Gathery Terms of Use

Last updated: 4 November 2026

Welcome to Gathery

Gathery is a free, invite-only community where artists and creative people swap skills, hours and resources to make each other's projects happen.

These Terms of Use ("Terms") are the agreement between you and us. Please read them together with our Community Guidelines (gathery.ae/guidelines) and our Privacy Policy (gathery.ae/privacy).

When you sign up, you accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy by ticking the "I agree" box. If you don't agree, please don't use Gathery.

Who we are

Gathery ("Gathery by Fermata") is a brand of Fermata FZE. It is not a separate company.

Fermata FZE is licensed in the Sharjah Publishing City (SPC) Free Zone, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Its licence was formed on 26 March 2025.

Licence number: 4420000.01, issued by the Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone
Formation: free zone establishment, formation number 4420000
Registered address: Business Centre, Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Email: support@gathery.ae

In these Terms, "Fermata", "we", "us" and "our" mean Fermata FZE. "You" means you, the member.

The short version

This summary helps, but the full Terms below are what count.

Gathery is free. No fees, nobody is paid, and no money changes hands through Gathery.
Swaps between members run on trust, not contracts. Fermata is not a party to them.
We review every member before they join, but we can't vouch for anyone. Use your own judgment.
You look after your own safety and your own things, including anything you lend.
You keep the rights in your work. We claim no ownership of it.
If something feels wrong, report it. We may remove members who break these Terms or the Community Guidelines.

Free and non-commercial

Gathery has no fees to join or use.
Members are not paid, and no money changes hands through Gathery.
Members swap skills, hours and resources directly with each other.
Your profile shows a simple record of your participation, such as "12 exchanges completed · 34 hours exchanged".
Hours are a record of participation, not currency. They have no money value, can't be bought, sold or transferred, and don't entitle anyone to anything from anyone else.
Gathery is not a marketplace. Please don't use it to sell paid services or run a business.

Who can join

To be a member, you must:

be 18 or over;
join as an individual, not as a company or brand ("people, not companies");
join with a valid invite code from a member; and
be approved by us.

We review every member before they join, but we can't vouch for anyone. Approval is not a check of anyone's identity, background, skills or character. We may decline an application.

Your account

Give us accurate details and keep them up to date.
Keep your password private. You're responsible for what happens on your account.
Invite codes are personal to the member who creates them. Please don't sell or publish them.
If you think someone else has got into your account, tell us straight away at support@gathery.ae.

Community Guidelines

Our Community Guidelines are part of these Terms. You can read them any time from the Guidelines link in the footer, or at gathery.ae/guidelines. In short:

Swap hour for hour, and no money changes hands.
Keep your word.
Be kind and clear.
Respect people's work and privacy.
People, not companies.
It's your call how much you take part.
Speak up if something feels wrong.

If the Guidelines and these Terms ever disagree, these Terms apply.

How swaps work, and our role

Swaps here run on trust, not contracts.

When you agree a swap with another member, that arrangement is between the two of you. Fermata is not a party to it. We don't arrange, supervise or guarantee swaps, and we can't make anyone take part in or finish one.

Gathery's swap tools (requests, confirming, marking your part done) help you both keep track. They are a record, not something we enforce.

These Terms are an agreement between you and Fermata. They don't create a contract between you and other members.

If a swap doesn't go to plan, talk to the other member first. If that doesn't help, or something feels wrong, use Report and we'll take a look.

Staying safe

We review every member before they join, but we can't vouch for everyone, so chat first, meet online, keep first in-person meetups somewhere public, and tap Report if anything feels off. The final call is always yours.

A few more tips:

Keep your conversations in Gathery chat while you get to know someone.
Agree the details of a swap before you start: what, when, where and for how long.
Use Block if you don't want someone to contact you.
If anyone is in immediate danger, call 999.

You are responsible for your own safety and your own belongings. That includes any equipment, space or other resource you lend or borrow. Agree with the other member, before you start, how it will be used, looked after and returned. Only offer a space or item you own or have the right to share.

What's not allowed

When you use Gathery, please don't:

sell paid services, ask for or offer money, or advertise a business;
use Gathery on behalf of a company or brand;
harass, bully, threaten, discriminate against or make unwanted advances towards anyone;
do anything illegal or unsafe, or put anyone at risk;
send spam, scams or bulk messages, or copy or collect other members' details;
pretend to be someone else, or create a misleading profile;
share someone's work, number or chats without their OK;
post content that's offensive, defamatory, infringes someone's rights, or breaks UAE law;
try to get into other accounts, test or break our security, or use bots or scrapers; or
let anyone under 18 use your account.

Your content and your work

Your profile. What you put on Gathery (your bio, highlights, photo, work link and so on) stays yours. You give Fermata a limited, non-exclusive, free licence to host, store, copy and display it within Gathery, only so we can run the service. The licence ends when the content is deleted, as described in our Privacy Policy.

Your collaborations. Each member keeps their rights in whatever they bring to a swap. Anything you make together belongs to you and the other members, as you agree between yourselves. Fermata claims no ownership of your work or of anything made through a swap. It helps to agree early who owns what and how each of you will be named.

Success stories. We only share a member's story publicly if they opted in, and we'll check the exact words with you first. You can change your mind at any time.

Your responsibility. Only post content you have the right to share, and don't post anything that breaks someone else's rights.

Chats

Chats here are stored, and our team can open them if needed, for example if something's reported. Every access is logged. Use chats to connect and agree swaps, and keep anything confidential elsewhere.

Our Privacy Policy explains how chats are stored, who can open them and how long we keep them.

How we use AI

The Gathery app itself has no AI features that process your data. Fermata does use AI tools to build, maintain, test and support Gathery, and our Privacy Policy explains exactly how (gathery.ae/privacy).

Optional updates

When you set up your profile, you can choose how we keep in touch. Each choice is separate and optional:

Email notifications for chats: emails when someone messages you for the first time, replies to your first message, or a message has been waiting a while. You can change this later on the Profile tab. Account and swap emails always come through.
WhatsApp updates: community news and announcements, now and then, sent to the phone number you give us. You can turn WhatsApp updates off anytime in your Profile, or by emailing support@gathery.ae.
Project check-ins: now and then, we may ask how your projects are going. These are light-touch. You don't have to reply, and they don't create any obligation.
Share my story: if a project takes off, we may ask to share it. We'll check the exact words with you first.

To change your check-in or story choices, email support@gathery.ae.

Reporting, removal and appeals

Reporting. Use "Report a problem" in the top bar, or on a profile, exchange or chat. Choose what kind of problem it is and tell us what happened. We aim to review safety concerns within 24 hours, and everything else within 3 working days. To protect everyone's privacy, we don't share what action we take against another member.

Removal. We may warn, pause or remove a member, or remove content, if we believe they have broken these Terms or the Community Guidelines, or to keep the community safe or follow the law. Where needed, we may act straight away and without notice.

Appeal. If we remove you, you can ask us to look again once, by emailing support@gathery.ae within 30 days. Your profile is deleted when we remove you, so if your appeal is upheld, we'll invite you to join again. The outcome of the review is final.

Leaving Gathery

You can leave at any time. Use "Delete my account" on the Profile tab, or email support@gathery.ae, and your account will be deleted within 30 days.

If you have a swap in progress, please let the other member know before you go.

When you leave, or if we remove you, your profile and the messages you sent are deleted within 30 days. There are a few exceptions:

past exchanges stay visible only to the other member in them, shown as "Former member", with notes removed;
copies of reports are kept for 12 months; and
our encrypted backups are kept for 30 days on a rolling basis, so deleted data can stay in a backup until it expires.

Our Privacy Policy explains what we keep and for how long.

We may change, pause or close Gathery or any part of it. If we close Gathery, we'll try to give you reasonable notice.

Disclaimers

Gathery is provided "as is" and "as available".

We make no promises or guarantees about members, their identity, their skills, the quality of what they offer, or how any swap turns out. Profiles and content are created by members, not by us.

We work to keep Gathery running smoothly and securely, but we can't promise it will always be available or free of errors.

Our liability

Fermata isn't a party to swaps. Swaps run on trust, not contracts, between the members taking part. We can't guarantee anything about members, their skills or resources, or how a swap turns out. Please use your own judgement. You're responsible for your own safety and your own belongings, including anything you lend.

To the fullest extent permitted by UAE law, Fermata isn't liable for any loss, damage or injury arising from swaps, meetups or any other contact between members, whether on or off Gathery.

If Fermata is found liable to you despite this, our total liability to you is capped at AED 100.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that can't be limited by law, such as liability for fraud, or for death or injury caused by Fermata's own wrongful act.

If you break these Terms

If you break these Terms or the law, and that leads to a claim against Fermata, you agree to cover Fermata's reasonable losses and costs from that claim, to the extent permitted by UAE law.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The date at the top shows the latest version. If we make important changes, we'll give you 14 days' notice by email or an in-app notice before they take effect. If you keep using Gathery after that, the new Terms apply.

Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by UAE federal law and the applicable laws of the Emirate of Sharjah.

If you have a problem with us, please email support@gathery.ae first, and we'll try to sort it out together. Any dispute that can't be solved that way will go to the Sharjah courts.

The legal bits

These Terms, the Community Guidelines and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and Fermata about Gathery.
If any part of these Terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies.
If we don't enforce a part of these Terms straight away, we can still do so later.
You can't transfer your account or these Terms to anyone else.
These Terms are written in English. If they're ever translated, the English version applies.

Contact us

Questions about these Terms? Email support@gathery.ae.

Fermata FZE, Business Centre, Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.