In July, I asked someone at Soho House to speak to a colleague before we arranged another conversation. I had already met with that colleague, found the discussion constructive, and sent the relevant correspondence and supporting documents. I hoped the next conversation could begin with that context.⁰¹

I liked Soho House. I used the gym, the spa and sauna, and the Houses in different cities. Yet alongside those visits, I was increasingly occupied with a different part of membership: explaining what had happened, passing the record from one person to another, and working out what still needed an answer.

I enjoyed the atmosphere and the possibility of returning to this network of places as I travelled. Those were useful, tangible parts of my life. I would not describe the entire experience as a disappointment simply because I eventually decided to leave.

My own work involves bringing people together: thinking about where they arrive, what they need to know, how they move through a place and how the people working there share responsibility. That experience makes me interested in small operational decisions. It also makes me aware of how much effort can sit behind an apparently easy afternoon.

The first Copenhagen notification arrived on 12 May. I was at the Berlin House. I raised it there; an email sent by Berlin reception that evening, later included in the records supplied to me, describes that situation and asks for it to be checked.

After a second incident on 5 June, Copenhagen's general manager wrote that he had reviewed CCTV and found that the same other member was involved on both occasions. He described a membership code differing from mine by one character, which could be mistaken when spoken aloud. He apologised and wrote:

I thanked him. In my reply on 7 June, I also corrected my own initial assumption. Seeing the transactions and receipts in my account had led me to think payments had been taken. After checking, I reported that no actual charge appeared to have been made. His reply acknowledged that too.

This exchange matters to me because it shows a problem that, at that point, seemed understandable. There was a possible explanation, someone had investigated, and a specific precaution had been described. My reply was appreciative.

The work was made up of ordinary things: finding the earlier message, attaching the screenshot, explaining which incident I meant, forwarding the exchange to another team, waiting, and checking whether the next answer addressed the question I had asked. When a reply covered one part of the situation, I still had to keep track of the rest.

The request with which I began was one attempt to create continuity between people who each held a part of the account. Their willingness to speak with me mattered. So did whether the next conversation could begin with what had already been established.

By late July, I had written that the accumulation of these experiences had become exhausting. I also said that I liked the Soho House concept and that many people at the Berlin House did excellent work. Those statements belonged in the same email. I did not need to withdraw one in order to mean the other.

On 20 August 2026, a tab at Soho House Copenhagen appeared in my app. I was not in Copenhagen. The amount rose from DKK 345 to DKK 975. These were amounts on a tab associated with my membership, not charges paid by me. No money was taken from my card or bank account.⁰³

It was the third time a Copenhagen tab I had not opened had appeared in connection with my membership. By August, I had stopped using the Houses and had asked to end my membership with effect from the first of the month.

The new tab reopened a question I had already raised twice. I had to establish the new event, connect it to the earlier ones and ask what the end of my membership meant for the systems still associating records with it.

The recurrence does not establish that nobody had tried to prevent it. It does explain why the earlier reassurance was no longer enough for me. I needed to understand what had been done after the previous incidents and how another incorrect association had remained possible.

On 21 August, Soho House confirmed that effective end date in writing. It also said it would investigate why the new tab had been generated and associated with my membership details after cancellation. The commercial arrangements were subsequently completed: the cancellation was confirmed and the agreed partial refund arrived.⁰⁴

In September, Soho House supplied a response to my request for access to my personal data. It included internal correspondence and transaction records. The accompanying explanation attributed all three tab associations to an incorrectly entered member code, apologised, and said additional controls were being implemented.

The internal correspondence supplied later adds another perspective. It contains people forwarding messages, asking colleagues to check matters and discussing what should happen next. Reading it, I could see work that had not been visible to me as a member. I could also see why the existence of that work was only part of what I needed to understand.

I wanted to know how the pieces had been brought together: which account of an incident was being relied on, which record had been corrected, and what I could now stop following up.