Policies (PCI) - Follow Your Art Community Studios

Policies

Diversity Statement:

We are striving to engage artists, community members, volunteers and employees from all backgrounds and modalities to build inclusive community. All are encouraged to apply. We believe our diversity is our strength and we value the unique perspectives and contributions that people of all backgrounds and life experiences can bring to our team. Therefore, we actively engage people of all races, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ages, abilities, and those who do not speak English as their first language.

Qualified applicants for employment will be considered without regard to race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, or veteran status. Employment is dependent on completing a background check. Follow Your Art Community Studios is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE).

Community Agreements:

To ensure our commitment to learning, growth, and discovery as well as fostering an accessible and welcoming creative community, we expect all those engaging with FYACS to treat one another and the space with RESPECT. At FYACS we agree to respect: Risk taking, Each other, Supplies, Process, Environment, Creations, and Time. See our Community Agreements HERE. If any behavior hinders your ability to fully engage in a creative act at FYACS, we encourage you to reach out directly to our Executive Director, Kris Rodolico, so that we can take appropriate action.

Payments:

Follow Your Art Community Studios accepts Mastercard and Visa credit cards as well as personal checks and cash on site.

There will be a transaction fee of $3.99 on total cart purchases over $100 and a $1.99 fee on total cart purchases over $30. This fee goes directly to the new platform and we cannot control it. The fee does not apply to future recurring charges such as automatic billing, payment plans, and membership fees. Also does not apply to parties, memberships, or gift cards.

You can bypass this fee by entering the promo code CASH at checkout. Payment via cash/check must be handed to a staff member in person at 647 Main St, Melrose MA within 1 business day. Office hours are Mon-Fri 9AM-6PM.

Membership:

All members will receive membership benefits and discounts outlined in the Membership section.

Email Communication:

By making an account, you are opting in to receive our weekly newsletter, including advance notice of class registration dates, periodic special event announcements, closure information, and behind the scene peeks of FYACS programs. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Registration:

All registrations are taken on a first come, first-served basis. If a class is full at the time of your registration, you will be notified and placed on the waiting list. Payment plans are available for all multi-week classes with a $25 deposit. Classes are prorated for late registrants, if space allows.

Course Withdrawal & Refunds:

SUMMER CANCELLATION POLICY

Please note that this policy applies to ALL summer session programs, and supersedes our usual class cancellation policy.
21 days prior to start date = full refund minus $25 processing fee per program
Within 21 days = 50% refund unless we can fill the spot, then $25 processing fee per program
3 days prior to start date = no refunds will be issued.

Regular Session Cancellation Policy

(applies to Spring, Fall and Winter programming)

A $25 processing fee applies to all cancellations.

Ten days or more before class starts: full refund minus fee.
Less than 10 days before class: 50% refund minus fee.
No refunds for workshops.
No refunds after classes begin.
No partial refunds for missed classes.
When purchasing classes with a payment plan, the relevant cancellation policies still apply. You will be responsible for any remaining balance due under these policies.

Course Confirmation:

You will receive a receipt by email shortly after your registration is processed. You will receive a reminder/confirmation email one week prior to the start of class.

Course Cancellation:

Follow Your Art Community Studios reserves the right to cancel classes with a full refund if enrollment is insufficient to run the class. Cancelled classes due to weather or other unforeseen circumstances will be made up, if possible, at the end of the session, or at a mutually agreed upon time.

Missed classes:

For weekly classes for children and teens, we offer one free makeup hour per session during our regular Saturday drop in. The makeup must be done within one week of the end of the session. For adult classes, we will work with individuals on a case by case basis to accommodate if possible.

Special Circumstances:

Parents must notify the office about any medical conditions, allergies, learning styles, social needs, or other special circumstances that might impact a student’s participation and well being.

Photo and Video Release:

Our teachers often photograph classes for marketing purposes. (catalog, online, newspaper). Permission to be photographed is implied by enrollment. Please contact the office in writing if you do not wish to be included in publicity.

Shared Registration/Membership Data

All registrations are processed and stored through our class management site, HiSawyer.com. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time. Website administrators can also see and edit that information. Your data is also shared with Stripe, which processes payments made to our organization.

Shipping and Return Policy:

At this time we do not ship any FYACS merchandise.

Ceramics Work Completion, Pickup and Hold policy:

Pickup: Ceramic art created during our classes will be glazed and fired and ready to pickup during the session following when the class was taken. This includes one time workshops as they are fired with work from classes as we only fire kilns that are full.

Notification: An email notification will be sent to the address that was provided during registration and participants should bring packing material and boxes to wrap the art work in.

Hold: We will hold your work for the remainder of the pickup session and for 1 session following notification. After that, unclaimed work will need to be discarded to make room for new work. If you have an unusual situation and can’t meet the pickup timeline, please be sure to let us know so we can make arrangements with you.

Created		Ready for Pickup		Held until
Winter 1	Jan/Feb	Winter 2	March	End of Spring	June

Winter 2	March/April	Spring	May	End of Summer	August

Spring	May/June	Summer	July	End of Fall 1	October

Summer	June,July,Aug	Fall 1	September	End of Fall 2	December

Fall 1	Sept/Oct	Fall 2	November	End of Winter 1	February

Fall 2	Nov/Dec	Winter 1	January	End of Winter 2	April

Personal Data

Comments

If visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

We receive anonymous data from Google using their Analytics tool.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Your contact information

We store your email address in our MailChimp.com database, which is used exclusively by our organization.

How we protect your data

We use a SSL certificate to make sure transactions and information sent through this site are secure.

What data breach procedures we have in place

In the event of a data breach, we will notify you in a timely manner.

What third parties we receive data from