I’m writing today to respond to numerous questions regarding the cancellation and rescheduling of several TLCA events due to COVID-19 restriction. There is declared a national emergency by President Trump, the CDC and the World Health Organization which has resulted in cities, towns and states issuing travel bans and closures.
First, I want to share with you how our lives have been impacted over the past week. On Thursday, March 12th, our family and friends were packing and making final plans to attend our son’s wedding in Hawaii. On Friday, March 13th, the DOD issued a travel ban on all military families, which cancelled their wedding. California Governor Newsome had issued a ban on public gatherings, and my company had closed our San Francisco office. After talking within our family Saturday, our son encouraged us to make the trip in spite of the cancellation, and just make it a family vacation. Saturday and Sunday brought the announcement of closures to public facilities, parks, memorials and restaurants across Hawaii. Late Sunday evening our family decided that we shouldn’t risk travelling, and we would have to cancel our flights, hotels, car rentals, etc. It’s a shot to the gut because we’ve planned it for almost a year.
The COVID-19 restrictions issued locally and countrywide have led to the cancellation or rescheduling of 5 TLCA events. In most cases, events were full, and registrations were closed. The host clubs have spent some of the registration funds in order to put on these events. In most cases, the club spend a significant portion of what has been collected through registration towards the overhead of the event, as their “profits” come at the end from the raffle proceeds. Issuing full refunds right now could break a club.
In the cases where the event is rescheduled, our hope is that you can attend the new dates. If not, there is no choice but to work with registrants to refund registration fees. If you can’t make a rescheduled event, please let the registration contact know. Please have patience with the host club to allow them time to assess the monies spent, merchandise on hand, and their ability to issue refunds.
Over the next month, TLCA will be working with the event organizers to determine what can and will be done for our members that are asking for refunds. Our SOPs cover this topic under Event Cancellations, but it was written from the point of view where the registrant is cancelling. We don’t specifically cover an event being cancelled so we will need to address this with each event host.
I would like to make sure that at the end of this, our members are happy, the host clubs are happy, and the Board of Directors are happy. Please give us time to work on this once the “curve has flattened” and we can focus on a resolution. I know that we as a Board understand the significance of these registration refunds to our members and the clubs, and working together we will make it right. Just give us time to review it and determine what we feel will be fair to all.
To conclude my family’s tale of woe due to COVID-19 cancellations, even though we bought trip insurance, and have travel insurance through our credit cards, both coverages have exclusions for epidemics and pandemics. We are essentially quarantined to our homes, and can’t fly, even if we wanted to, but the insurance coverages won’t cover our any of our costs. The airlines are issuing travel credit, but if we can’t reschedule our trip, we will be out over $5000 in airfare. Our son and his fiancé are out several thousand in deposits and payments for things like flowers, cake, wedding dress, etc. I say this not for your pity, but just so that you know that I know how devasting this can be for everyone and I feel your pain and anguish. I feel that if we are calm and use some understanding, we will get through this together.
I encourage you to use this time to write about your experiences right now as content for Toyota Trails. Write an article on an event that never was, or send an article about the project you completed as a result of extra time you may have due to closures and quarantines. The TLCA community will appreciate these stories more than ever.
Thank You,
Ross Woody
TLCA President
Kind of like staying away from Chat on Mud. It can suck you in
