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The policy has always been to not take bookings at B-Y-N for bank holiday weekends, reserving the hut for members. We therefore frequently turn away bookings for bank holidays.
With the exception of Christmas/New Year, in recent years the hut has been very lightly used by members at bank holiday weekends. For 2016 we plan to revise the policy and, when there is a Mynydd meet elsewhere that bank holiday, accept bookings for two of the three bedrooms at B-Y-N, reserving the members room AND Llewellen’s room for club members. The plan is to review the policy at the end of 2016.
Don’t forget that club members can always book B-Y-N themselves.
There are several issues relating to the Easter booking at B-Y-N. Foremost amongst these is the very late notice for those members planning to go, meaning it is all but impossible to make other arrangements – it is apparent there will not be enough indoor space for all and this flies in the face of the assertion that the hut is lightly used (last Easter, there were more than the 16 from the outdoor group who were allowed to make a booking this year). Moreover, whether the committee should be able to make such decisions (affecting the general membership) without consent of the members (in this instance, wholly exacerbated by the time scale in which it was undertaken) is a question that needs to be addressed – saying the issue will be reviewed at the end of the year is not good enough.
The second issue here is that if we are to assume that all bank holidays will now be open to outside bookings, this brings into question the whole raison d’etre of having a club hut – the Mynydd will essentially be running the hut for the benefit of other clubs. Moreover, to suggest that members are free to make bookings is, if nothing else, farcical – members should not have to make bookings for their own club hut“For 2016 we plan to revise the policy and, when there is a Mynydd meet elsewhere that bank holiday, accept bookings for two of the three bedrooms at B-Y-N, reserving the members room AND Llewellen’s room for club members. The plan is to review the policy at the end of 2016”.
I see a few flaws in this statement, Paul.
1) we are already well into 2016 – is the plan to revise the policy at some point during the remainder of 2016, or has it in fact already been revised via the back door, or has a change of practicein fact been implemented before the revised policy comes into play (as suggested by your statement)?
2) Surely natural justice and fairness requires the committee to consult with the membership before considering any revisions to long-standing policy.
I welcome your views on this.
AbiHaving been party to these discussions previously there is a case for allowing bookings on certain BH weekends. I don’t however believe that Easter is suitable having consistent member use over the past few years. There are BH weekends that
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benefit from allowing the booking of individual rooms only. May BH weekends have historically had poor attendance ….??
Any policy change should however include consultation of the members and be based on data from a number of years.
The hut makes money and pays for itself and we should not lose sight of the fact that the Hut is a member resource first!
For the Record me and Rachel (& Oliver) were planning on going this weekend. We are not now.
In Rob’s defence he does update the hut bookings calendar (on the website) as soon as he takes a booking. I would imagine that the information was there, but that no one looked at it.
This is not a case of having to defend any individual! What has happened is a failure of the system and communication.
We now have 2 forums (the Blaen y Nant topic could fit under both general and meets – so who the hell knows where to post about it!?!?) and Facebook on which information is being exchanged and disseminated. We also have the hut pages of the website.
….So Four (perhaps Five including Journal!) sources of information and places for comment – not a good recipe in anyone’s book unless they all are consistent and carry the correct briefing.
I too was previously party to discussions on letting the hut out to groups at bank holidays, however, if this is now policy (it appears not to be based on Paul’s post) then it needs to be properly briefed to people.
Regards
Ian
CC – FacebookHi Andy
Rob certainly does a stirling job managing the bookings and it is often a thankless task, I know. It’s not at all a personal thing. The problem with putting it on the calendar though is that no-one would think to check it for a bank holiday/easter weekend as there would not normally be a group in at such a time. If that is to change, we just need a bit of discussion and then telling that we need to look on the calendar as the policy has moved on. Hope you have a good Easter! Abi
Thanks everyone for the comments and feedback.
Sharing some background:
The group booking for Easter was taken as a result of a breakdown associated with the Google on-line calendar. The group contacted the club late January and asked generally about the hut availablility. They were told that the on line calendar was up to date. Unfortunately, at that point Easter had not been blocked on the calendar for members only, an oversight. They ‘booked’ for Easter and when told subsequently that we dont take bookings for Easter, explained that they had already made significant arrangements based on information they had received from the club. We therefore decided (in early February) to accept the booking for two bedrooms. This should have been clearly communicated immediately to club members, an oversight for which I unreservedly apologise.
The Easter booking ‘issue’ was discussed at the next committee meeting which was on Monday this week. This led to a further discussion on the hut booking policy at Bank Holidays and the view that, when we had a meet elsewhere, we should accept bookings on other Bank Holiday weekends for two bedrooms (keeping the members room and one bedroom for members only). This was on the basis that the hut is lightly used at Bank Holidays, the feedback on Easter use last year and this is noted.
No other bookings have been taken for other Bank Holiday weekends in 2016, though we have interest from a large group for the early May Bank Holiday.
We took external group bookings for both the May Bank Holiday weekends in 2015, with a note in the December 2014 newsletter about the intention to do so for the late May Bank Holiday.
I hope the background is useful, and again profound apologies for the late information on the Easter booking.
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