C&CC closing sites

I want somewhere cooler.

Yes daughter said the station at Troon is in a very bad state after a fire, police had ring fenced it last night

There are merits to what you suggest, but the Club doesn’t own all its Sites, many are on leased land, so not sure how Club could reconcile spending a not inconsiderable amount on something that might be ultimately out of its control? (Think the current Marazion situation, where leading is currently subject to negotiation. Would any employee want residentially security that might only be for a short period....not so sure myself)

Contracting out work isn’t as simple as it sounds, it requires another tier of in-house staff responsible for developing work schedules, the tendering process, and then someone to monitor and check compliance to stated schedules. Many, many work places that originally bought into the Contracting out of services are now coming to realise that it isn’t always the easiest and cheapest, nor the most customer friendly method of ensuring services delivered and customer satisfaction is guaranteed, so the jury is out on this? Individual contracts for every Site would work out expensive, it might work for some aspects of a cluster of Sites, where this is geographically possible.🤔

Having multi discipline staff on site is usually the most cost effective, and, if they have the right set of skills, usually means that niggly little issues (a broken cistern for example) can quickly be rectified, rather than waiting (and waiting, and waiting....) for contractors to come out. Visitors get really, really annoyed at seeing more than one loo, or one shower out of use at one time. 

The Club has a long history of taking on Site staff from its Membership, often those from backgrounds where people handling skills, practical ability to fix and mend basic equipment, some administration skills, some supervisory skills only need the requisite training courses to enable them to do a lot of different things. What I would say, is that from a limited observation on some Club Sites, it’s the way some of the staffing resources are time managed in terms of tasks undertaken that might bear a bit more consideration? I can’t, or rather won’t suggest where, as nowadays I am too far removed from some of the issues around health and safety.

All sorts of companies are currently struggling because of the sheer scale of Covid cases demanding they self isolate, so this is possibly just something part of a much bigger picture. It can only get worse from today onwards, at the moment. Looks like the freedom to do anything isn’t quite as “free” as anticipated, sadly.

Back to staff recruitment.. We went to a privately owned site whose owner had moved away to pursue other business ventures, but rather than sell the site had recruited a young couple as managers.So I asked them if they had considered working for one of the Clubs instead.

They said not - here we have a permanent long term situation, a good house on site to live in and stability for the children at the local school. We now have a share in the business (although only a minority share) and an incentive to increase the profits. We can look for ways to offer more services to visitors (and make money from them), but above all we have freedom to make decisions, can vary the opening and departure times for visitors, and are not tied to a rule book and a detailed job description as we would be if we worked for one of the Clubs. 

 

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I agree with much of Takethedogalong's post above. The Club has a certain way of doing things which probably equates to the most cost effective way of doing things. To contract out things such as toilet cleaning and ground maintenance would probably double the current cost. Now for those that doubt this would be the case. The contractors will still have to pay NMW at least, there will be an element of profit to make it worth while and there will be ongoing cost to keep machinery and vehicles in good condition. So you could end up paying double. 

I also find it pointless trying to compare the Club Site Network with individual commercial campsites. The Club has a whole range of opening periods which does not lend itself to permanent on site staff. There are of course a few sites that do open all year. 

David

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I think C&Cc have also tried franchising some of their sites but presumably they have to be run along the lines required? 

Looking at recruitment other site operators  are searching for workers too and recruits need to be very adaptable on some of the big commercial sites! 

At least both clubs run set ups that basically manage sites rather than teams of entertainment, catering and maintenance staff etc.

The C&CC franchise system works by private site owners paying C&CC for the privilege of being treated as a club site. When the scheme first started site owners were asked to pay £30k as far as I recall.

If the two Clubs find they can continue to staff their sites in the traditional way then it will continue. I just have doubts that the Clubs can continue with that model.