Voluntary organisation and liability clause

[MariaWaria]

To ask if anyone knows what a very small organisation run by volunteers can put on their paperwork to say effectively, 'You are responsible for your own safety and can't sue us.' We don't do anything hazardous and meet in a public building.

No you can't. Any clause that tries to exclude an organisation's liability for death or personal injury caused by its negligence is unenforceable.

It is also arguably a criminal offence, as you should not mislead consumers about their legal rights. However, I've seen quite a few race (running) entry forms that contain disclaimers like that and when I complained to UK Athletics about it, as most of the races are affiliated to them, they said their lawyers disagreed with "my interpretation". Unless it went to court, we don't know who's right!

What I don't know if whether you should have some sort of public liability insurance but someone else may have legal knowledge of that area.

It really depends on what clause refers to, what the activity is etc
Can you provide more detail?

Most organisations, like PTAs, will have public liability. I know we did at our school and the most hazardous thing we had was some outside games at the summer fete.

Also meant to add that it depends where they're meeting - if for example it's a knitting group which meets in the library, any injury in the library would be the library's potential liability and not the knitting group, who just happen to be meeting there.

The organisation that rents you the space probably assumes you have insurance. There are insurance brokers who specialize in charities who will be able to advise you.

Pretty much any building you hire a room of now requires you as the organisation to have public liability insurance up to 5 million.
The public liability portion is not that expensive and is likely to be cheaper than tying yourself in knots trying to avoid liability.

Thanks for the responses.

It's a craft group that meets in a social club. The social club has public liability insurance. We wished to add something to our membership forms telling people to take care when using equipment (nothing particularly hazardous) and putting the tables together etc. Any thoughts or isn't this a good idea?