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 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).