Refunds

Our agreed approach, will be to refund money that has not been used to fund sport at the end of the academic year where appropriate. There is still of course some hope that some sport may be able to go ahead in the final term of sport and SAM funds may be required to fund activity during this period. We have committed to being as transparent as is possible in communicating these costs to students at the end of the year, and I will be working with them to make sure you all get a fair refund that reflects the amount of sport this year.

We don’t want to put ourselves in a position where we cannot fund any sporting activities later this academic year because of early refunds in January. Therefore, we think its important that if there is a time this academic year that sporting activity can resume, that UEA sport are in a financial position support activity.

We can appreciate and understand students frustrations seeing as a lot of activity has been unable to take place since the beginning of November, and as a department we are well aware of this. However, with the situation constantly changing, we do not want to commit to refunds until we have a clear picture of the rest of our financial year.

As we have done with everything this year – we will be fair, equitable and take a common sense approach regarding if/what refunds should be issued. We hope you can trust that our intentions are not to leave students out of pocket – this is why back in September the decision was made to reduce the overall cost of annual SAM to £45.

At moment we are sorry that we are unable to give a more definite response, as things remain unclear, but I just ask that you are patient with us and we will communicate with all SAM holders/club members once a decision has been made.

• People should minimise time spent outside their home. It’s against the law to meet socially with family or friends unless they are part of an individual’s household or support bubble.
• People can only leave their home to exercise, and not for the purpose of recreation or leisure, and can do so with one person from outside their household.
• This should be limited to once per day, and individuals should not travel outside their local area.
• When around other people, individuals should stay two metres apart from anyone not in their household – meaning the people they live with – or their support bubble.
• Where this isn’t possible, they should stay one metre apart with extra precautions (such as wearing a face covering).
• Indoor gyms and sports facilities will remain closed.
• Outdoor sports courts, outdoor gyms, golf courses, outdoor swimming pools, archery/driving/shooting ranges and riding arenas must also close.
• Organised outdoor sport for disabled people is allowed to continue.

For more information please visit here.

Our UEA+Sport staff available at this moment are:

Sophie Thomas – Student Performance Sport Manager – Sophie.e.thomas@uea.ac.uk

James Raywood – Student Sport Operations Manager – J.raywood@uea.ac.uk

Claire Harper – Student Sport Coordinator – Claire.harper@uea.ac.uk

Joseph Skeet – Student Sport Coordinator – j.skeet@uea.ac.uk

Bayley Wooldridge – Student Sport Coordinator – b.wooldridge@uea.ac.uk

Other shared mailboxes that are being monitored are:
– Student Sport: studentsport@uea.ac.uk
– Performance Sport: performance.sport@uea.ac.uk

You must first seek the refund from that venue or organisation you have purchased from, once this has been confirmed email su.accounts@uea.ac.uk to get the finance details for a refund to be paid into. When the money has been received by the SU we will then be able to issue refunds to your members. (Please note refunds are not guaranteed by suppliers or venues) Without this money coming in the SU are not able to issue refunds to your members in advance or cover any shortfalls for student groups.

To get a refund, please DO NOT request this through the expenses 365 app.

Please note that refunds will either be done in bulk for everyone who has a ticket, on an individual basis, or a partial refund via Sage Pay.

This will be done via conversations via su.accounts@uea.ac.uk

Key messages for this are:

Clubs and Societies are responsible for arranging a refund back into their Subs Account from the venue, supplier or organisation
3 Approvals would still need to be required to authorise refunds
Clubs and Societies need to be clear / cannot state that refunds are to be expected for their members, and should be thinking realistically of the impact this has on their accounts
Refunds may be taking a little longer than normal as we work through this situation
Please note if you as a student group decide to take the decision to refund your members without receiving the money back from a supplier, product or organiser. This will be questioned by the finance team. We appreciate the want to refund your members perhaps from your own money but please ensure you have enough funds to do so, naturally if you are already in the minus we wont be in the position to fund these refunds.

Yes, our finance team are still working remotely, if you send your invoice like usual to su.accounts@uea.ac.uk

Then you will need to send us your three approvals, its important you consider whether this is a payment you need to make now. So please follow the advice above and ensure you consider all outgoings during this period.