We’re a non-profit volunteer-run community group whose main interests are paddling and occasionally a good beer.

Our only interest in you is to try to entice you into coming on some of our trips and perhaps to coerce you into volunteering to help us keep the lights on and the coffee brewing. 

We collect your email so we can send you updates on what we’re doing and perhaps ask you and your friends to join us on a paddle.

Any data we collect is to help us understand our members and help us to better serve our community.

That’s it. Seriously. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re not asking for money. We’re not sharing your data with anyone outside the AMC. We’re not even sharing with the AMC or our local Chapter unless they come asking.

We’re willing to bet that you don’t really know what a cookie is.

Cookies are little bits of information that our website stores in your browser to help us remember you and make your interaction with our site a fun and pleasant experience. It’s part-and-parcel of how websites work. We use cookies to tell whether or not you’re logged in to the site, what permissions you have to access content, what was the last post you read in our forums so we know what’s “new” content for you.  

You can disable cookies in your browser but please don’t whine when our awesome website stops working.

So we might be stalking you – but just a little bit.

We use Google Analytics mostly so we know which pages are popular and how our users interact with our website. Google Analytics doesn’t collect any personal data but it does grab your IP address – mainly to help us identify where our visitors are coming from. Google Analytics shows us lots of cool graphs and charts about what pages are popular, when people visit the site, what browser they’re using, whether they’re on mobile or a computer and a bunch of other stuff. But – outside of your IP address – there’s nothing we collect that identifies you individually.

We have a Facebook page and an Instagram account and we track likes and shares on social media. We’re not advertising, so we’re not using tools like Facebook Pixel to try to sell you stuff.

We also have a security firewall that tracks both valid and invalid login attempts on our site. So if you’re trying to hack us, we’ll know your IP address and what username you tried to use when we call the Interwebs Police.

What do we do with all this information?

Honestly, not much. We’re all volunteers and we’re much more interested in paddling (or beer) and we don’t have a hell of a lot of time to devote to picking over tracking stats looking to micro-manage user interactions. We’re just really happy you paid us a visit!

We do store some of your personal data on our website. Here’s the scoop …

If you create a user account we collect your email and real name for security purposes and to contact you with site or security updates or to reach you for committee business.

Member information may be shared with other members who are registered as Trip Leaders or members of the Committee. Member information is not shared with other users on the site.

We maintain a community forum on our website that can be viewed by both registered users and the general public. As a participant in these forums you may choose to add personal information such as social media ids, website links, phone number and other such data to your profile. User profiles are not visible to the general public but they are visible to other members. Your email address is always hidden from other forum users and from the public.

Posts and replies you make on our forums will contain your avatar, forum “handle” or username, and any signature you choose to attach to your posts. These items are visible to the general public and may expose personal information about you. If your name is John Jones and your username is John-Jones and your avatar is a photo of John Jones and you put John Jones in your signature, it won’t be long before someone figures out you are John Jones.

User account information on our website is completely separate from user account information that may be stored on other AMC websites. Your account here and your account on the AMC’s website at outdoors.org are not connected in any way.

You should be aware, however, that we are chartered by the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) and the AMC’s Boston Chapter as an Activity Committee. As such, the AMC and the AMC’s Boston Chapter have a right to ask us for information on our users and we would be obligated to turn over your data to them.

Most of our users register both with us and with the AMC, but we have no responsibility for data maintained on other AMC websites – so please don’t ask us about your account with the AMC.

We do link to events and other information on the AMC’s website or the AMC Boston Chapter’s website. If you register for an event that we advertise on this website, you will be taken to the AMC’s registration form and you are providing your details directly to the AMC and not to our organization.

Most of our activities are free to both members and the general public but from time to time we organize events that may require payment of a fee.

All payments – electronic, cash or check – are made directly to the AMC’s Boston Chapter and not to this committee. We do not keep any financial details about any transactions with the Boston Chapter on this website. You must contact the AMC Boston Chapter directly concerning your payment details.

Heck, we don’t even have our own bank account!

Any interested person can subscribe to our mailing list through a form on our website. Users who register for an account on our website are automatically added to our mailing list, which we maintain on MailChimp.

When you sign up to our mailing list or register for a user account, we will send you periodic emails. These emails consist of newsletters, meeting announcements, activity announcements, and other topics that we think you and our members might be interested in. Generally, you’ll receive email from us a few times each month – perhaps a bit more in the summer months when we’re doing more paddling and a bit less in the winter months when people are thinking about skiing and not paddling.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email. Your name and email address are stored securely with MailChimp and not on our website.

MailChimp adds tracking links to these emails and we will know a bunch of things about your interaction with our email messages. We’ll know if you open the email. We’ll know if you click on a link inside the email. We’ll also know if you’re ignoring us by not reading our email. But don’t worry, we’re adults and we can take it.

At a high level, we’re happy when more people read our email and we’re a bit sad when less people read our email. But that’s about it. We’re trying to give you interesting content in hopes of getting you out to paddle. But really – we don’t have the time or inclination to fuss over every user who may not open an email.

You have the right to ask us to delete you from our system and we’ll oblige – although we may take it poorly and be a bit passive-aggressive about your request.

We can delete ALL your data or just delete some of it. 

Specifically, you can request …

• that we remove your user account
• that we remove your profile from our forums
• that we remove any posts or replies to posts you made in our forums
• that we remove your name from any page or post on our site
• that we remove your email information from MailChimp

The best way to reach us is by email. We don’t have a physical office or phone.

If you have questions about our website or our privacy policy, or if you would like us to remove your data from our site, please send an email to

admin@amcbostonpaddlers.org

If you need to send us something by mail (like if you want to sue us or send us a legal demand … egads!), please send it to the attention of the Boston Chapter, Paddling Activities Committee at the address below.

Appalachian Mountain Club
Boston Chapter, Paddling Activities Committee
10 City Square, Boston, MA 02129

Phone: 617-523-0655
Fax: 617-523-0722