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The events
of September 11 had tragic impacts on many lives, and it will be a long
time before life returns to normal. This policy is addressed to the question
of refunds for fees paid in advance of the APCG meeting, by people who
were unable to attend for a variety of reasons, or able to attend only
part of the meeting.
The registration and other fees set in advance
of the APCG meeting were calculated on the basis of the direct costs associated
with each registrant's participation; they were designed to charge participants
for the direct services they received, and not to make a profit for UCSB
or for the APCG. They included the anticipated costs of printing, food,
van rental, room rental, audiovisual rental, and other costs that would
not have been incurred had the meeting not taken place. Many other costs,
such as the salaries of staff and graduate students, were absorbed by
the institution and various projects. An enormous amount of time was volunteered,
and does not appear in the conference accounts.
Because of the extreme rapidity of events, it
was impossible to reduce our liabilities in response to the reduced numbers
of participants. For example, it was impossible to reduce the numbers
of programs printed, or the amount of food ordered for the barbeque. All
of our expenses were based on the numbers expected at the last possible
decision date before the conference, which fell well before the events
of September 11.
It will be some weeks before we are able
to determine the final balance of the conference accounts. At that time
we will hold discussions with the APCG Executive Committee. Any surplus
will be transferred to the APCG cumulative account (it is virtually certain
there will be a substantial loss, not a surplus). If there is a loss,
the APCG Executive Committee will determine whether the cumulative account
should be used to reduce it.
In this context, we have
adopted the following refund policy:
1. On request,
we will immediately refund fees paid in advance for events that we were
forced to cancel, including the two canceled field trips.
2. We regret that
it will not be possible to refund fees paid in advance for additional
events that were not canceled, because we were unable to avoid expenses
equal to the fees collected.
3. We regret that
it will not be possible to refund registration fees in response to requests
received after the announced cancellation deadline of September 1, for
the same reason.
4. On request,
we will send the official conference program and "Vignettes of
the Santa Barbara Area", edited by Reginald Golledge, to any participant
who pre-registered but was unable to attend.
We
are extremely grateful to all participants for their willingness to attend
and engage in conference activities, and to help make the conference a
success in difficult circumstances. I deeply regret that my own circumstances
prevented me from attending. We appreciate your understanding of the financial
issues addressed above, and look forward to future successful APCG conferences.
Michael F. Goodchild
Chair, Organizing Committee
request
a refund
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