Dave Butler wrote:
Only just read the forum. Did anyone else not collect their t-shirt ?
Is anyone else planning to collect theirs ?
I kind of presumed they would post them out. Just read the PDF on the Knavesmire site.
No deferring this years place to next year , no refund , no rescheduled date , basically naff all unless you drive to York to collect the t-shirt.
Hi Dave,
I emailed the Knavesmire club and ask what would happen with the Entry fees and suggested the donate the money made to a charity. this is there reply.
Thank you for remembering the no refunds policy – to enter the race in the first place you would have needed to tick a box on your entry form before your entry procedure could be continued to say that you “understand and accept that the organisers reserve the right to cancel the race if adverse weather should make conditions too dangerous for competitors, or a serious incident occurs that prevents the race going ahead. In this event, there will be NO REFUNDS” . This is the system operated by most running clubs.
We also note that you would like any remaining funds to be donated to the runners’ favourite charity, but unfortunately I think that the possibility of there being any surplus funds is unlikely.
In replying I have taken the opportunity to copy a paragraph taken from Sports Systems Terms & Conditions, which would have been available to you at the time of entering the event - which may help as an explanation of our position:
Why an event can’t refund
Did you know that anything between 10% and 25% of entrants choose not to turn up on race day? If an event had to make refunds to all these entrants budgeting would be impossible and most, if not all, events would not take place. …. For most races your entry fee is invested in the cost of staging the event. ….. Costs of staging the event cover the main costs to contractors, suppliers, administration, etc that are already committed by the event well before race day. From the moment you enter, the organisers start to incur administration costs and banking charges, simply be processing your entry and accepting the payment.” …
York Knavesmire Harriers have a tightly controlled budget for the event and make very little profit from running the race as we have always endeavoured to keep costs to a minimum for the benefit of runners. If we do make a profit we invest the residue in equipment to make the following years’ race even better. We often loan our equipment to other clubs who have not had the opportunity to build up stocks of such things as high visibility jackets which are a requirement for all on-course marshals and officials to wear at any event. We have also built up a small “ring fenced account” which we had set aside in case we ever had to cancel a race realising that the costs incurred in cancelling could be significant. Although we regret that the event was cancelled, we should still be in a position where we can arrange to post out mementos to all entrants and not just to finishers of the race.
Also, taking into account the expected fall out of up to 25% noted above, we priced the entry fee for the race accordingly. We purchased a technical t-shirt for each finisher as a memento. However, as the expected fall out has not taken effect this year and will need to supply a t-shirt for each entrant. It will be necessary to order extra t-shirts to allow this to happen and these will be slightly more expensive now as we have lost the bulk purchase discounts. Many runners have openly admitted that they would have been unable to complete the course for various reasons (injury, illness, lack of training etc) but they are happy to accept the goodwill offer of the t-shirt in return for their race number. This extra expense which was not included in our budget will be met from our contingency fund, including the cost of approximately £1 per runner to post the packages. Additionally, and finally, we also had the expense of arranging for two text messages to be sent to all entrants; we bought grit for the entrance to the car parks, and arranged snow to be cleared from the start and finish areas; all of which added or rather further reduced our accounts.
I hope that the above goes some way to explaining the unfortunate position we find ourselves in which was completely out of our control.
Regards,
