With regret we are cancelling Evesham Town 10k this year, July 5th 2020.

Note it is cancelled, not postponed – we will return in 2021.

Why we are cancelling

The 10k was not due to take place until July, which is a long while away. We desperately wanted to put the event on, but events are overtaking us.

We have made this decision for a number of reasons:

We’ve not spent very much money

We have so far spent very little money on organisation – but as soon as we have to start paying towards printing costs, road closure fees, insurance, Crown Meadow rental, first aid companies, chip timing companies, medals and other giveaways… we risk either losing money if we cancel or, at best, not being able to refund our entrants or donate to our charities. We would rather take a tough decision now than be forced to make a costly one later.

We don’t know how long the COVID-19 situation is going to last, or its impact

It’s certainly not going to go away quickly, and that makes it difficult for our steering group to meet, including meetings with the council and other bodies about road closures and so on.

There is also a chance that restricted measures will still be in place by July, although we obviously hope that will not be the case.

Also, the idea of phoning a first aid company and booking them at the moment feels, frankly, just a little bit absurd!

There are other priorities right now

The Evesham Town 10k is run entirely by volunteers. We all have families, jobs and businesses to think about and prioritise.

We would also prefer to focus our efforts on the many excellent ‘community response’ groups which are forming, offering help to the more vulnerable members of our society. Our time is better spent there than deciding on medal designs.

We can’t realistically reschedule

There has already been a slew of postponements; September and October are already looking to be extremely busy months for races, let alone other social activities which will also suffer the same fate. We feel there will be too much ‘competition’ to effectively put on the size of race we want – again there is a risk of losing money if not enough people enter. Therefore we would rather return in 2021, refreshed and resilient.

Refunds

Approximately 90 people have entered so far – we have not yet incurred any significant costs, but have decided on the following:

Option 1: Donate – the default option

We would like to donate the entry fees to our two excellent and deserving nominated charities: Caring Hands & Evesham Adventure Playground.

Charities are going to be hit hard this year and we want to do what we can to help.

We have gratefully received a £240 donation from Waitrose towards the event, which we will be passing on to the charities, and are covering the costs we have incurred so far ourselves.

Option 2: Refund – please contact us

That said, we also recognise how difficult the next few weeks and months are going to be for individuals and families.

If you would like a refund please email eveshamvalerunningclub@gmail.com before 31st March 2020.

We can refund most of your entry fee, minus the initial transaction costs. Our provider, Entrycentral, has kindly offered to forego the refund costs we would normally incur.

More information

If you still have any questions, please do get in touch with us by emailing eveshamvalerunningclub@gmail.com – we’ll get back to you as soon as we can, but please be aware we have a lot to deal with right now.

Thank you for understanding – enjoy whatever running you are able to do this year and we look forward to seeing you in 2021!