Who we are
Hawthbush Farm is a wedding and events venue with holiday lettings and glamping in East Sussex. This policy explains how we handle personal information in our booking and venue management system at hawthbushfarm.netlify.app, including our online booking pages, ticketing, the couples' portal and our staff tools.
For anything about your information, email hawthbushfarm@gmail.com.
What we collect
- Enquiries and bookings – your name, email address, phone number, dates, guest numbers and the details of your event or stay.
- Payments – amounts paid and payment references. Card details are taken by Stripe and never reach us.
- Your event – if you use the couples' portal: guest lists, dietary notes, suppliers, timings, files you upload and your choices of drinks, food and extras.
- Messages – emails and WhatsApp messages between you and us about your enquiry, booking or stay.
- Tickets – your name, email address and order when you buy tickets for an event.
- Our newsletter – your email address and name, where and when you joined or left the list, and whether each newsletter was delivered, opened and which links were clicked.
How we use it
Only to run your enquiry, booking, stay or event: to reply to you, take payments, send confirmations and reminders, prepare the venue and accommodation, and keep proper business and tax records. We send a small number of automatic follow-up emails about an enquiry you have made, which you can ask us to stop at any time. WhatsApp messages about a stay are information about that stay only, never marketing. We do not sell or rent personal information to anyone.
Our legal bases under UK data protection law are carrying out a contract with you (or taking steps you asked for before one), our legal obligations (for example accounting records), and our legitimate interest in running the business and answering enquiries.
Our newsletter
We send an occasional email newsletter about events, weddings and stays at Hawthbush Farm. You receive it if you signed up for it on our website, or if you have booked, bought tickets or made an enquiry with us and did not untick the newsletter box when you gave us your details. Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing takes effect straight away. You can also email us to be taken off, or to have us forget your address entirely.
Our newsletters record whether each one was delivered, opened and which links were clicked, so we can see what people find useful and stop sending to addresses that no longer work. Opens are approximate (some email apps load images automatically). The legal basis is your consent where you signed up, and otherwise our legitimate interest in keeping in touch with our own customers, as UK law allows, with the right to opt out at any time.
Google account data
Our staff system connects to the venue's own Gmail account (hawthbushfarm@gmail.com) with Google's permission. It can read the mailbox and add copies of emails to it; it cannot send email or delete anything. We use that access for four things:
- keeping a copy of emails to and from the people on our enquiries, bookings and events, so staff can see the full conversation on that record;
- reading Airbnb booking and payout emails, so our lettings records match Airbnb's;
- checking when we last heard from someone, so automatic follow-up emails are not sent to people we are already talking to;
- filing a copy of each automatic email our system sends you (for example a booking confirmation or a reminder) in the venue's Sent folder, so our team sees it alongside the rest of your correspondence.
We only keep emails involving the people on our own records. Other emails in the mailbox are looked at only far enough to tell that they are not about one of our records, and are not stored. Email data is seen only by Hawthbush Farm's own administrators. It is never used for advertising, never sold, and never shared with anyone except the service providers listed below, who hold it for us.
Our use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
The connection can be withdrawn at any time from the Google account's security settings (Third-party apps & services), which stops any further access at once.
Who else handles it
We use a few trusted service providers who hold or process information on our behalf, under contract:
- Supabase (our database and file storage) and Netlify (hosting);
- Stripe (card payments) and Xero (accounts and invoices);
- Resend (sending email), Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES, sending our newsletter) and Brevo (our previous newsletter service), and Meta (WhatsApp messages);
- SignWell (signing contracts) and Google (Gmail).
Some of these providers may store data outside the UK; where they do, it is protected by the safeguards UK law requires. If you book through Airbnb, Airbnb's own privacy policy covers what you give to them.
How long we keep it
Booking, payment and event records are kept for as long as we need them for the booking and then for our accounting and tax obligations (normally six years). Archived emails are deleted after two years unless they relate to a booking, a stay or an event. Enquiries that do not go ahead are kept only as long as they are useful for replying to you. Newsletter contacts are kept until you unsubscribe; after that we keep only a note that you unsubscribed, so you are never added back, unless you ask us to forget you.
Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it or to stop using it, and object to our follow-up emails or our newsletter. Email hawthbushfarm@gmail.com and we will reply within a month. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Security
Our system is reached only through individual staff logins; couples see only their own event. Stored Gmail access is encrypted, and all information travels over encrypted connections.
Changes
If we change this policy we will update this page and the date below.