Franz Valley Community Hub is run by Franz Valley volunteers for the people who live here. We collect only what we need to run a members-only community website. We don’t show ads, we don’t use analytics or tracking services, and we never sell or rent your information.
Membership is open to full-time and part-time residents of Franz Valley and the immediately surrounding area. The site administrator reviews and approves all membership requests.
What We Collect
- When you request membership: your email address, password (stored scrambled, so no one can read it, including us), name, and optional street address, ZIP code, state and county.
- What you choose to add: optional phone number, emergency contact and household emergency notes, general area, years in the valley, skills / ways to help, interests, “About Me” text, a profile photo, private messages, chat messages, chat photos and reactions, message board discussions and replies, activity updates, club memberships, events, Trading Post listings, business recommendations, gallery photos, comments and tags.
- Automatically: a sign-in cookie that keeps you logged in, and our web host’s standard server logs (IP address, browser type and pages visited), which are used only for security and troubleshooting.
The site doesn’t load ads, trackers, social media buttons, or fonts and scripts from outside services. The public pages (the front page, Emergency Services, the Emergency Reference PDF, Community Guidelines, History of Franz Valley, In Memoriam and this page) can be read without signing in. Sign-in, membership request, password reset and condolence forms collect information.
Who Can See It
- Only you and the site administrators by default: your address, optional phone number, emergency contact, household emergency notes, general area, years in the valley, skills / ways to help and interests. You may choose to share your address during registration, and share any of these with registered members using the eye beside each item on Profile. We use address and location details to confirm that membership requests come from Franz Valley or the immediately surrounding area. Avoid sensitive medical details in emergency notes; these notes are not monitored and are not an emergency response service.
- Registered members by default: your name, email address, “About Me”, profile photo, posts, activity, club memberships, and the events you add or RSVP to, subject to the permissions of each area. Email addresses are visible on member profiles by default; you may hide yours using the eye beside Email on Profile. The Show on My Profile options for upcoming events you added and recent posts / photos start off. Turning them on does not grant access to restricted content and never includes private messages, chat or RSVPs.
- The public and search engines: History of Franz Valley, the In Memoriam index and published memorial tributes, including their photos and published condolences, are public. Member profiles, the member directory, message board, clubs, and community calendar are visible only to registered members, as are the Trading Post, Local Services and Photo Gallery pages.
- Anyone with a direct link to an image: uploaded image files, including profile photos, can be opened by anyone who has their exact URL, even though the pages that show them require sign-in. Please do not upload confidential images or share members’ photos outside the community without permission.
Private messages and private chats are visible in the Hub only to their participants. Site administrators, including hidden administrator accounts, cannot open or read a private message or private room chat unless they are a participant. The Franz Valley room is visible to all members; club rooms are visible only to that club’s members. Photos shared in chat follow the same access rules: only people who can read that conversation can open them. The Hub resizes chat photos and removes camera details such as location before saving, keeps them out of the public media library, and deletes them when the message is removed or your data is erased. Chat reactions show your name to people in that conversation. Authorized technical maintenance may involve access to stored site data. Do not send highly sensitive information through the Hub.
General area, years in the valley, skills / ways to help and interests can appear in the Member Directory only when you share those fields with members on your profile. Directory stars save a private list of your favorite members to put them first for you; other members cannot see your choices and no notification is sent. Your favorites are included in personal-data export and can be erased with your data.
How We Use It
- To review membership requests.
- To send account emails (approval, activation and password resets) and the notifications you choose in your account settings.
- To keep the site secure and working.
When you use Recommend a Member, we email the address you enter with your display name, optional note and a registration link. Your own email address is not included. Invitations do not bypass administrator approval.
The public weather reading in the page header uses selected outdoor readings from the AvalonWoods station. Following its dashboard link takes you to Ambient Weather, which has its own privacy and cookie policies.
We don’t share your information with anyone outside the community unless the law requires it.
Where It’s Kept
The site is hosted by Bluehost in the United States, and its emails are sent from our own franzvalley.org mail server. The administrators keep private backups so the site can be restored after a problem; backups are retained for 14 days.
Your Choices
- Update your profile any time from Profile.
- Choose which emails you get under Account → Email Preferences.
- Get a copy of your data under Account → Export My Data.
- Delete your account under Account → Delete Account. Copies of your information can remain in protected backups until those backups expire, for up to 14 days. Messages already received by other participants may remain in their conversations.
If you’d rather we do any of this for you, or you have a question, email admin@franzvalley.org.
Changes
If we change what we collect or who can see it, we’ll update this page and its date, and post a notice on the message board.
Last updated: October 23, 2026