Your contract is with Operation Encounter Limited a company registered in England and Wales (registered number 10382062) whose registered office is Westhorpe Farm, Marlow, Bucks, SL7 3RQ (Operation Encounter Limited).
This is an important document and will create legally binding obligations on you. If you do not understand anything set out in it you should take legal advice before entering into a contract with us.
This document sets out what you can expect from Operation Encounter and what your obligations are. By booking an experience or experiences with Operation Encounter, you (and where you are under the age of 18 years, your parents or guardians) are entering into a contract. You warrant and guarantee that you have the authority to accept and do accept these Conditions which shall apply to your booking to the exclusion of all other terms and conditions.
Confirmation
Once details of your booking have been agreed we will send your group leader an email with details of your experience.
What is included in your experience:
- Planning and logistical arrangements for the experience
- The professional services of Operation Encounter’s instructors for training and supervision
- Location or venue facilities for participants, as applicable.
What is not included in the experience:
- Transportation to and from the agreed venue
- Your food and personal equipment (unless otherwise stated)
- Supervision or transportation arrangements in the event you are excluded or no longer able to participate in the experience.
Understanding the nature of your experience
You confirm that you understand the likely physical demands and risks of the experience, that the experience will take place outdoors on rough terrain, in changeable weather conditions, and that you may be required to undertake extended physical effort. Due to the nature of the activities undertaken you must take responsibility for your own health and safety as you may not be directly supervised for parts of the experience.
We accept no responsibility for any additional costs incurred as a result of you not successfully completing the experience or activities that form part of it.
Health
You must be sufficiently physically fit and medically healthy to participate safely in the experience, and you must be willing and able to be in involved in all aspects of facilitation.
If you have any medical problem or a disability, you must tell us via your group leader or directly before you confirm your booking so that we can advise as to the suitability of the chosen experience.
Before the experience begins a Consent Form or Team Information Form (depending on the type of group and experience). A copy of the Consent Form or Team Information Form must be completed and signed by you or your group leader and returned to us at least 7 days before the first day of facilitation, or from the point of booking if less than 7 days. It is your responsibility to ensure that we are notified via the Consent Form or Team Information Form of any medical problems, disabilities and any other issue which may affect your ability to participate.
If any medical problems or disabilities are suffered or arise after the Consent Form is submitted, you must notify us immediately.
If you answer ‘yes’ to any of the questions on the Consent Form, we may require you to obtain confirmation from a medical professional that you are fit to take part in the experience.
If any medical problem or injury occurs during the experience you must notify us immediately. You should speak to an instructor, a member of Operation Encounter’s staff, or call our office on 01628 308338 and someone will be able to assist you. We will assess the problem and provide appropriate medical care. If we are not notified immediately we cannot be held liable for any subsequent symptoms, complications or deterioration in your health.
We reserve the right to decline or cancel a booking or part of a booking, or exclude you at any time without refund or compensation, if we reasonably believe that you are not sufficiently fit to take part in the experience or if you have any medical problem or disability that is likely to prejudice your health and safety or the health and safety of anyone else participating.
Personal Equipment
You will be provided with relevant equipment for the activities you undertake, but you will also be asked to provide some items of personal equipment including clothing and footwear as detailed in our preparation guide. We reserve the right to exclude you from the experience if in our opinion you are not suitably equipped to safely take part in the experience.
Behaviour
We reserve the right to exclude you from the experience if in our opinion your behaviour is likely to prejudice the safety and wellbeing of you, any member of the experience, or satisfactory progress of the experience. Reasons for exclusion may include but are not limited to failure to comply with our instructions, failure to fully participate in activities or disruptive, threatening or unsafe behaviour.
Exclusion
In the event of you being excluded from an experience, no refunds will be given and we will not be responsible for any associated costs or losses which may arise.
Damage
We reserve the right to charge you for any damage to, or loss of, property or equipment caused willfully, recklessly or by negligent behaviour.
Insurance
We are fully insured to carry out all of the activities described. Further details of our insurance policy are available on request.
We strongly recommend that you and any other participants obtain personal insurance to cover the event of a cancellation due to your or someone else’s illness, and to cover personal clothing and equipment during the experience.
Group Sizes
We normally require a minimum of 30 participants to run any experience for young people. Maximum total group size may exceed 300 with participants being divided into sub-groups for activities.
Experience Fees – Schools
To confirm your booking we require a minimum 20% non-refundable deposit (Deposit) as detailed in the confirmation invoice. The balance of the experience fee (Balance) is due 6 weeks before your experience start date.
If you are booking within 6 weeks of the experience start date, the full experience fee is due at the time of booking.
If you don’t pay the balance 6 weeks before the experience start date, we reserve the right to treat your booking as having been cancelled by you, and the conditions and charges below will apply.
In the case of late payment, we reserve the right, under late payment legislation, to charge you interest at the statutory rate on any overdue sums and to charge you for debt recovery costs.
If you change or cancel your booking
We start to incur costs from the moment you make your booking. Please contact us as soon as possible if you need to amend your booking. All requests for changes to your booking must be made in writing. We will do our utmost to make these changes, but it may not always be possible. You may be asked to pay an amendment fee to cover any additional costs we incur in making this alteration. If we are able to make the requested alteration, a new confirmation invoice will be sent to you.
You may cancel your place on the experience at any time. To do this please notify us in writing. Since we incur costs in cancelling places on an experience, you will have to pay the applicable cancellation charges shown below and you will remain liable for any losses arising from your breach of the conditions of your contract.
Cancellation more than 6 weeks before the experience start date:
Cancellation Charge = Deposit
Cancellation 6 weeks or less before the experience start date:
Cancellation Charge = Deposit and 100% of total fee due
Without prejudice to the above, Operation Encounter may in it’s sole and absolute discretion refund part of the experience fee or roll it forward to a future booking.
Note: If the reason for your cancellation is covered under the terms of an insurance policy, you may be able to reclaim these charges, but it is your sole responsibility to do so and we accept no liability for any acts or omissions of the insurance company.
Experience Fees – NCS Trust
To confirm your booking we require a deposit (Deposit) as detailed in the confirmation invoice. The balance of the experience fee (Balance) is due 60 days before your experience start date.
If you are booking within 60 days of the experience start date, the full experience fee is due at the time of making the booking.
If you don’t pay the balance 60 days before the experience start date, we reserve the right to treat your booking as having been cancelled by you, and the conditions and charges below will apply.
In the case of late payment, we reserve the right, under late payment legislation, to charge you interest at the statutory rate on any overdue sums and to charge you for debt recovery costs.
If you change or cancel your booking
We start to incur costs from the moment you make your booking. Please contact us as soon as possible if you need to amend your booking. All requests for changes to your booking must be made in writing. We will do our utmost to make these changes, but it may not always be possible. You may be asked to pay an amendment fee to cover any additional costs we incur in making this alteration. If we are able to make the requested alteration, a new confirmation invoice will be sent to you.
You may cancel your experience at any time. To do this please notify us in writing. Since we incur costs in cancelling places on an experience, you will have to pay the applicable cancellation charges shown below and you will remain liable for any losses arising from your breach of the conditions of your contract.
Places cancelled more than 120 days before day one of the booking – no penalty
Places cancelled 120 to 91 days before day one of the booking – 50% penalty
Places cancelled 90 to 60 days before day one of the booking – 75% penalty
Places cancelled less than 60 days before day one of the booking – 100% penalty
Without prejudice to the above, Operation Encounter may in it’s sole and absolute discretion refund part of the experience fee.
Note: If the reason for your cancellation is covered under the terms of an insurance policy, you may be able to reclaim these charges, but it is your sole responsibility to do so and we accept no liability for any acts or omissions of the insurance company.
If we change or cancel your booking
It is unlikely that we will have to make any changes to your experience after you have booked, however we plan the experience in advance and in the interests of your safety and enjoyment this may be necessary. We reserve the right to make changes to the experience at any time. Most of these changes will be minor and we will advise you of them at the earliest possible date.
We also reserve the right to cancel your experience or any part of it, for any reason. If we are unable to provide the experience or any part of it, you will be offered either a refund in full, or a part refund for any parts of the experience that we have not already delivered. You may also be offered an alternative experience, if available.
If we change or cancel the experience we will not be liable for any indirect or consequential expenses or losses suffered by you.
If you have a problem or a complaint
If you have a problem during the experience, please inform us immediately and we will endeavor to assist you or correct the situation. You should speak to an instructor, the experience coordinator, or call our office on 01628 308338 and someone will be able to assist you.
If your complaint is not resolved then please follow up within 14 days with an email to info@operationencounter.com or a letter to the registered company address, giving us the facts and as much evidence as you can. This will enable us to investigate and respond to your concerns.
If you fail to follow this procedure you will not have given us the opportunity to assist you and rectify your complaint during the experience, and to fully investigate your complaint after the experience. This may affect your rights as you will have failed to have mitigated (minimised) your losses and may be unable to subsequently recover compensation.
Our Liability to You
Our obligations whilst providing any service or facility included in your experience are to take reasonable skill and care to provide or arrange for the provision of such services and facilities.
If the contract we have with you is not performed or is improperly performed by us or our suppliers, we will pay you appropriate compensation if this has affected your enjoyment of part of or the entire experience. However we will not be liable where any failure in the performance of the contract is due to:
- You or any other participant
- Any acts of third party suppliers
- A third party unconnected with the provision of the experience, where the failure is unforeseeable or unavoidable
- Extreme environmental conditions (including weather)
- Unusual and/or unforeseeable circumstances beyond our control, the consequences of which could not have been avoided even if all due care had been exercised
- An event which we or our suppliers, even with all due care, could not foresee or forestall.
Our liability, except in cases involving death or personal injury arising from our negligence, shall be limited to a maximum of twice the price paid for you to undertake the experience.
Data Protection
We shall ensure that appropriate security measures are in place to protect your personal data (as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998). When you make a booking, you consent to all the information you provide being used by those acting on behalf of Operation Encounter for the purpose of administering and delivering the experience. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information.
Photographs and Video
By agreeing to these terms and conditions you consent to Operation Encounter taking video or photographs of you to be used with discretion for publicity and training purposes, including but not limited to printed and internet publications. If you wish to opt out, please contact info@operationencounter.com prior to the experience start date.
Intellectual Property
You agree and acknowledge that all intellectual property rights and know-how contained in and relevant to the experience, including materials, trademarks of Operation Encounter and advertising materials and text are, and shall remain, the property of Operation Encounter. You will use such intellectual property rights only in accordance with the instructions and prior permissions of Operation Encounter.
General
This contract is made on the terms of these conditions, which are governed by English Law, and you agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.
If any of these conditions is found by any court or other competent authority to be wholly or partly unfair or unenforceable, the validity of the rest of the conditions and the rest of the condition in question shall not be affected and shall remain valid and enforceable to the extent permitted by law.
The headings in these conditions are for convenience only and shall not affect their interpretation.
Where the context otherwise requires, words importing the singular meaning shall include the plural meaning and vice versa, and words denoting the masculine gender shall include the feminine and neuter genders.
Where the context so admits, words denoting persons shall include natural persons, companies, charities, corporations, firms, partnerships, limited liability partnerships, joint ventures, trusts, voluntary associations and other incorporated and/or unincorporated bodies or other entities (in each case, whether or not having separate legal personality) and all such words shall be construed interchangeably in that manner.
A person who is not a party to the contract or these conditions has no right under the contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any term of the contract or these conditions but this does not affect any right or remedy of a third party which exists or is available apart from this Act.