Community guidelines

How we treat one another

Members come from different churches, industries and stages of business. Treat everyone with courtesy, whether or not they are a potential customer.

• Speak to people as you would want to be spoken to in front of your own congregation.
• Disagree about business, politics or doctrine without contempt for the person.
• Do not harass, demean or pressure another member, at an event or afterwards.

At events

Events are for meeting people properly, not for working a room. Arrive on time, wear your name badge, and give newcomers your attention.

• Book a place for each person attending, and tell the organizers if you can no longer come so the place can go to someone on the waiting list.
• Do not hand out promotional material or run a pitch from the floor unless the organizers invited you to.
• Treat the venue and its staff well.

In the directory

Your listing is read by other members deciding whether to trust you with work. Describe your business as it is.

• List services you actually provide, and qualifications and accreditations you actually hold.
• Keep your listing current, and take it down or ask the organizers to remove it if the business closes.
• Use a logo you own or are licensed to use, and keep images suitable for a mixed audience. Organizers review a changed logo like any other change to a listing.
• Organizers approve listings before members see them. Approval is a moderation step, not a recommendation, endorsement or guarantee of anyone's work.

Your photo

A photo is optional, and other members see it where you appear to them. It helps people recognise one another at an event, which is the point of it.

• Use a recent photo of yourself, not a logo, a group shot or someone else.
• Keep it suitable for a mixed audience, including the people who bring colleagues and family to events.
• The organizers may take down a photo that does not belong here and will record it. You can upload another.

Introductions

An introduction is a favour asked of a person, arranged by the organizers, and accepted or declined freely. Contact details are shared only when the other party accepts.

• Say plainly why you want the introduction. The business owner reads what you wrote.
• Use the contact details you receive for the conversation you asked for, and nothing else.
• Declining an introduction needs no reason. Do not ask again through another route.

Selling and recruiting

Business is the point of the community, and selling is welcome when it is invited. What is not welcome is pressure.

• No unsolicited bulk email, messaging or calling of members you met through Charis.
• No recruiting members into multi-level marketing structures, investment schemes or chain schemes.
• No presenting a financial opportunity as a matter of faith or obligation.

Other members' privacy

• Do not copy, scrape or export the directory or an attendee list for marketing or for any other purpose.
• Do not add someone to a mailing list because you met them at a Charis event. Ask first.
• What members share in confidence at an event stays there, unless they say otherwise.

When guidelines are broken

Tell the organizers at hello@charis.net.za, or use the report link on an introduction. Reports go only to the organizers.

Depending on what happened, the organizers may ask for changes to a listing, decline future introductions, remove a listing from the directory, refuse bookings, or close an account. Serious matters, and anything unlawful, are referred to the appropriate authorities. Decisions and the reasons for them are recorded.