. Open source, transparent, collective decision making, a local economy with soon our own currency, reinvesting profits into the village and it’s members, jobs, a treasury for low or interest free loans, fair shares, fundraising support, easy to buy, swap and sell, an education system, a soapbox and much more…. Creating a new world, one step at a time.
This is a vehicle that will support the journey for everyone that shares our dream: A better world for all.
Rubha Rocks
Rubha Rocks are ‘promises’ issued by Ludwig Appeltans trading as Earth Ways as founder Custodian of Rubha Phoil and accepted in exchange for value received in money (£) or in-kind (“Credit Obligations”). Rubha Rocks are returnable at any time in payment for £ denominated Rubha Phoil rentals or production. Rubha Rocks are not returnable in exchange for £ sterling but may be assigned between Members in exchange for value received in £ sterling or in kind. All transactions on our platform are carried out in these Rubha Rocks (RR). After you register, you will find some RR ready in your account to use. (You won’t if you use a concession) The RR credit obligations are pegged to the Scottish Pound Sterling (and to the £ UK Pound) 1 RR = £1. Ludwig makes the legally binding commitment to you to honour that value of the Rubha Rock. Much like the Banks promise to honour the value of the bank notes and the digits on your bank statement. Please note that Ludwig is not acting as a bank and as such is unable to refund any and all purchases of Rubha Rocks made in £’s. This would be against the law for him to do so. You can trade them with other members in the village.
Terms and conditions for all users of the Virtual Village
Applicability.
These terms and conditions apply between you as the user and Earth Ways (the current trading face of Rubha Phoil and the Virtual Village) with respect to your purchases of products and services from www.rubhaphoil.org or members.rubhaphoil.org. These terms and conditions shall apply and not be altered without the express written permission from Earth Ways.
Please read these Terms & Conditions carefully before you start to use our site, as these will apply. We recommend that you print a copy of this for future reference. By using our site, you confirm that you accept these Terms of Use and that you agree to comply with them.
If you do not agree to these terms of use, you must not use our site.
General terms
If you establish a relationship with the previous owner or her family while a member, we need you to disclose that to us and we’d like to assure you that you have seen the evidence available to see and that you are not in danger of being ‘turned’ against us.
You can read more about this history here. You are welcome to share your own story here.
Your account and password.
If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential. You must not disclose it to any third party.
If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your user identification code or password, you must promptly notify us via our Contact Email Address on the contact page here.
Intellectual Property Rights.
We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site (unless specifically stated otherwise when Vendors offer their material for sale), and all the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these Terms of & Conditions, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.
You may not copy material and words from other users and use it without their permission. This is not a public platform.
No reliance on information.
Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our site, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our site is accurate, complete or up-to-date.
We are not responsible for the content or the links to content on other websites that other users post.
You further acknowledge and agree that Ludwig trading as Earth Ways and Rubha Phoil shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such web sites or services.
We strongly advise you to read the terms and conditions and privacy policies of any third-party web sites or services that you visit.
Termination.
We may terminate or suspend access to our Service immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach the Terms.
All provisions of the Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.
We may terminate or suspend your account immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach the Terms.
Upon termination, your right to use the Service will immediately cease. If you wish to terminate your account, you may simply discontinue using the Service.
Shipping.
These Terms will need updating before items are allowed to be sold to outside the UK that needs goods being shipped. Brexit! Help!
Payment terms.
The registration fee transaction and verification is performed by Stripe. The online marktplace will only accept Rubha Rocks to trade. You can exchange RR for £’s or earn them in other ways. We will accept cash for Rubha Rocks in person, via BACS or via paypal on the Village.
All orders received are subject to acceptance by Earth Ways on our sole discretion. All processed orders are subject to availability. Earth Ways is not liable for delay in product shipment or for products offered for sale by other vendors.
Sales Tax.
We are required by law to collect all applicable sales tax and customs. We are not sure what this means for people living in the EU or for us selling to the EU. We will update our policy once we know. Until then, all cross border trade needs to be individually approved before sale.
Time In Transit Damage Claims.
Ownership of each product belongs to you, the Customer, once package is picked-up from our distribution facility by yourself or by any shipping company. Any damage or loss which occurs during transit will be covered by us unless damage or loss occurs when the package is shipped by special carrier selected by the Customer. Our standard shipping company is Royal mail for small items and Hermes for larger items.
Returns.
We do not accept returns for perishable items, all such sales are final. Any claims for misprinted/damaged/defective items must be submitted within 14 days after the product is received. For packages lost in transit, all claims must be submitted no more than 14 days after the estimated delivery date. All sales for limited edition / limited quantity items are FINAL unless there is a product defect. Please contact us via our contact page before returning your items. Shipping for authorized returns must be paid by the customer.
Defective merchandise will be exchanged for same or similar product. Refunds are not given for any claims.
Limitation of Damages & Liability.
Earth Ways is in no way liable to any Customer or User for any special, incidental, consequential or punitive damages, or for any claim by any third party. Customer agrees that for any liability related to the purchase of any Products, Earth Ways is not liable for any amount of damages above the amount paid by Customer for the purchases under this agreement.
Uploading content to our site.
Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload content to our site, or to make contact with other users of our site, you must comply with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Policy (see below).
You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and you will be liable to us and indemnify us for any breach of that warranty. If you are a consumer user, this means you will be responsible for any loss or damage we suffer as a result of your breach of warranty.
Any content you upload to our site will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You retain all of your ownership rights in your content, but you are required to grant us a limited license to use, store and copy that content and to distribute and make it available to third parties (the people you wish to share it with).
We will not be responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of any content posted by you or any other user of our site.
We have the right to remove any posting you make on our site if, in our opinion, your post does not comply with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Policy.
The views expressed by other users on our site do not represent our views or values.
You are solely responsible for securing and backing up your content.
Acceptable use policy.
Content posted by you (if any) on our site must not:
- make defamatory, libellous, false or misleading comments;
- use obscene, insulting, racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory, offensive or inappropriate language;
- advocate or induce others to engage in unlawful activities;
- infringe the right to privacy, intellectual property or proprietary rights of others; or
- violate any Scottish, UK, foreign or international statute, regulation, rule, order, treaty, or other law.
There is no endorsement, implied or otherwise, by us of any content posted by you on our site.
You must not use any automated or manual techniques including any form of web scraping intended to allow use of material on this website without complying with these terms of use.
Linking to our site.
You may link to our home page of our Virtual Village, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it.
You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.
The website in which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out in our Acceptable Use Policy.
If you wish to make any use of content on our site other than that set out above, please contact us at our Contact Email Address.
Reservations & Exceptions.
We reserve the right to adjust pricing on products without notice. In addition we reserve the right to modify terms, specifications and the like for Products on the Internet Purchase Page or Website at any time without notice. Any errors in Product specifications, descriptions, and pricing are subject to correction by us. We also reserve the right to reject any order that is not consistent with these terms & conditions or our sales policy guidelines.
Community Standards.
Courtesy and Respect are permaculture virtues and a part of everything we do at Earth Ways, Rubha Phoil and the Virtual Village.
We invite you to share your experience you have with the Virtual Village, with the larger Permaculture community. We only ask that you follow our community guidelines.
Respect the Virtual Village. Don’t post or make comments containing profanity, hateful speech, personal attacks, threats of violence, obscenity, explicit material or defamatory remarks. Value all members of the community. Treat everyone equally and fairly.
Protect your personal information. You participate in Rubha Phoil’s Virtual Village at your own risk. Be careful not to publicly share your personal information or the personal information of others. Read our privacy policy for more details on how we do our best to protect your privacy.
Respect the law. Content or discussions about illegal activity, violating copyrights, and criminal activities are not permitted.
Don’t spam. Off-topic or obviously promotional content takes away from the purpose of the Village. Posting the same content more than once in a discussion can be considered spam, whether from one person or multiple people. Links are allowed as long as they are relevant to the social conversation.
All things are good in moderation, including social media comments. We reserve the right to delete comments or ban users at our discretion.
By posting on the Virtual Village, you’re promising to comply with these community standards. We will remove any content or comments that do not comply with the standards listed above.
Terms and Conditions for Vendors
All products and services offered need to be legally allowed to be traded in Scotland.
The ethics need to be ‘permaculture’. The website owners Earth Ways have the final say in what is allowed and not allowed to be for sale. (Please don’t let this put you off, this sounds harsher than it is. We will create a team to help guide this process fairly. Please join the discussion.)
What does make it permaculture, is the way the permaculture ethics are adhered too.
These are the three simple key ethical principles. Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share. These ethics are found in many traditional societies which have existed in relative balance with their environment for much longer than more recent civilizations.
-Earth Care asks us to preserve the soil, keep the air and water clean, protect and enhance biodiversity, and conserve energy and natural resources.
-People Care is about health and well-being, nourishment with good food, lifelong learning, trust, respect and meaningful work, mental and spiritual well-being, a healthy abundance of connections.
-Fair Share emphasizes equitable distribution of resources, networking and cooperation, reduction of consumerism, and rethinking notions of growth, progress and development. In the present and in the past. Honoring people that came before us, leaving a nice planet behind for the ones that come after us.
We can call it permaculture if we work towards helping at least one of the ethics and not negatively influence any of the 3. So it is part of the solution towards a permanent culture.
All transactions need to happen using our own credit called Rubha Rock (RR). See terms higher up in this page.
All transactions within the platform are in RR. Currently the website charges a tiny transaction fee on some transactions. But may change that in the future to fund the platform and the goals of the community it is. This will be regulated by the users.
We ask you to not take transactions that are initiated on this website outside.
We reserve the right to remove your shop for a breach of our Terms and Conditions.
You will need to adhere to all applicable laws regarding online sales as if this was your own shop. We do not take responsibility for the transactions you engage in. The plastic card payment at registration and the manual approval of the membership, (we don’t let anyone in that we don’t know) gives you some security that you are dealing with genuine trustworthy people. But still make sure that it is clear what you are offering and to whom.
You will need to have your own insurance if applicable.
Earth Ways cannot convert your RR’s into £ or other currencies. That would be illegal for us to do. You can however trade them in kind or Sterling with other users.
Rubha Rocks are not returnable in exchange for £ sterling but may be assigned between Members in exchange for value received in £ sterling or in kind.
This means that you are able to sell your RR’s to other users on the Village. At the moment we allow this free of charge. But in future we may charge you. Likely 5-7%, depending on amount of money earned and the agreement we make together. We can discuss a fair exchange with you. This is how we intend to pay part of the costs of the website: bank transfer costs, the website costs, wages for staff, accountants, the 2.9% that Stripe charges when people buy RR’s, …
We intend to use 1% to invest in the real life Rubha Phoil community project and 1% to reinvest in to the members of the Virtual Village in the form off startup grants and loans for new local permaculture enterprises. We intend to use 2% to pay the wages of the staff and for the running costs of the platform. Once we have raised enough money to cover the annual costs of the platform, the charges will go down.
We will be clear about our charges before you start and be open and transparent and make a clear written agreement with you. We will not suddenly raise our charges.
You will receive an annual account of your transactions for the tax department and can download your transaction history at any time in your account.
You are responsible for your own tax return.
We expect all vendors to operate in a spirit of cooperation, not competition. We are willing to discuss a personal agreement with you and your business.
Your privacy is protected as best we can, see our Privacy policy.