Anonymous wrote:This year they have this announcement up:

2021 In-Person Summer Camp Refund Promise

Planning for family events and activities has never been harder! Take the leap with Imagination Stage this summer with our 2021 In-Person Camp Refund Promise.
Our promise to you: If we have to cancel in-person camps due to COVID-19, full refunds will be issued to families. Also, if your child or family has to quarantine due to a COVID-19 concern, we will issue a full refund. Refunds will be processed back to your method of payment. As camp spots are limited, we want you to feel confident guaranteeing a spot now.

10:49 here. Yes, I saw this after posting, and decided to sign up. Seems some improvements have been made in their policies since last year.

These are the kinds of threads you feel pity for in March-July of 2020, and not a day after. What were you thinking/expecting?

This year they have this announcement up:

2021 In-Person Summer Camp Refund Promise

Planning for family events and activities has never been harder! Take the leap with Imagination Stage this summer with our 2021 In-Person Camp Refund Promise.
Our promise to you: If we have to cancel in-person camps due to COVID-19, full refunds will be issued to families. Also, if your child or family has to quarantine due to a COVID-19 concern, we will issue a full refund. Refunds will be processed back to your method of payment. As camp spots are limited, we want you to feel confident guaranteeing a spot now.

Any update on their financial status? Was thinking of signing up for a week of in-person camp here for the first time.

I agree that communication from IS has been poor. We were in the middle of a Spring class and they never finalized any options for participants. It just stopped with a "stay tuned" message. I think they're too small, and in too happy of a business, to have a PR person with crisis management chops.

That said, we have experienced many years of amazing classes and performances with our children at IS, and although we too are signed up for many camps, and will have a very large credit, we will be patient with them because we value the role they play here in Bethesda.

This is not a for-profit institution, many of which are still keeping deposits and percentages of tuition - see ESF postings.

Other camps we signed up for sent emails initiating what they were doing and letting us know that we would receive a full refund in the mail within a certain number of days.

This was the worst PR correspondence that I've received since the beginning of this pandemic.

We have never signed up for camps before and this year we signed up for a 4-week camp + aftercare for more than $1500. That's a nice enough chunk that we could take a family vacation somewhere. My kid is a teenager and I have no idea if they will want to pursue theater next year or the year after. That's a hefty amount of money to be holding for something that I don't know if I'll get back (plus, to say that IS has to keep my money bc they may go out of business without it? Why would I possibly want a credit for an organization that thinks they aren't going to make it?).

The responses I've received back from IS have been awful - sending me back templates that are clearly responding to a different issue. I don't envy the registrar, but I can't imagine what the board was thinking in this scenario.

I'm still fighting it. We don't have $1500 to spare to "wait and see."

Has anyone reached out to their credit card company to see what they can do about forcing a refund?

UGH.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would take advantage of their virtual camp this year in case they go out of business. I would never give them another dime if the future. It surprises me how blasé some of you are about hundreds of dollars being lost from YOUR bottom line. I don’t care if they have a facility to maintain—so do you!

I guess I just understand that I live in a larger community. No one I. The world is coming out of this whole. No one. It is myopic to think otherwise.

But isn't that exactly what IS is doing? They're putting their own needs over the needs of the families. They didn't ask if families could afford this, they just did what was in their own interest.

Not the same obviously but doesn’t mean worse.