Membership Charter
Why we have this
Bloom Scotland exists to support, inspire and upskill women in comms and marketing across Scotland.
Our community only works if it's a place where people can ask the questions and share the experiences, they might not feel comfortable doing in the wider world. This charter is what makes that possible.
As a member, you commit to
1. Mentoring: At least four hours a year mentoring someone in the industry, outside your existing responsibilities. We’ll ask you to record these hours and share them with us on a quarterly basis.
2. Staying current: Once a year, confirm your details are up to date and re-pledge your hours. As this is not a paid membership, staying active in the community is how you stay part of the membership.
3. Being yourself: Your real name, and an honest account of who you are and what you do.
How we treat each other
4. Assume good faith: Members are at every career stage and come from very different places. A question that seems obvious to you is someone else's first time asking it. Similarly, written communication is notoriously open to misunderstandings. Be kind and ask for clarification before assuming ill intent of another.
5. What's shared here stays here: Members talk about pay, difficult managers, redundancy, health, harassment. Don't repeat it, don't screenshot it, don't share it, even anonymised. If you want to share something publicly, please ask the person first.
6. Disagree well: It’s ok to disagree. It’s healthy for a community to challenge each other. Push back on the idea, not the person.
7. Keep the group useful. No spam, no chain messages, no arguments that belong in a DM.
What isn't OK
8. Selling. Don't use the community to pitch your services, your agency or your product. Recommending something useful when someone asks is fine. A cold pitch to the group isn't.
9. Mining the network. Don't harvest members' details for marketing, and don't approach someone individually off the back of something vulnerable they shared.
10. Harassment or discrimination. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, misogyny, harassment of any kind - none of it belongs here, whether it's aimed at a member or at someone outside the group.
If you need extra support
The community is looked after by the Bloom Scotland Committee, and current moderators are Sallie Bale, Justine Murphy and Maud Cant. Message any of them privately with what you need support with, or if something is making you uncomfortable. We’ll do our best to resolve it in a timely and amicable manner.
Most things are resolved with a conversation. Where behaviour is serious, repeated or contravenes the Charter, the committee can remove someone from the community and end their membership. That decision is made by the agreement of at least three committee members.