Last Updated: July 15, 2026
Welcome to The Story Retreat (thestoryretreat.co.uk). We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you about how we look after your personal data when you visit our website and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
1. Important Information and Who We Are
Purpose of this Privacy Policy
This privacy policy aims to give you information on how The Story Retreat collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you sign up for a newsletter, purchase a service, or contact us.
This website is not intended for children, and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
Controller
The Story Retreat is the controller and responsible for your personal data (referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details set out below.
Contact Details
- Full name of legal entity: Adam Southward and Sarah Govett trading as The Story Retreat
- Email address: thestoryretreat@gmail.com
- Postal address: The Accountancy Partnership, Pandle House, Grange Road East, Wirral, CH41 5FD
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance.
2. The Data We Collect About You
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
We may collect, use, store, and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:
- Identity Data: Includes first name, last name, username, or similar identifier.
- Contact Data: Includes email address, billing address, delivery address, and telephone numbers.
- Technical Data: Includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
- Usage Data: Includes information about how you use our website, products, and services.
- Marketing and Communications Data: Includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.
3. How We Collect Your Personal Data
We use different methods to collect data from and about you, including through:
- Direct interactions: You may give us your Identity and Contact Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email, or otherwise.
- Automated technologies or interactions: As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs, and other similar technologies.
- Third parties or publicly available sources: We may receive personal data about you from various third parties such as analytics providers (like Google Analytics).
4. How We Use Your Personal Data
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
- Performance of a Contract: Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you (e.g., booking a retreat or service).
- Legitimate Interests: Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
- Consent: Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending third-party direct marketing communications to you via email. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.
- Comply with a Legal Obligation: Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
Purposes for Which We Will Use Your Personal Data
Below is a description of the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so:
| Purpose/Activity | Type of Data | Lawful Basis for Processing |
| To register you as a new customer/user | (a) Identity (b) Contact | Performance of a contract with you |
| To process and deliver your booking or service order | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Transaction | (a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts owed to us) |
| To manage our relationship with you (e.g., notifying you of policy changes) | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Marketing & Communications | (a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated) |
| To administer and protect our business and this website (troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance) | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical | Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security) |
| To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Usage (d) Technical | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, and grow our business) |
5. Disclosures of Your Personal Data
We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table above:
- Service Providers: IT and system administration service providers (e.g., website hosting, email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, or payment gateways like Stripe).
- Professional Advisers: Lawyers, bankers, auditors, and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance, and accounting services.
- HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC): Regulators and other authorities based in the UK who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes.
6. International Transfers
- We do not transfer your personal data outside the UK.
7. Data Security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered, or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties who have a business need to know.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
8. Data Retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements.
By law, we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial, and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.
9. Your Legal Rights
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data:
- Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”).
- Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
- Request erasure of your personal data (“the right to be forgotten”).
- Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest.
- Request restriction of processing of your personal data.
- Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party.
- Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at contact@thestoryretreat.co.uk.
No Fee Usually Required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
Time Limit to Respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
10. Cookies
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.