Code of Conduct

Reciprocity works because clubs extend courtesy to one another and trust it will be returned. This Code sets out what the clubs in the Recip.club network expect of each other in practice.

It applies to every participating club and its staff, and forms part of the Club Network Agreement. Members are bound by the Terms of Use and the Acceptable Use Policy; this document is about how clubs behave.

None of it replaces a club's own rules. Every club sets its own policies on access, dress, pace of play, and everything else. This Code is about how those policies are communicated and applied to visitors.

The standard

Treat a visiting member as you would want your own members treated somewhere else. That is the whole thing. Everything below is the specific version of it.

1. Keep your information accurate

Other clubs make decisions based on what you publish in the platform, and their members plan around it.

• Keep your profile, facilities, seasons, hours, and closures current.
• State your reciprocal terms plainly: who may visit, on which days, with what notice, at what rate, with what limits on guests and frequency.
• Publish your restrictions rather than applying them silently at the point of decline. A member who is told in advance that Saturdays are members-only does not submit a request for a Saturday.
• Update anything that becomes wrong as soon as you know. A closure published late is worse than a closure published early.

2. Respond promptly

A request left unanswered is worse than a request declined. The visiting member cannot plan, and their home club cannot help them.

Respond to an incoming request within three business days, and sooner where the requested date is close. If the visit is less than seven days away, respond within one business day.

If you need more information to decide, ask for it in the platform rather than leaving the request pending. If a decision genuinely needs more time — a committee, a seasonal review — say so, and say when you expect to answer.

Approve, decline, or ask a question. Those are the three acceptable outcomes. Silence is not one of them.

3. Decline honestly

Declining is entirely legitimate. No club owes access to anyone, and a clear decline is a service to the person asking.

• Decline in the platform, not by leaving a request to expire.
• Give a real reason. "Fully committed that day" and "we do not offer reciprocity to non-golf clubs" are both useful. A blank decline tells nobody anything.
• If the reason is a policy, make sure the policy is published. If it is not, publish it — you will decline fewer requests that should never have reached you.
• If a different date would work, say so. Most declines could have been approvals a week either way.

4. Honor what you confirm

A confirmation is a commitment your fellow club has relayed to its member.

• Once confirmed, honor the reservation.
• If circumstances change — a course closure, a member event, weather — tell the home club as early as you can, and record the reason in the platform. Late notice with a reason is far better than a visitor arriving to a surprise.
• Where you must cancel, offer an alternative date if you can.
• Do not cancel a confirmed reservation to free capacity for your own members, except where you would cancel your own members too.

5. Host properly

When a visiting member arrives, they are your guest.

• Have the reservation at the desk. Nothing undermines the network faster than a visitor whose booking nobody can find.
• Tell them what they need to know before they arrive: dress code, arrival time, what is included, how payment works, and anything unusual about the day.
• Extend the same standard of service you would to a member. If your club has a practice of introducing visitors to staff or offering a caddie, apply it evenly.
• Apply your rules consistently. A visitor turned away for something your own members do routinely will report it, and should.

6. Represent your members accurately

When you endorse an outgoing request, you are vouching for the person making it.

• Only submit requests for members in good standing.
• Make sure the membership class you state is the one the member actually holds. Host clubs set terms by class, and a misstatement here is the kind of thing that ends a reciprocal agreement.
• Brief your members on the host club's policies before they travel. Most visitor problems are a member who did not know a rule.
• Remove members from the platform promptly when they resign or are suspended.

7. Manage cancellations and no-shows

• Cancel as early as you can. A tee time returned two days out can be filled; one returned two hours out cannot.
• Record cancellations in the platform, not by phone alone. The record is what both clubs and the statement rely on.
• Record no-shows honestly and accurately. The reason you select determines whether a fee applies, so it matters:

Do not record a club cancellation as a member no-show. It shifts a fee onto another club and it will be noticed.

• If one of your members repeatedly fails to appear at host clubs, deal with it internally. Host clubs will not keep offering access to a club whose members do not show up.

8. Use member information properly

Every club in the network sees personal information about other clubs' members. Handle it the way you would want yours handled.

• Use it only to arrange and host the visit.
• Do not add a visiting member to a marketing list, and do not contact them for anything other than their reservation.
• Do not retain visitor records beyond what you need. Do not export them into other systems.
• Give platform access only to staff who need it, and remove it when they leave.
• If you think member information has been mishandled — by anyone, including us — tell us at security@recip.club.

9. Raise problems properly

Things go wrong. How they are handled matters more than that they happened.

• Go to the other club first. Most problems are a misunderstanding and are resolved in one message.
• Escalate to us at support@recip.club when a club is unresponsive, when a pattern repeats, or when the conduct is serious enough that another club should know.
• Tell us immediately about anything involving a safety concern, harassment, discrimination, or a data breach.

We will look into what is reported, hear from every club involved, and tell each of them what we conclude. We will not act on an anonymous complaint without corroboration, and we will not disclose a complainant's identity where we can reasonably avoid it.

10. When a club falls short

Most issues are resolved with a conversation. Where they are not, we may:

• Raise it privately with the club's management.
• Ask for a specific change, with a date by which we expect it.
• Suspend the club's ability to submit outgoing requests, while incoming reservations already confirmed continue to be honored.
• Suspend the club from the network, which pauses all new requests in both directions.
• Remove the club from the network, under the termination provisions of the Club Network Agreement.

We escalate in that order, and give notice and a chance to put things right, except where the conduct is serious enough that it would be wrong to wait — a safety concern, a data breach, or a deliberate misuse of member information.

Circumstances that would move us toward the more serious end include: repeatedly leaving requests unanswered; cancelling confirmed reservations without cause or notice; misrepresenting member standing; misusing another club's member information; recording no-show reasons dishonestly to avoid fees; and any conduct toward a visitor that would be unacceptable toward a member.

Clubs may also simply decline to offer reciprocity to a club they have had a poor experience with. That is a club's own decision, always, and needs no involvement from us.

11. Changes

We will update this Code as the network grows and as clubs tell us what is and is not working. Material changes will be notified to clubs before they take effect.

Contact

Reciprocity LLC (d/b/a Recip.club) 10000 Arcos Ave Estero, FL 33928 United States

Support and escalations: support@recip.club Security and privacy concerns: security@recip.club Legal: legal@recip.club Phone: (239) 825-5821