Equality and Diversity Policy

Wool Gatherings aim to embrace every member of the fibre community. We want everyone to feel welcome. This includes community members who have in the past felt side-lined or excluded.

This policy explains how we intend to achieve this aim.

Aims

Our Wool Gatherings are open to all members of the craft community. This is regardless of gender, age, race, sexual orientation, disability, or any other characteristic—whether protected by law or not.

All we ask is that exhibitors and visitors treat each other with respect.

Accessibility

We aim to be as accessible as possible for all exhibitors and visitors. This includes our choice of venues. We try to choose venues which are wheelchair accessible and plan the layout to ensure full access for wheelchair users. Free entry is available for carers who are accompanying disabled visitors.

We build our website and plan our online presence following accessibility guidelines (https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/). If you experience any problems, please let us know so we can help you and make changes.

Diversity

We recognise that diversity in the wool community benefits all of us. This comes in the form of the skills, knowledge, and creativity available to everyone. All our exhibitors and visitors should feel welcome and accepted.

We encourage exhibitor applications from all sections of the community. In application forms, we don’t ask for personal information that relates to protected characteristics. We only ask for what we need to process the application. This is also to make sure we follow data protection laws.

In the same way, we don’t consider personal information during the selection process. We make selections only on merit, based on the product information available to us. We choose successful applications based on quality, uniqueness, and potential visitor appeal.

If your application is rejected and you would like feedback, you can ask us for this. We’ll do our best to respond to you. Due to the number of requests it may not be possible to provide this, or it may take us some time.

We don’t keep records of exhibitor or visitor demographics so we can't share these.

Inclusion and respect

Every exhibitor at or visitor to a Wool Gathering should feel equally welcome and included. We will not accept speech or behaviour that is:

• Sexist
• Racist
• Homophobic
• Transphobic
• Otherwise offensive.

This is harassment, and has no place in our events.

Dealing with discrimination and harassment

We won't accept discrimination and harassment at our events. Anybody who behaves in a way contrary to the aims of this policy will be asked to leave the event. Any exhibitors who does this will also be excluded from future events arranged by us.

If at any point you are made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, or excluded, please contact an organiser for help. If you have any feedback or comments, you can contact us online. You can also email us.