Taking part in an activity

It applies to any Meet40 meetup whose theme involves physical effort — a walk, a run or a hike, or anything else where you are moving rather than sitting. The theme is on the event before you pay, and it is the honest description of what the people there turned up wanting to do.

What is not on the event, and will not be: a route, a distance, a climb, a difficulty grade, or how long it will take. We do not set any of them, so we do not state any of them, and our database refuses to store them against an event that is on sale. If a future version of this site ever shows you a graded route, something has changed and this page is out of date — say so at support@meet40.com.

What you do get before you pay: the date, the time, the theme and the neighbourhood. The exact meeting point and its address arrive a few hours before, together with the first names of the others and the group chat.

It does not apply to coffee meetups, or to any other theme where the activity is talking. Sitting in a café with five people is not a physical activity and we are not going to ask you to agree to something saying it is.

The list, so that none of it has to be inferred:

• No route, and no plan. We do not choose where the group goes, how far, how long, or how hard. Nobody at Meet40 has walked it, looked at it on a map, or graded it, and there is no distance or difficulty published anywhere for you to rely on.
• No guide and no leader. Nobody navigates for you, sets the pace, or decides when to turn back.
• No sweep. There is no rider, marshal or last person whose job is to make sure everyone ahead of them got round. The group looks after itself, under the rules on the code of conduct page.
• No first aid. No kit, no defibrillator, no water, no shelter. Nobody present is a medic, a first responder or a wilderness first aider, and we do not check whether any member happens to be one.
• No medical cover and no insurance for you. We do not carry accident, medical or travel cover on your behalf. Your own health insurance is the thing that covers you, exactly as it would on a walk you took by yourself.
• No transport, and no lift home. You get yourself there and back.
• No check that you finished. The group counts itself in and out — see section 8 — but Meet40 is not watching a screen and will not notice if you are missing.
• No inspection of anywhere you end up. Trails, parks and pavements belong to other people. We do not own them, control them, maintain them or survey them, and after you leave the meeting point we do not even know which ones you are on.

“You accept the risks” means nothing unless the risks are written down, so here they are. Walking, running and hiking in a group can lead to:

• Trips, slips and falls on uneven ground, loose surface, wet rock, tree roots, kerbs and steps — and the sprains, broken bones, cuts and head injuries that follow from them.
• Strains and overuse injuries from moving further or faster than you usually do, including with a group whose pace is not the one you would have chosen alone.
• Cardiac events and other medical emergencies brought on by exertion. This is named separately and deliberately. Everyone at a Meet40 meetup is 40 or over, and exertion is the common trigger for the sort of event where minutes matter — in a place where the nearest help is a 911 call away and possibly a walk from a road.
• Heat, cold, sun, dehydration and exhaustion.
• Traffic, anywhere the group crosses or follows a road, and cyclists on shared paths.
• Getting separated from the group, or lost, including where there is no phone signal.
• Animals, insects, plants and other people in a public place we do not control.
• The conduct of the other members. They are strangers. We do not run background checks — the code of conduct says exactly what we do and do not check, and it has not changed.

Some of these can be serious. A fall on a trail can be a fracture; a cardiac event can be fatal. We would rather write that sentence than let a cheerful page imply otherwise.

You are the one deciding that you are well enough for whatever your group settles on, in the weather on the day. Nobody at Meet40 assesses that, nobody here is qualified to, and — because we do not choose the route — nobody here even knows what you would be assessing yourself against.

• The real decision happens at the meeting point, not at checkout. That is where the group works out what it is doing, and it is the first moment anybody knows. Ask, out loud, how far and how fast before you set off. If the answer is more than you have done recently, say so — see the next two bullets, and see the pace rule, which exists precisely because that conversation has to be survivable.
• You can decline the activity and still have turned up. Nothing obliges you to walk out of the car park. Saying “that is more than I want today, I will get a coffee instead” is a complete and respectable answer, and the group chat is there so you can say it before anybody has laced a shoe.
• Turning back is always fine, at any point, for any reason or none. The group turns back with you — that is a rule of the group, and it is on the conduct page.
• If you have a heart condition, a lung condition, a recent injury or surgery, or you are pregnant, ask your own doctor rather than us. We cannot advise you and we will not pretend to.
• Carry what you need. Water, your inhaler, your medication, a charged phone. There is nothing in a Meet40 bag because there is no Meet40 bag.

If you choose to tell the other members something about your health at the meeting point, that is between you and them. It is not a disclosure to Meet40 and it does not become our responsibility.

• We do not schedule anything after dark, or starting within two hours of sunset.
• We do not schedule anything on or in water, or on snow or ice.
• We do not choose a meeting point that only makes sense as the start of a summit, a scramble, or anything needing hands.
• We do not list a theme that needs equipment a person would have to buy, or a skill a person would have to be taught.
• We do not time anybody, set a distance, or keep a leaderboard. There is nothing in this product that could.
• We put the meeting point somewhere in public that six strangers can find, park near, and leave from.

Why the list stops there

The only safety controls a two-person company genuinely has are which meeting point it chooses, what hour it schedules, and whether it cancels. Those are the three things above. Supervision is not on the list because we do not supply it, and route grading is not on the list because we gave up choosing the route — which is the same decision that means nobody from Meet40 is standing over your group telling it what it may do.

If a group decides among themselves to carry on further, or to go again somewhere harder, that is six adults making a private arrangement. It is not a Meet40 meetup, this page does not cover it, and neither does anything else we have written.

We cancel from a desk, the day before, on stated thresholds rather than on the mood at the meeting point. Along with choosing the meeting point itself, this is the strongest thing we can actually do for you, so it is written down rather than left to judgement:

• Forecast high above 85°F, or a National Weather Service heat advisory.
• Ice, snow, or a forecast low below freezing overnight before an outdoor meetup.
• Lightning forecast, or a wind advisory.
• Air quality index above 150.
• A park or trail closure, or a wildfire or flood advisory, covering the meeting point or the area around it.

If we cancel, you choose: the full amount back, or your seat moved to another date. Cancelling is not a failure and we would rather do it than have six people stand in a car park deciding whether it looks all right.

You can also call it off for yourself, on the day, for any reason. The refund window is what it is — but no refund policy is a reason to start something you have looked at and decided against.

The rest of the procedure is on the code of conduct page in full. The short version, because it is the part that matters most:

• Say where you are. Not where you were told to meet — where you have actually got to. We do not know where your group went, so we could not tell anybody even if you asked us to. A dropped pin from your own phone is worth more than anything we hold.
• Nobody is left alone. At least one person stays with anyone who is hurt or unwell. Nobody walks out on their own to get help while there is phone signal.
• The activity ends. The group does not carry on and finish.
• The group counts itself in and out. Everybody at the meeting point, everybody at the end. If someone is unaccounted for at the end, the group calls them, and if there is no answer within 15 minutes it calls 911 and reports somebody separated.
• Then tell us. Afterwards, not instead. A founder writes it up, and we decide whether that meeting point or that theme runs again.

The three facts this page exists to put in front of you, in short:

• Nobody from Meet40 leads, paces or supervises the activity, and nobody from Meet40 is there. Six adults meet and decide.
• We carry no first aid kit and no one present is a medic. In an emergency the group calls 911.
• You decide whether you are fit for whatever the group settles on, on the day. We do not ask about your health and we will not know.

In full, when you book a meetup with a physical theme you are confirming that:

• You have read this page, and you understand that Meet40 provides no route, no guide, no supervision, no first aid and no medical cover, and that nobody from Meet40 is present.
• You are taking part voluntarily, and you accept that what the group does is decided on the day by the people there — including you — rather than published in advance by us.
• You accept the risks in section 3, including the risk of serious injury, and you accept them for yourself.
• You are responsible for deciding, at the meeting point, whether to take part in whatever the group has settled on — and for stopping or turning back when you want to.
• You are responsible for your own medical costs and your own insurance.
• To the fullest extent Washington law allows, you release Digital Apps LLC from claims for injury or loss arising from taking part, including claims arising from ordinary negligence in how we chose a meeting point, described a meetup, or put the group together.
• You will follow the group rules on the conduct page, including the pace rule and the count in and out.

A release that claimed to cover everything would deserve to be thrown out, and we would deserve it. So, plainly:

• It does not release gross negligence, recklessness or anything intentional. If we sent you to a meeting point we knew was dangerous, or described a meetup as something it was not, this page is not a defence and is not intended to be one.
• It does not cover anything that is not the meetup. A private arrangement between members afterwards is not a Meet40 meetup.
• It does not release anybody else. Not the other members, not the park, not the café, not a landowner. Your rights against another person are yours.
• It does not sign anything away for anyone but you. You cannot agree to it on behalf of another person, and nobody may book a seat for somebody else.
• It does not take away a right the law will not let you give up. If a court decides part of this cannot be enforced, the rest still stands.

Whether a pre-injury release is enforceable at all depends on the state and on the facts. This one is governed by the law of Washington, like the rest of the Terms.

Then book a coffee instead — same small group of strangers, same age matching, same everything else, and nothing on this page applies. Coffee is not a consolation prize here; it is most of what we run.

If something on this page is unclear, or you think a meeting point is described wrongly, write to support@meet40.com before you book. A person answers, and “I have looked at where you are sending us and I do not think that car park is safe at that hour” is a message we want to get.