Effective date: September 19, 2026
The Global Community of Women in High School Sports (“GCWHSS,” “we,” “us”) runs this website at globalcommunityofwomeninsports.com. This policy explains, in plain language, what information the website collects, why, and who else is involved. We have tried to describe what actually happens rather than list every possibility.
The short version
We limit the information we collect and use it primarily to operate the website, communicate with people who contact us, provide member access, and understand how the site is used. The website has one contact form. We use Google Analytics to understand how the site is used. Membership registration happens on a separate service called FinalForms, not here. We do not sell information about you, and we do not run advertising.
Information you give us
The contact form. The contact page has one form. It asks for your name, email address, and message. Nothing else is required, and there are no hidden fields.
When you submit it, we store the submission in this website’s database, and a copy is also sent to us by email. Along with what you type, our form software records technical details about the submission: the date and time, your browser’s user agent string, the page you submitted from, and, if you happened to be logged in as a member, your member account ID.
We keep contact form submissions for twelve months, after which they are deleted automatically.
Membership applications. Membership in the Global Community is free, and you apply through FinalForms, an outside service, at gcwhss.finalforms-amp.com. That form is not part of this website, and the information you enter there goes to FinalForms, not to this site. FinalForms handles that data under its own privacy policy, and we encourage you to read it.
Member accounts on this website. To give members access to the members-only area, we create a WordPress account for each member on this site. Each account holds a username, display name, and email address. We create these accounts ourselves from membership records — the website does not allow the public to register, and there is no sign-up form here. If you are a member and want your account details corrected or your account removed, email us at the address below.
Information collected automatically
Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics 4 on every page of this site. It sets two cookies in your browser (_ga and _ga_88ZYFWCPGR) that give your browser a random identifier, and it sends Google information about your visit: the pages you view, page titles, your approximate location derived from your IP address, your screen size, browser, operating system, and language. We use this to see which pages are useful and how people find us. We do not use Google Analytics for advertising, and there is no advertising or remarketing code on this site. Google processes this data under its own terms. You can opt out across all sites using Google’s browser add-on, or block cookies in your browser settings.
We do not currently show a cookie consent banner. Google Analytics runs for all visitors. We are reviewing whether to add one.
If you log in as a member, WordPress sets standard authentication cookies so it can keep you signed in and remember display preferences. These are functional and are not used for tracking.
Server records. Our website host, WP Engine, keeps ordinary server logs of requests to the site, which typically include IP addresses. This is standard hosting infrastructure, operated by WP Engine under its own policies.
Services that help the contact form work
Two third-party services are involved every time someone uses the contact form, and we want to be direct about both.
Google reCAPTCHA protects the form from automated abuse. When you open the contact page, your browser loads reCAPTCHA from Google, and Google receives your IP address and information about how you interact with the page. Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Akismet, a spam-filtering service operated by Automattic, checks each submission. To do that, the contents of your submission — including your name, email address, message, IP address, and user agent — are sent to Akismet’s servers for scoring. The IP address is used for that check only and is not stored with your submission on this website. Automattic handles the data it receives under its own privacy policy.
Contact form submissions are emailed to us at an address hosted on Google Workspace, sent through the Gmail API. Our website also keeps a log of the emails it sends — including the subject line and the message body — so we can confirm delivery and resend if something fails. That log is deleted automatically after fourteen days. WordPress account emails, such as password resets for member accounts, go through the same system.
What we do not do
- We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing.
- We do not run advertising on this site, and there are no advertising or social media tracking pixels.
- We do not process payments on this site. Our apparel store is operated by a third party on its own site.
- The site does not accept comments.
Young people
This website is intended for adults working in high school athletics — athletic directors, coaches, athletic trainers, administrators, and others in the profession. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. We recognize that our work involves high school athletics and that students may occasionally reach us, for example through the contact form. If a parent or guardian believes a child under 13 has sent us personal information through this website, contact us at jbrooks@gcwhss.com and we will delete it.
Links to other places
The site links out to a number of services and organizations: Zoom for Master Class registration, Google Forms for award nominations, Google Drive and Vimeo for member resources, FinalForms for membership, our partners’ websites, our social media profiles, and WhatsApp. These are ordinary links — nothing is sent anywhere until you click. Once you leave this site, the other service’s privacy policy governs, and we have no control over what it collects.
How we protect information
The site is served over HTTPS, hosted on a managed WordPress platform, and access to the administrative side is limited to a small number of people. No website can promise perfect security, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Your choices
You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email jbrooks@gcwhss.com and we will respond within a reasonable period and as required by applicable law. If you ask us to delete a member account, that will end your access to the members-only area.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser at any time; the site will still work.
This policy describes our actual practices. It is not a claim that we are certified or audited under any particular privacy law.
Changes
We will update this policy when our practices change, and we will change the effective date at the top when we do.
Contact
Questions about this policy, or about information we hold: jbrooks@gcwhss.com