It's getting to that time of year again where we'll need to think about funding another run of lights. PH are cracking down on their electricity usage and the money we raised previously has covered us for every Tuesday between the 1st December to the end of the first week in May or thereabouts.
Moving forward it looks like there will be no lights, on any night, unless we book and pay for them. I will speak to PH about the best way to manage this (week by week, up front booking etc.) and see if any discounts are possible, at the moment the rate is £15 per night.
Feel free to voice your opinions, ideas and generally debate how we should proceed through the summer (avoiding wild speculation about discount deals until I've spoken to PH). Maybe someone can figure out how much daylight we're likely to get in the evenings between now and the end of August... is it worth paying for lights when we have nature doing it's work (or will they change the locks...)? Would one night a week be enough? Should we do 2 nights?
It's a shame PH let the lights burn unused through the week for so long though - you can't help feeling we're paying the cost of that. Having said that - we've been uber lucky to get so far without costs of basic court hire let alone lights.
Going forward - I don't think we need lights from here on through the summer - put's the emphasis on starting at a fixed time and cracking on with game rotations, if nothing else.
Having said that, we need to fund raise regularly for light costs come the winter, otherwise MCR polo will die out before we know it. I suggest we have a fixed £1 pay and play for every regular session and for every player from May 1st onwards. This will soon give a decent float to be able to make a decent winter booking and maybe command a better discount.
Eg. 40 sessions through the summer raising on average £12 per week nets us £480 by September which should cover our winter bills for one night. We can then raise more funds if we want to play twice a week with lights or arrange a pay-and-play scheme with PH.
I think lights for another month or so would be useful, if it's overcast then there isn't that much playtime and some people just can't make it early every time so would probably just not come rather than play for 2 games.
I think they really need to sort out all of their staff being allowed to operate the lights, I know those switches are highly complicated but I'd be willing to research and implement a 3 day training course for them. That way pay as you go would work properly. We keep a float, they write down days of actual usage and we pay them at the end of each month or whatever, that way we don't have to book with a manager that may or may not be there on the day, and if he is there might only be so until part way through the day. It also means that we won't end up paying for days that are rained off or don't happen for whatever other reason, all we'd need to do is have one person turn up, or at least call before 7 and tell them to switch then on.
Speaking to Dale, he seems keen to come up with a system that works for both parties. He understands that it doesn't make sense to pay for sessions that are rained off, at the same time their electricity bills for the whole place are crazy high and every-little-helps. We both agreed that it doesn't make sense to have the lights on every night or as early now we're into summer and they're not needed for as long, while at the same time making sure they're not stuck on all through the night (this being the problem with how they're set up now/just anyone operating them...)
We agreed we'd to try things out to come up with the best system for both us and PH when it comes to having the lights switched on/off, unfortunately it's not as easy as giving us a key to the power room as there's an alarm circuit. He's going to look at the best way of doing things from their end and will let me know what's going to happen. Until then, we'll operate as described below. This is all a try-it-and-see system, if we need to change things or there's an easier way to arrange all this he's cool with that.
He suggested I let him know on or before the morning we're due to play and need lights, we'll both keep track of the number of sessions and then pay afterwards on a quarterly basis (easier for us, him and PH's finance team to keep track of). We need to discuss what happens when it comes to securing the court from June when we don't need the lights, but I think it's best to keep them sweet for the rest of May paying for at least 1 session a week...
The easiest way seems like £1 pay-to-play, coupled with some fundraising at the Velo Fest event (have checked and they are ok with this as long as it's no effort on their part!), a tournament or an alleycat/raffle/party/bbq type event...
Thoughts please!
Sounds OK, as long as we have lights when needed I'm happy, although it can't be that hard to train two receptionists to use a switch and timer properly.
I know it's frustrating, but they're probably supposed to stay on the desk and stuff while they're there. Especially if they're the only staff member in the building.
Like I said, Dale's going to try and figure out the best way for PH to manage it and ensure we can get lights when we need them, ideally without creating too much extra work for either of us or running the risk of the lights being on at the wrong times and costing them loads of money.
Fit a meter outside that we need to put 50p in for half an hours light.