Who I am

Blossom Yoga is run by me, Ania Chard, from Norfolk. For data-protection purposes I am the data controller for the personal information you share with me through this website, by email, by phone, or in person at a class or a treatment.

Contact: Ania Chard · 01603 857337 · info@blossom.yoga

The short version

I collect what I need to teach you, treat you and look after your booking, and nothing more.
Your health answers are kept apart from everything else, in a separate database that holds no name or email, and they are opened only by someone with a clinical permission, and only when it is required.
I do not sell your details or pass them on for marketing.
You only get the newsletter if you have asked for it, and you can stop it whenever you like.
You can ask to see, correct or delete what I hold about you at any time.

What I collect, and why

When you get in touch

Your name, email address, phone number if you give one, what you are interested in, and your message. Cloudflare Turnstile checks that a person, not a bot, is sending it. It reaches me by email, a copy of the enquiry is also kept in the site’s own record of emails, and I use it to reply to you.

Lawful basis: legitimate interest. You asked me a question, and a reply is what you would expect.

When you make a booking

You can book a class, a treatment, a retreat place or a gift card on this website. To do that I need your name, email address and phone number, what you have chosen, the date and time, and any note you add. While you are choosing, a basket holds your selection. If you do not finish, the details you typed are cleared after fourteen days.

Booking creates an account for you in The Root, my members’ area. That is how you get your confirmation and reminders, and how you move or cancel a booking. The account holds your name, email address and phone number, your bookings, any credit you have with me, whether you have confirmed you are 18 or over, your newsletter choice, your birthday if you choose to give it (the day and month, never the year), and an avatar if you choose one. If you give me your birthday, it is only so that I see a small cake beside your name in my diary on the day. It also holds a reference to your record at Stripe, described below. I keep what you booked, how it was paid for, and whether you came to a class. I mark who came by hand.

My classes and treatments are for adults, so when you book I ask you to confirm that you are 18 or over. You only need to confirm once: it is kept on your account.

Card payments are taken by Stripe. Your card details go from your browser straight to Stripe, and I never see or store them. I can see what you paid for, the amount, and whether it worked. If you choose to save a card for next time, Stripe holds it and I keep only a reference to it, with the last four digits and the expiry date so you can recognise it. You can remove it in The Root whenever you like. Whenever you pay while signed in, Stripe is also given your name and email address, so that your payments sit under one customer record there, whether or not you save a card. Stripe does not send you its own receipt: any receipt comes from me.

If you pay me in person, I take cash or a card on a SumUp card reader. If we have agreed it beforehand, I may instead take a bank transfer. I write down how you paid, and each night I read SumUp’s record of its payments so that I can balance the books. It holds no card numbers, and no card details are ever written down.

Lawful basis: contract, so that I can give you what you booked.

Health questions: treatments, first classes and retreats

I send private health questions to anybody booking a treatment, to somebody booking their first yoga class, and to every retreat guest before a retreat.

Before your first treatment, and again if it has been more than a year since I last saw you, I send you a private link to a health questionnaire. It asks what I need to know in order to work safely: any conditions, any medication, a recent injury or operation, allergies, and a few things about you such as your date of birth and what you do for a living. The first questions are yes or no, and anything you answer yes to opens a few more.

Your answers are looked after differently from everything else here, on purpose:

They are kept in a separate database from your booking and your account, held in the European Union. The UK recognises the European Economic Area as giving personal information the same protection as UK law, so your rights and my duties are exactly the same either way.
That database holds no name and no email address. Your answers are linked to you by a reference, not by your details.
Only someone with a specific clinical permission can open them, and that access is only used when it is required.
They are never put in an email, never written into a web address, and never used for marketing.
When you look up a medicine on the form, the list is searched inside your own browser. What you type is not sent anywhere.
If you have filled one in before, the new one arrives with your previous answers already in it, so you only change what has changed.
You can ask to see your answers, correct them, or have them deleted, at any time.

Retreat guests are also asked about food, so that I can plan the meals. Those answers are looked after in the same way. At a retreat held at another venue, the kitchen is told what you cannot eat, with your name beside it.

My notes on your treatments are on paper, in a locked filing cabinet. If I move them onto the site, they will be held in the same separate database as your health answers, and I will update this page first.

Lawful basis: contract. For your health answers it is your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a) of the UK GDPR), which you give by ticking the box under the notice on the form before you send it. You can take that consent back at any time by telling me. I hold your answers as your therapist, under a duty of confidence.

When you are on a waiting list

If a class or a retreat is full and you ask to join its waiting list, I keep your name, email address, your phone number if you gave one, and which list you are on. Joining a waiting list makes you an account in The Root. I use your details to tell you when a place opens, and for nothing else. If you take an offered place for one class, you stay on the list. If you become a regular in a class, you come off its list. You can leave at any time using the link in any waiting-list email.

Lawful basis: consent. You asked me to tell you.

When you buy or are given a gift card

If you buy a gift card I keep your name and email address, the amount, and, if you are sending it to someone, their name and email address and the message you wrote. Their details are used to send the card, and for nothing else. Buying a gift card does not put either of you on the newsletter.

Buying a gift card makes you a customer with an account, and using one makes you a customer too, so your details are then kept like any other customer’s.

Lawful basis: contract.

When somebody books a place for you

If somebody books a class for you, they give me your name, email address and phone number, so that I can write to you and reach you on the day if I need to. I use those details for that and nothing else, and I never add you to the newsletter because of it.

Usually you are sent an invitation first, and I hold those details until you answer. If you say yes, I make you an account, so that you have your own confirmation and reminders. If you say no, or do not answer in time, I delete the details. The person who booked is not paid back, but keeps the money as credit with me. If the person who booked tells me you know about it and are happy to be booked in, or the class is about to start, I book you in without asking first. I then make you an account and write to tell you. You can tell me you would be happy for one person to book you in without asking in future, and you can take that back whenever you like. If you are the one booking, I remember the people you have booked for, and any permission like that, and you can remove both in The Root.

When you use The Root

The Root is my members’ area. It holds your bookings and credit, the notes from classes and workshops you have attended, anything you have bought, your name, email address and phone number, and an avatar if you choose one. It also remembers which notes you have opened and which you keep close. Teachers see only how many people have read a note, never who. Nothing about your health is in The Root. That lives only in the separate database described above, and nothing in The Root can reach it.

You sign in with a one-time link sent to your email, so there is no password to keep. In The Root you can change your details, your newsletter choice, your saved card and the people you have booked for, and you can sign out at any time.

If two people share one email address, each is their own record, and letters for either of them go to that shared address.

Lawful basis: contract, and legitimate interest in making the notes from a class you attended available to you.

When you sign up to the newsletter

Your first name and email address. They are held by MailerLite, the service I use to send occasional emails about classes, retreat dates and reflections on practice.

When you sign up on the website, I first send you an email asking you to confirm it was you, and nothing happens until you do. Inside The Root, ticking the newsletter box on your details page does the same: you are sent that confirmation email, and you are subscribed once you press the link. Unticking the box takes you off the list. If you press “unsubscribe” in a newsletter instead, the box in The Root is unticked for you.

I use your details only to send those emails. I do not profile subscribers or share the list with anyone. Having a booking or an account never adds you to the newsletter.

Lawful basis: consent, which you can take back whenever you like.

When you visit the website

The site runs on Cloudflare. Cloudflare records standard information about every visit (IP address, browser type, the page requested, the date and time) so that it can run the site and protect it from abuse. I do not see this myself. It sits in Cloudflare’s logs.

The site also uses Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts visits so that I can see which pages are read, where visitors come from (a search, a link, a social post), which country and kind of device they use, and how quickly the pages load. It does not use cookies, and it does not record what you do on a page, so there are no recordings or replays. It is not used in The Root, on the health questionnaire, or on the pages where you confirm something, accept an invitation, check out or see your booking. Words searched for on the site are counted, without anything that identifies who searched. If somebody tries wrong gift card codes, the site briefly remembers their address, to limit guessing.

Lawful basis: legitimate interest in understanding how the site is used and improving it.

When I email you

Email is sent through Resend. I keep a record of what was sent, to which address, and what happened to it: whether it was delivered, whether it bounced, and whether it was opened or a link in it was followed. That is how I can tell you honestly whether a confirmation reached you. I keep a copy of each letter. Some letters wait for an hour so that I can read them before they go.

The day after a treatment I may send a note asking whether you would like to leave a Google review, at most once a year.

When I send you the health questionnaire I also keep a note of when I asked, whether the email and the form were opened, and whether it came back, so that I know who needs a gentle reminder before an appointment. That note holds no answers and nothing about your health.

Lawful basis: contract, for anything about a booking you have made, and legitimate interest in knowing that my emails are arriving.

Cookies

I do not use advertising or targeting cookies. These are the ones in use:

Cookie	What it is for	How long
Sign-in (set when you sign in to The Root)	Keeps you signed in on this device	Up to 90 days, or until you sign out
Basket	A random reference that remembers what is in your basket. It is not your name or anything about you	14 days from your last change
Basket count	Lets the menu show how many things are in your basket. It holds a number and nothing else	14 days, as the basket
Checkout details	Holds the name, email address and phone number you typed at checkout, between the two steps, so you do not retype them. Removed when you pay	6 hours
Cloudflare security cookie	Tells people from bots. Essential to running the site safely	Short

If you share a device with other people, please use “Sign out” in The Root when you finish. The visit counting uses no cookie, so there is nothing to block there. An analytics-blocking extension will stop the counting, and the site works the same.

The maps on this site are served by this website, not by Google, so loading a map sets no Google cookie. A “Directions” link opens Apple Maps on an Apple device, or Google Maps elsewhere, in a new tab, and from that point Apple’s or Google’s own terms apply.

Your browser also keeps a few small things for this site: a treatment booking draft for a day (it can include your name, email address and phone number), whether The Root’s side menu is collapsed, and a few ticks it remembers. These stay in your browser and are never sent to me.

A link in one of my letters can open one booking, an invitation or a questionnaire without signing in. These links stop working after a set time.

Notes in The Root can include a video or music from YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify or Apple Music. That provider loads only when you open the note, and from then its own terms apply.

Who I share your information with

I do not sell, rent or swap your information. I use a small handful of services to run the practice:

Apple (iCloud Mail): my email. Enquiries and anything you reply to arrive in, and are stored in, my email account.
Cloudflare: runs the website and The Root, counts visits to the public pages (Web Analytics), and holds the databases and the files kept with them. The separate database holding health answers is also Cloudflare’s, set to the European Union.
MailerLite: sends the newsletter and holds subscriber names and email addresses.
Resend: sends the emails I send you: booking confirmations and reminders, receipts, sign-in links, and the link to your health questionnaire. It handles the sending. Your health answers are never in an email.
Stripe: takes card payments and holds any card you choose to save. Stripe receives your card details directly, and I never see them. It also keeps a customer record, with your name and email address, for anybody who pays while signed in.
SumUp: takes card payments when you pay me in person. SumUp receives your card details directly, and I never see them.
A retreat venue’s kitchen: at a retreat held somewhere else, the kitchen is told what you cannot eat, with your name beside it.
Google and Apple: Google shows the reviews of Blossom Yoga on the site, and Google or Apple Maps opens when you follow a “Directions” link. Neither receives anything from you unless you follow that link.

I no longer use my previous booking system. Your booking history, and any phone number it held for you, are moved here, and what it held about you is deleted after that.

Some of these providers are based outside the UK. Where that is so, the transfer is covered either by a UK adequacy decision or by Standard Contractual Clauses, as UK GDPR requires.

I will only share your information with anyone else if I am legally required to, for example by a court order, or to protect the safety of you, me or someone else.

How long I keep things

What	How long
Your account and booking history	While you are an active student or client and for 12 months after your last booking. After that I go through accounts by hand and delete them or make them anonymous. Payment records are kept longer, see below
Payment and accounting records	Six years after the end of the tax year, as HMRC requires. These show what was paid for and when, not your health
Health questionnaires and treatment notes	At least 7 years after I last saw you, in line with insurer and professional-body guidance for bodywork practitioners. Nothing deletes them on a timer: after that period I review and delete them by hand, and you can ask me to delete yours sooner. If I ever treated somebody under 18, the record is kept until they are 25, or eight years after I last saw them, whichever is later
Dietary answers for retreats	Until the retreat has happened and the kitchen no longer needs them. They are deleted automatically two days after the retreat ends, sooner if you ask
Baskets and checkout details	Cleared if you do not finish within fourteen days
Waiting list details	Until you leave the list, or become a regular in the class. You can leave at any time, from the link in any waiting-list email
Gift card details	Buying or being given a gift card makes you a customer, so your details are kept like any other customer’s, as described above
Newsletter	While you are subscribed. If you unsubscribe, MailerLite keeps your address, marked as unsubscribed
Records of what I emailed you and whether it arrived	While you are a client, and cleared with the rest of your record. Resend keeps its own delivery logs for its own period
Server logs	Cloudflare keeps these briefly under its own policy. I hold no separate copy
Short-lived records	A sign-in link works for 15 minutes, and a link to manage a treatment booking for 180 days. Attempts at wrong gift card codes are forgotten after 15 minutes, and the log of the site’s background jobs after 30 days

When I delete an account, I remove your name, email address and phone number and anything that could identify you. Where the law requires me to keep a payment record, it is kept without those details wherever I can. Stripe, Resend and MailerLite each keep their own records, and I clear those separately.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask me, at any time, to:

show you a copy of the information I hold about you, with a list of what the other services I use hold;
correct anything that is wrong or out of date;
delete your information, where there is no overriding legal reason for me to keep it;
restrict how I use it while a question is looked at;
stop a particular use of it;
give you a copy in a form you can take elsewhere;
stop relying on a consent you gave me.

To do any of these, email info@blossom.yoga. I will reply within one calendar month. Some things you can do yourself in The Root: change your name, email address, phone number and newsletter choice, remove a saved card, forget the people you have booked for, and take back permission to be booked without asking.

If you are not happy with how I have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk. I would always rather you came to me first, so that I can put it right.

Children

My classes and treatments are for adults only, and you are asked to confirm you are 18 or over when you book. I do not knowingly collect information about children through this website. If a parent or guardian finds that a child has given me personal information, please contact me and I will delete it.

Photography at retreats

At a retreat, limited and unobtrusive photography may take place. The Event Photography Notice explains how photographs are taken, edited and used, including how to ask for an image to be removed. A copy is included in your booking confirmation.

Changes to this policy

If I change anything important about how I handle your information, I will update this page and the date at the top.

Get in touch

Anything in here you would like to talk through, please just write. I would much rather hear from you than have you wonder.

Ania Chard, Blossom Yoga
info@blossom.yoga
01603 857337

How I look after your information