Our museum also hosted it's first 5K race this summer. My nightmare was your
reality! I worried that we'd have rain or worse...coastal flooding. Part of
our race course is over the old canal towpath!
In a former life I coached cross-country and track, and my husband is a
runner and triathlete. We've hosted and attended hundreds of races and its
ALWAYS understood that it's a weather gamble and that there will be no
refunds.
My advice is to either mail the t-shirts or make provisions for pick-up. As
far as your party - it's nice, but it cuts into profits. There is no way I'd
refund the entire registration fee - you had the t-shirts printed, etc. If
you just HAVE to refund something, hand the folks their t-shirt and a refund
that represents the percentage of the registration fee that would have been
profit - and then only to the folks who ask. I would ask them to submit
their request in writing - so that you have a clear record of where the
money goes.
For the future:
Make sure there's language on your race entry that clearly states "no rain
date."
Encourage pre-registration either by mail or on-line by capping the number
of t-shirts. (You'd still take all runners, but only the first 150 get
t-shirts.) Then, arrange for early pick-up of the race packets. We put the
race number, safety pins, freebies, t-shirt and local tourist info in the
bags. That way, if the runners pick up their t-shirts and race packets and
the race is cancelled you owe them nothing.
While we're on this topic. Here are some other things to consider with 5K
races:
1. Insurance (We cover this with our own policy and by affiliating ourselves
with a local running club, who sanctions our races.)
2. Sanctioned races do not allow wheelchairs, baby strollers, IPods, etc. as
hazards.
3. Provide prizes (medals) 3 deep in all age groups.
4. Keep full race results and post them on your website and turn them into
your local newspaper. You're REALLY be appreciated for this.
5. Provide bagels, bananas, Gatorade, water, etc. at the finish line. We cut
the bagels and bananas in half and mix up huge coolers of Gatorade.
6 Provide at least one water station on the race course - usually about the
1 or 1.5 mile mark.
7. Use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of your race entries. Include
Male/Female, age on race day, fields. Use mail merge to create mailing
labels with Name, gender, and age. Stick these labels on the tear-off
portion of the race number - and you've just saved yourself tons of work. I
also print the female entry labels in red. That way it's quick to spot the
ladies when you're working with the results.
8. You do use race numbers with tear off stubs, don't you?
9. Sheets of plywood and heavy double-stick table make it easy to display
results.
10. Transcribe the results right after the race and get them submitted.
11. I send out an email to our chamber of commerce members asking for
goodies for post-race door prizes. (The banana/bagel eating and door prizes
buys you time to figure out the winners.) We've given away everything from
toys to bay cruises.
12. Your race t-shirt back and sleeves should look like a Nascar racer -
full of sponsorship ads.
For those of you who've never tried the 5K race fundraiser - it's a good
one. It draws a slightly different demographic than the usual heritage
tourists, and is easy on the museum volunteers. Except for the small core
group of organizers, the volunteers show up at 7:30 a.m. and are home by
10:00 a.m.
Hope this helps some!
Becky Fitzgerald
Susquehanna Museum
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Erin Gerrity
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 1:41 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Refund on Fundraiser?
I have a situation that I'm not sure how to deal with so I'm putting it out
there in case some of you have been in the same boat...
Our Museum scheduled a first time 5K race and festival as a fundraiser for
last Saturday, a rain or shine event. Runners paid a registration fee of $18
(earlybird) or $25 in advance which bought them entrance to the race, free
admission to the festival, a t-shirt and a beer. Of course as our luck would
have it we had the worst rain in nine years the day before and day of the
event. We decided to cancel at the last minute because roads were closed,
basements were flooded, part of the race course was flooded and more
dangerous storms and rain predicted to pour down during the exact 4 hours of
the event. Heartbroken, our committee tried to reschedule the race but
learned that it was a logistical nightmare of permits and barricades and new
licenses that would put us in a financial hole. A local store that sells
running gear and specializes in sanctioned races advised us not to
reschedule and stated that most runners know when entering a race that they
are making a donation to a cause and that races are almost never
rescheduled. Our solution is to have a party for the registrants in the
hopes of turning them into our friends and repeat participants (as we'd like
this to be an annual event), give them free food/drink, their t-shirts and
offer that they run the course for fun but not as a sanctioned race with
closed streets, etc. However, I've had a few requests for refunds. Has
anyone ever dealt with this problem? Did you refund the money? We want
everyone to like us. If we have to refund money and go in the hole on this
fundraiser, does anyone have advice on how to avoid this problem in the
future?
Thanks for your help!
Erin Gerrity
Visitors Services
Portland Museum
2308 Portland Avenue
Louisville, KY 40212
502 776-7678
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