Terms of service.

Who these terms are between

These terms are an agreement between you and Your Porch Media, the company behind The Oakville Digest, based in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. When we say "we," "us," or "our," it's us. When we say "you," it's anyone who visits oakvilledigest.ca, subscribes to the newsletter, submits an event, or contacts us through one of our forms.

By using the site, you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the site.

What we offer

The Oakville Digest is a free local newsletter and website. We publish stories about Oakville, list community events, and accept submissions from local organizers and businesses. Specifically, we offer:

• A free email newsletter, delivered through Beehiiv.
• This website (articles, an event calendar, partner information, and submission forms).
• A free option for community members to submit their own events for review.
• A paid option to feature submitted events more prominently in the calendar and newsletter.
• Sponsorship and advertising opportunities for local businesses, arranged through our partners page.

Your use of the site

You're welcome to browse the site, share links to it, and forward issues of the newsletter to friends. In exchange, please:

• Don't try to break the site, scrape it at scale, or interfere with how it runs.
• Don't try to access parts of the site you aren't meant to access.
• Don't impersonate other people when submitting events or filling out forms.
• Don't submit anything illegal, defamatory, or that infringes on someone else's rights.

If you break these rules, we may remove your submissions, block your access, or take other steps to protect the site and our other readers.

Newsletter subscriptions

Subscribing is free. To sign up we collect your email address (see the privacy policy for details on how we use it). You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any newsletter — no questions asked.

We do our best to publish the newsletter on a consistent schedule, but we can't guarantee delivery dates or that every email will reach your inbox (spam filters, mail server issues, and the occasional vacation all happen).

Submitting an event

When you submit an event through the event submission form, you're asking us to consider it for the calendar. Submission doesn't guarantee approval — we review each event before it's published and may decline anything we decide isn't a good fit.

By submitting an event, you confirm that:

• You're the organizer, or you're submitting on behalf of the organizer with their permission.
• The information you provide is accurate to the best of your knowledge.
• Any photos or images you upload are yours, or you have the right to use them.
• You grant us permission to publish the event (text and image) on the website, in the newsletter, and on our social channels.

We may edit submissions for length, clarity, or formatting before publishing. If we make a substantive change, we'll usually flag it back to you first.

Featured (paid) event listings

We offer a paid option to feature an event more prominently. Payment is processed by Stripe; we never see your card details.

If we approve your event after you've paid, the feature runs as described. If we decline the event for any reason (it doesn't fit, the date has passed, the information can't be verified, etc.), we'll refund the payment in full. Refunds typically take a few business days to appear back on your card.

Once an event has been published as featured, payments are non-refundable except at our discretion (for example, if the event is cancelled by the organizer and they ask us to take the listing down).

Partner inquiries and bookings

Filling out the partner inquiry form or booking a discovery call doesn't create a contract — it's the start of a conversation. Any actual partnership, sponsorship, or paid placement will be covered by a separate written agreement that we'll send you before any money changes hands.

Our content

The articles, layout, design, illustrations, logos, and other original content on this site and in the newsletter belong to Your Porch Media (or to the contributors who created them, with permission for us to publish). You're welcome to:

• Read it, link to it, and share it on social media.
• Forward the newsletter to friends.
• Quote a short passage with a credit and link back.

Please don't republish whole articles, rehost our illustrations, or use our content for commercial purposes without asking first. If you'd like to do something with our content that isn't covered above, email info@yourporchmedia.com and we'll usually say yes.

Your content

Anything you submit to us — event details, photos, inquiry messages — stays yours. By submitting it, you give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to publish, edit, and promote it through the website, newsletter, and our social channels. That licence continues for the time the content is relevant (for example, until an event has passed), and we may keep archived copies for our records after that.

If you want us to remove something you've submitted, email us and we'll take it down from the live site within a reasonable time.

Third-party links and content

We link to other websites, embed maps, and reference local businesses and organizations. We don't control those third parties and aren't responsible for the accuracy of their information, the safety of their websites, or their practices. Visiting them is at your own discretion.

No guarantees

We work hard to make the site useful, accurate, and reliable, but we can't promise:

• That every event listing is correct (event details change; always confirm with the organizer).
• That the site will always be available without downtime.
• That the newsletter will always reach your inbox on time.
• That any information on the site is suitable for a particular purpose.

The site is provided "as is." To the fullest extent allowed by law, we're not liable for losses or damages that result from using (or not being able to use) the site or the newsletter — including missed events, business losses, or any indirect or consequential damages. If a court decides we are liable for something despite this, our total liability is limited to a hundred Canadian dollars or what you paid us in the previous twelve months, whichever is greater.

You agree to cover us if you cause a problem

If something you submit (an event, a photo, a message, an inquiry) causes a legal problem for us — for example, a copyright complaint about a photo you uploaded — you agree to cover the reasonable costs of dealing with it. In practice this almost never comes up; this paragraph is here for the edge cases.

Ending these terms

You can stop using the site at any time. We can stop providing the site, the newsletter, or any specific feature at any time — usually we'll give notice in the newsletter if something significant is changing.

If you violate these terms, we may suspend or end your access to the site, decline future submissions from you, or remove anything you've already submitted.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the publication grows. When we do, we'll change the "last updated" date at the top of this page. Material changes — anything that meaningfully changes what you can or can't do — will be flagged more visibly, usually a note in an upcoming newsletter. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. Any disputes that we can't resolve through a friendly email exchange will be handled in the courts of Ontario.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Email info@yourporchmedia.com. We aim to respond within a few business days.