Terms & safety

If you read nothing else, read this. It applies to everyone who plays at a session listed through Bangalore Volleyball Club.

Bangalore Volleyball Club ("BVC") is an informal community and shared noticeboard through which players discover pickup volleyball sessions. BVC is not a registered company, society, trust or partnership, it is not a legal entity, and it has no employees. Nobody profits from it.

Each session is independently arranged by the member identified as its host. That host chooses the venue, the format, the player list, the cost contribution, the refund position and any rules specific to that session. Two sessions in the same week may be run on entirely different terms, because two different people arranged them.

Community administrators do not organise or supervise a session unless they are specifically named as its host. Running the WhatsApp group, keeping this site up or posting a game someone else is hosting is not hosting.

A host is a fellow player making arrangements for one session — not a coach, an official, a referee, a trainer, or a medical professional, and not anyone's employee or agent. Hosts act for themselves, not for BVC and not for each other.

Volleyball is a contact-adjacent, high-impact sport. Injuries happen in the ordinary course of play even when everyone is careful. Common ones include sprained ankles, jammed or broken fingers, knee and shoulder injuries, collisions with other players, and falls. Serious injury is less likely but possible.

By turning up and playing, you accept these risks voluntarily and agree that you are playing at your own risk. You are the best judge of your own fitness and ability — please use that judgement.

• 18 and over only. Sessions listed here are not for minors, and hosts can't put an under-18 player on a list.
• You decide whether you can play safely. Nobody here is qualified to make that call for you, and nobody checks. Don't play injured, unwell, or while recovering from something that could be made worse. If you have a heart condition, a respiratory condition, or any medical issue that hard exercise could aggravate, speak to a doctor before playing.
• No alcohol or intoxicants. Don't play after drinking or using anything that impairs your judgement or balance. Hosts can and will ask you to sit out.
• Arrange your own health cover. No insurance of any kind is held for these sessions — not by BVC, not by the hosts — and nobody here covers medical costs.
• Bring your own gear and look after your things. We're not responsible for lost, stolen or damaged belongings.
• Warm up, and tell the host about anything relevant — an injury you're managing, a condition that might matter in an emergency, or an emergency contact they should know.

Sessions happen on courts hired from third-party venues. The venue owns the court, its net, posts, lighting and surface, and the venue is who maintains them. A host booking a slot is a player hiring a court for an evening, nothing more, and each venue's own rules apply while you're on their premises.

Hosts do not professionally inspect a court. They aren't trained or qualified to assess a playing surface, and any look-over before play is a casual one by another player — not a safety inspection, and not a warranty that the court is safe. Satisfying yourself that a court is one you're willing to play on is your own call.

If you spot something unsafe, tell the host and the venue straight away rather than fixing it yourself.

Joining the group is free. Courts are not, so the players in a session split what the venue charges for it.

What you send a host is a pass-through contribution toward that session's court cost. The host pays the venue and collects shares from the players who turn up. Hosts take no commission and make no profit, nobody draws a salary, and no fund is accumulated. The amount is set by the host of that session and varies with the venue and the number of players. Hosts keep venue receipts, and any player can ask what a session cost and what was collected.

Refunds are set by each host for their own session — it's their booking and their money with the venue. In practice the court is paid for whether you turn up or not, so a spot usually can't be refunded at short notice. If you've paid and can't make it, say so early: that gives the host time to pass your place to someone else, which is normally how it gets sorted out.

The whole point of this group is that anyone can show up and get a game. That only works if everyone is decent to each other.

• Treat every player with respect, whatever their skill, gender, age, caste, religion, language, nationality, disability, or sexual orientation.
• Beginners get extra touches, not eye-rolls.
• No harassment of any kind — sexual, verbal, physical, or online. No unwanted contact, comments about someone's body, or persistent messaging after someone has asked you to stop.
• No aggressive, intimidating or dangerous play. No fighting.
• Rotate in fairly and call your own faults honestly.
• Respect venue staff, venue rules and neighbours.
• Don't use the group to sell, spam, or recruit.

If something goes wrong: tell the host of that session, or message any host or administrator privately if that's easier. We'll listen and take it seriously, and we'll be as discreet as we reasonably can — though we can't promise complete confidentiality, since acting on something often means speaking to the person involved, and sometimes to the venue or the police. What follows might be a conversation, a warning, or being removed from the group and not being welcome at sessions.

We're players, not investigators. Nobody here can compel anyone to answer questions, obtain evidence, or reliably establish what happened beyond talking to the people involved — so please don't read a response from a host as a formal inquiry or its outcome as a finding of fact.

You can report anything that may be a criminal offence to the police yourself, and we'll help however we reasonably can — sharing what was recorded at the time, confirming who was present. A host may also report a serious incident where they judge it right to, or where the law requires it of them.

Hosts can ask anyone to stop playing or to leave their session, for safety or conduct reasons, without having to justify it on the spot.

Stop play. Don't move anyone who may have a head, neck or back injury. Call an ambulance on 108 for anything serious, and stay with the injured person until help arrives. Tell the host so it can be written down while everyone still remembers it accurately.

We sometimes take photos and videos at games and use them on this site and in the group. If you'd rather not appear, tell the host — that's a completely normal request and we'll respect it. If a photo of you is already on this site and you want it taken down, ask and we'll remove it. Once a photo has been shared in the group, though, other members may already have saved or forwarded it, and that's beyond anyone's reach to undo.

This website has no forms, no sign-up, no accounts and no advertising. It sets no cookies. The only thing stored in your browser is your language choice, which never leaves your device.

We use Umami for basic, privacy-friendly visitor statistics — it's cookieless and doesn't track people across sites.

Everything else happens in WhatsApp, where your phone number and profile are visible to other group members. That's how WhatsApp groups work, and it's worth knowing before you join. Your number is used to run the group and its player lists and nothing else, and we don't sell, rent or share member information. Ask, and we'll remove you from the group and take you off any list we keep.

What nobody here can do is erase your history from WhatsApp. Messages you've already sent sit on other members' phones and on WhatsApp's own systems, and no group admin can reach in and delete them. Hosts also keep game posts and player lists as a record of who played when. That's a limit of how WhatsApp works, not a policy we've chosen.

To the fullest extent the law allows, neither the host of a session nor any other member or administrator of this community accepts liability for injury, loss or damage arising from your participation, from the condition of a venue, or from the acts of other players.

Because sessions are arranged independently, each host is responsible only for the sessions they host. Nobody here answers for a session someone else arranged, and the group is not a party to it.

These terms are governed by the laws of India, and the courts at Bengaluru, Karnataka have jurisdiction.

We may update these terms. The current version always lives at this address, and we'll post a note in the group when something material changes. Continuing to play means the current version applies to you.