Event travel, accommodation & payments guidelines
Please find below some guidelines for events organised through Honiton Gymnastics Club regarding travel, accommodation & payments.
Giving you notice
Honiton Gymnastics Club will always give parents as much notice as possible about upcoming events that require payment. It will produce a competition diary at the start of the season for each gymnast to indicate which events they expect to be entered in and also put these onto the online events calendar. However, the nature of acrobatic gymnastics means that sometimes we will find out about events at late notice or make decisions on partnerships entering events with limited time available.
Gymnasts will only receive official invites and be eligible to enter events and competitions if they are fully up-to-date with all other fees and payments to Honiton Gymnastics Club.
Entry payments
Honiton Gymnastics Club will give a minimum of 10 days notice before requesting payment for an event entry fee (following the Direct Debit Guarantee guidelines), telling you exactly how much will be requested. If a particular payment date causes any problems, parents should contact Honiton Gymnastics Club to request an alternative payment request date for the direct debit. A small amount (usually £3 or £4) will already have been added onto all competition entry fees to help cover travel costs for coaches that are with your children at the competition.
Travel & accommodation
Local/South West competitions
Parents will be expected to arrange travel and accommodation for themselves and their children, where necessary. Any gymnasts who are struggling with transportation can speak to their coaches and the club for assistance. We’ll always do our best to help.
National competitions & competitions further afield
- Travel: Honiton Gymnastics Club will let you know the travel arrangements for this. Sometimes gymnast will be required to travel as a group (by coach) and sometimes parents will be required to organise their own transportation. Any gymnasts who are struggling with transportation can speak to their coaches and the club for assistance. We’ll always do our best to help.
- Accommodation: Gymnasts will, in the majority of cases, be required to stay in the team hotel, booked by Honiton Gymnastics Club. This helps with team cohesion, planning, and ensuring we have everyone where we need them! There will usually be the option for gymnasts to stay with their parents or to stay in a room with other gymnasts. We will ask parents what accommodation requirements you have.
- Accommodation costs: We often have parents telling us they can find a cheaper deal! However, the cheaper price is often for booking a limited number of rooms or for rooms that are part of a non-refundable booking. We always ensure we book a proportion of refundable rooms together with refundable ones, which can result in slightly higher prices but is an important safety net in case gymnasts get injured etc. Gymnasts’ accommodation costs will also always include a proportion towards their coach(es) accommodation costs. Coaches’ costs will be equally distributed among all gymnasts who are entered into the competition. Please don’t ask to book your own rooms, as this can make cost calculations and organising the trip very difficult, and it can also result in unnecessarily awkward situations.
- Withdrawals: If a partnership has to withdraw for any reason (including, but not restricted to, illness; injury; personal circumstances; partners leaving; or partnerships not being ready), payments that have been made for the competition cannot be refunded. Once gymnasts have been entered into competitions and payments have been made to competition organisers, we are unable to get refunds under any circumstance.
International competitions
Honiton Gymnastics Club will look after all travel and accommodation and provide you with an expected cost for the whole trip well in advance. Please note, this may change, but should not be by a considerable amount.
- Travel & Accommodation: All gymnasts will be required to travel as a group (often by coach and then plane). They will be looked after by coaches and welfare officer(s), and parents will not be permitted as part of the official delegation. Parents must be aware of this and happy for their children to be part of the official delegation, where they will be looked after and expected to follow instruction from coaches and other official officers of the club.
- Parents’ travel: Honiton Gymanastics Club will not book flights for parents. This can significantly affect the cost of flights for gymnasts. However, if there are spare seats on the official coach after parents have booked flights (and parents are on the same flight as gymnasts), these will be offered on a first-come-first-served basis. However, these spaces cannot be guaranteed. When gymnasts’ flights have been booked, Honiton Gymnastics Club will notify parents as soon as possible about the flight number.
- Parents’ accommodation: Honiton Gymnastics Club will not book accommodation for parents and also asks parents not to book into the team hotel as this can make training, trips and preparation very difficult when abroad. When team accommodation is booked, Honiton Gymnastics Club will inform parents which hotel we are in so that parents may book into a nearby hotel.
- Gymnasts’ trip costs: Gymnasts’ international trip costs will always include a proportion towards their coach(es) trip costs. These costs will be equally distributed among all gymnasts competing at the event.