THESE T&Cs APPLY TO EVENTS WITH VIVIENNE IN-PERSON (not online).
They apply to the following:
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All workshops and classes
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All herb & foraging walks
A Simple Summary:
1. It is Vivienne’s responsibility to do everything she can to ensure that an advertised class or event takes place.
2. It is Vivienne’s responsibility to ensure that she treats everyone equally and fairly.
3. It is an attendee’s responsibility to do what they can to attend a place that they have booked, or simply accept that they have missed it.
BOOKING POLICY
- Vivienne runs high quality classes and for this reason the numbers of participants are always restricted to ensure quality of teaching (usually a max of 12 participants per class or 8 participants for hands-on classes).
- Classes are filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Vivienne does not reserve places for people without payment. Payment of the full workshop fee is required in order to book your place.
- Some classes and venues are suitable for over 18s only. Please check with Vivienne before booking.
- The cost is for the workshop and includes the cost of materials used, hand-outs provided and herbal products to take home.
- Please book in advance! These classes take lots and lots of preparation and require Vivienne to have hand-outs printed, enough stock ordered in and prepared for every class participant and (if on east coast) time to drive and set up on the other side of the country. If a class isn’t full far enough in advance then Vivienne will cancel it.
- MLM reps: are welcome to attend Vivienne’s classes and learn from her but, she hereby makes it known that she does NOT tolerate people using her classes to recruit customers or more reps for the pyramid scheme product that they use or sell. [MLM means ‘multi-level marketing’ company: sales reps get paid commission to recruit more customers and new sales reps]. Any MLM rep doing this will be told to leave this class and will not receive a refund. Vivienne does not promote or endorse one brand of products at her classes. Instead she clearly teaches people what ingredients actually are, how to use them safely and joyfully, and gives a list of reliable suppliers of the highest quality ingredients. Vivienne does NOT receive a commission from these suppliers: they are my genuine recommendations based her years’ of experience as qualified herbalist, international educator and professional natural skincare formulator.
Cancellation, transfer & refund policy:
1. Cancellation by YOU the client.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The 2 week cancellation time period referred to here applies to classes in Ireland. For events abroad (due in 2019) a longer time period will apply due to the increased advance costs of running these (costs of flights, visa etc.). This will be included in the event info when they are listed in early 2019.
- Cancellations received 2 weeks or more before classes and events will receive a full refund or the offer to transfer your booking to another similar event at a future date. 2 weeks or more gives Vivienne reasonable time to re-list and re-advertise your place to try to re-sell it.
- Cancellations received 2 weeks or less before classes and events: Strictly no refunds or transfers for these. There are no exceptions to this rule. 2 weeks or less does NOT give Vivienne reasonable time to re-list and re-advertise your place to try to re-sell it. It is not uncommon for as many as 25% of the people who have booked in to an event to get in touch 1 week or less before it takes place wanting to cancel or transfer their booking, hence it’s impossible for Vivienne to have time to re-list, re-advertise and re-sell these places (remember that at this stage, she is also working very long hours preparing the class!). Her responsibility is to the people who are actually coming to the class, not the people who have changed their mind about coming to it. You are however welcome to send someone else in your place (meaning that you can sell your place to them and re-coup your money that way). Should you chose to do this, please contact me for details of how to proceed.
- Why are there no exceptions to the 2 week cancellation policy?: In life unexpected and rotten things happen but Vivienne is NOT responsible for these things when they happen to other people (she IS responsible for them when they happen to her though: see info on Cancellation by ME, the teacher & event organiser). Whether people have genuine reasons for cancelling such as illness, funerals, cars breaking down etc or more superficial reasons (e.g. a stray dog has turned up, a person forgot about the class and missed it, change of mind etc..in 15 years of teaching I’ve heard all sorts of ‘reasons’!) Vivienne cannot refund money after this time because these classes cost a lot of time, effort and money (most of which is spent BEFORE the class takes place) and this would make them impossible to run. It is not uncommon for as many as 25% of the people who have booked in to an event to get in touch 1 week or less before it takes place wanting to cancel or transfer their booking. It is impossible for Vivienne to cover these requests. The price of classes and events are consistently set at fair-trade prices to ensure that all suppliers and Vivienne are paid for their work. Vivienne considers it unethical to run classes and events any other way.
- OK I now understand why Vivienne has this cancellation policy but I can’t make her event and part of the workshop fee is for material costs so why won’t she send me my materials?: This is because it takes lots of time and money to sort these out and post them to you. It is rare for only one person to cancel last minute, usually several people do so. Vivienne does not have time to bag up individual packages of recipes, handouts, materials etc and post them afterwards nor is she prepared to pay someone else to do this for her. This job can easily take half a day. She also hires and travels to the venues that she teaches at. Staying on to do these extra jobs at these venues would require paying more rent and in some cases paying over time for the staff at the venue too. Not viable without whacking up the cost of the workshops! If someone booked a concert and missed it he/she wouldn’t expect a refund on his/her ticket or the band to turn up at his/her house on a future date and play for them. It’s the same for my classes and events. They take place on the date and time advertised and that’s it.
Cancellation, transfer & refund policy:
2. Cancellation by ME the teacher & event organiser
It is rare that Vivienne has to cancel a class or event that has been organised but it does happen from time to time. It can happen for the following reasons:
- Event/class cancelled due to low bookings (adequate advanced notice): if Vivienne hasn’t received enough bookings in advance to make her advertised event viable to run then she will have to cancel it. People are usually given 2 weeks notice of this. They are offered a full refund of fees or the chance to transfer their booking to another event.
- Event/class cancelled due unforeseen life events (last minute notice): this can happen due to sudden illness, death in the family, funeral, car break down or car crash etc (these things happen in Vivienne’s life too!). In these circumstances every effort is made to contact all participants as quickly as possible ( e.g. by phone.) to allow for minimal inconvenience and disruption to people’s lives. As soon as Vivienne is available the full refund will be offered for the event/class fees or the option to transfer the booking to the same event/class on a future date (it is Vivienne’s responsibility to offer the re-scheduled event as soon as is viable). Where people have booked and paid for accommodation and/or already started their journey, Vivienne will also refund their travelling and accommodation costs (proof of booking must be sent to Vivienne).
