Terms of Use — Touch Grass Initiative

Last updated: September 4, 2026

Welcome

These terms are an agreement between you and Justin Karl Sypek (SYTEK Consulting, LLC) ("we," "us"). They apply when you use the Gathers app or this website (together, the "Service"). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to them. If you don't agree, don't use it — and the good news is our whole mission is that you close the browser and go outside.

How we handle your information is covered separately in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms.

What the Service is

Gathers helps people find and organise real-world gatherings near them: you can browse gatherings, RSVP, save them, host your own, chat with the people who are going, add friends and message them directly, and keep a ledger of your own time outside. With a paid plan you can also connect Apple Health and set up a household that turns a child's time outside into earned screen time. This website describes the app and lets you join our list and contact us. Anything on this site about upcoming features or dates is informational, may include sample content, and can change or be discontinued at any time.

We are a directory and a communication tool, not an organiser. Gatherings are created by members, not by us. We don't run them, vet them, supervise them, or vouch for the people at them.

Your account

You must be 16 or older to create a Gathers account. Younger children take part only through a household set up by a parent or guardian — see Families.
One human, one account. Give us accurate information and keep it current.
You're responsible for what happens under your account and for keeping your sign-in details to yourself. Tell us straight away if you think someone else is using it.
Don't impersonate anyone, and don't pick a username or display name designed to mislead people.
You can delete your account whenever you like, from inside the app: Account › Security › Delete account. It is immediate and permanent — see the Privacy Policy for exactly what gets deleted.

Community guidelines

There is zero tolerance for objectionable content or abusive behaviour on Gathers. These guidelines apply to everything you post: gathering titles and descriptions, venue names, your profile, your username, every chat message, every direct message, and family chat.

Don't post, send, or organise:

Harassment, bullying or threats — including targeting someone after they've asked you to stop, and including doxxing (posting someone's private information).
Hate speech — slurs or attacks based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age.
Sexual or explicit content, and absolutely nothing involving minors. Gathers is not a dating or hookup service.
Violence, threats of violence, or the glorification of either.
Spam and scams — bulk promotion, fake gatherings, phishing, pyramid schemes, or bait to get people somewhere for another purpose.
Illegal activity, or gatherings whose purpose is illegal or unsafe.
Other people's private information or content that you don't have the right to share.
Deliberately dangerous gatherings, or ones that misrepresent what will actually happen, who's invited, or where it is.

And don't misuse the Service itself: no attempting to break, overload, probe, scrape or reverse-engineer it, no automated account creation, no evading a block or a ban, and no using the Service to build a competing dataset.

How we moderate

Because Gathers carries content created by members, we run four things:

A content filter. Messages containing slurs and other blocked terms are rejected before they are ever delivered.
Reporting. Press and hold any message in a gathering's chat to report it and choose a reason. To report a direct message, a profile or a gathering, email us — it reaches the same place and starts the same 24-hour clock.
Blocking. You can block any member from that same menu. Their messages disappear from your view immediately, and they stay gone.
Removal. You can delete your own messages. We can remove any content — including a gathering you ask us to take down — and suspend or permanently ban any account.

We review every report within 24 hours and remove content and eject users who violate these guidelines. There's no appeal committee and no theatre about it — if you're abusing people, you're out. Full detail on reporting, blocking and response times is on our support page.

Chat inside a gathering is visible only to members who have RSVP'd to that gathering, direct messages only to the two people in them, and family chat only to the household — but treat everything you post as public. We may access content when we need to in order to investigate a report, keep the Service running, or comply with the law.

Your content

What you create stays yours. To run the Service we need your permission to use it, so you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce and display the content you post, solely to operate, secure and improve the Service — for example, showing your gathering to the people looking for one nearby. That licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies retained in backups or in safety records as described in the Privacy Policy.

You promise that what you post is yours to post and doesn't break the law or these terms. We don't pre-screen content, and we're not responsible for what other members post — but we will act on it when it's reported.

If you host a gathering

Describe it honestly: what it is, where it is, when it starts, how hard it is, and who it's for.
Only post a location you have the right to use, and get whatever permission or permit the venue actually requires.
The address and coordinates you attach are shown to other members. Don't post a private address unless you intend to invite strangers to it.
You're responsible for your own gathering. We are not its organiser, insurer or supervisor.

Meeting people in the real world

This is the section that matters most. Gathers puts you in touch with people you may not know, in places you may not know, to do things that are physical.

We do not run background checks on members, and we do not verify anyone's identity. Use your judgement.
Meet in public places, tell someone where you're going, and leave if something feels wrong. Trust that instinct — you don't owe anyone an explanation.
Outdoor activity is physical activity. You take part at your own risk and your own judgement; check with the organiser and, where appropriate, your doctor.
Gathers is not an emergency service. If someone is in danger, contact your local emergency services first, and then tell us.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not responsible for the conduct of any member, online or in person, or for anything that happens at a gathering.

Paid plans

Gathers is free to use. Two optional, auto-renewable monthly subscriptions unlock more: Gathers Plus (Apple Health and Apple Watch fill-in for your outside ledger, a daily goal with streaks, a friends board, unlimited saved gatherings) and Gathers Family (everything in Plus, plus a household with child devices, screen-time earning rules and approvals). The current price and term are shown in the app before you buy.

Purchases are made through Apple's In-App Purchase, billed to your Apple Account, and managed in Settings › Apple Account › Subscriptions. We never see your payment details.
A subscription renews automatically at the same price unless you turn off renewal at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Cancelling stops the next renewal; you keep the features until the period you already paid for runs out.
Refunds are handled by Apple under Apple's own policies; we can't issue them ourselves. If Apple refunds or revokes a purchase, the features it unlocked are removed.
Deleting your Gathers account does not cancel the subscription. Turn off renewal in your Apple Account first.
Entitlement is decided by our server from Apple's signed records. Attempting to unlock paid features any other way is a breach of these terms.

Families and children

Only an adult (18 or older) may create a household or add a child to one, and only for a child they are the parent or legal guardian of, or have that person's permission to manage.
You are responsible for the rules you set, the entries you approve, the family code you generate, and what happens on any device you pair with it. Treat a family code like a password.
A paired child device can only log activity and use the family chat. It cannot browse gatherings, join them, or contact anyone outside the household — and you must not give a child under 16 access to your own account instead.
Screen Time Credits are a family agreement between you and your child. Gathers counts minutes; it does not control any device's screen time, and we are not a party to the bargain.
What we collect about a child, and how a parent consents, is set out in the Privacy Policy.

Changes, suspension and ending things

We may update, suspend or discontinue any part of the Service at any time, and we may change these terms — the date at the top tells you when. If a change is significant we'll make it obvious rather than bury it. Continuing to use the Service after a change means you accept the updated terms.

You can stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We can suspend or terminate an account that breaks these terms, or where we're required to. Sections that by their nature should survive — content licence for retained copies, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity and governing law — survive termination.

Our content and brand

The Touch Grass Initiative and Gathers names, logos, and the design and content of the app and this site belong to us or our licensors. You're welcome to link to us and share us; please don't copy our branding or content for your own products without asking.

Third-party services

The Service relies on and links to services we don't control — Apple, our hosting and database provider, and our email provider among them. We're not responsible for their content or their practices, and your use of them is governed by their own terms.

No warranties; limits on liability

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available." While we work to keep it accurate, safe and running, we make no warranties about it — including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement — and we don't promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits or data, arising from your use of the Service; and our total liability for any claim relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or one hundred US dollars. Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law, and some places don't allow these exclusions — in which case they apply to you only as far as the law allows.

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from claims, damages and reasonable legal costs arising out of content you post, gatherings you host, your conduct toward other members, or your breach of these terms.

App Store terms (required by Apple)

These terms are between you and us only, not with Apple. Apple is not responsible for the Gathers app or its content.
Your licence to use Gathers is a non-transferable licence to run it on Apple-branded products that you own or control, as permitted by the App Store Terms of Service.
We, not Apple, are solely responsible for the app and for providing any maintenance and support. Apple has no obligation to provide either. Support is at hello@touchgrassinitiative.com.
To the extent any warranty is not effectively disclaimed, Apple's only obligation is to refund the purchase price of the app, if any; beyond that, Apple has no warranty obligation whatsoever.
We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claim relating to the app — product liability, a failure to conform to legal requirements, consumer protection claims, and any claim that the app infringes someone's intellectual property.
You confirm you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the state in which SYTEK Consulting, LLC is organised, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Nothing here removes a consumer protection you have where you live.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Email hello@touchgrassinitiative.com. To report content or get help with the app, start at our support page.

Justin Karl Sypek (SYTEK Consulting, LLC)