Hardy’s Report March 2005
Well, the season is drawing to a close again and generally things have continued to go well with many successful events. Happily, during the season, we only had one incidence of ‘summary bar closure’ due to staff shortage. As this has tended to be the norm in the past, this has been a large step forward in customer relations. This makes it all the more disappointing that the bar in Hardy’s will only be open on Thursday nights through to the end of the season with confusing, anonymous notices regarding opening/staffing arrangements regularly arriving on the wall. Although the bar facility in Oasis will be a available, surely, given the level of investment in owners’ functions this year it would not have ‘broken the bank’ to staff Hardys on minimum wage for a 2 or 3 nights a week. No matter how good things generally get on occasions why does it always seem that the season ends as the last holiday maker leaves the Park while the people who pay for a 10 month site(around £4 million quid collectively) get ‘what’s left’. We surely deserve better than this annual, cynical reduction in service.
Sadly, we had to say farewell to Louise in June. She has done an excellent job and her efforts and enthusiasm are much missed. She was given an excellent send off with the lounge being full of well-wishers on her last day with us.
Although lacking the level of authority given to Louise, Pauline has proved to be an excellent replacement and her cheerful and helpful manner is appreciated by everyone. Let’s hope she returns next year.
The St George’s night and D Day celebrations went off very well, also the excellent Matt Black again was a huge success. There was also a very successful wine tasting night, which, in the event, was combined with Bill Harris’s birthday party. Our thanks to Chrissie for all the food (and more wine!) Also well attended and, apparently, good fun, were the weekly Line Dancing classes in September and October. Maybe this could be a regular feature next year?
Very worthy of mention is the highly successful Macmillans Cancer Care coffee morning held in Hardy’s and brilliantly organised by Sally Lord and Chrissie Harris. A combination of coffee, cakes, raffles, name the bear competition etc produced a very successful event that carried on into the Friday quiz night. The excellent sum of £700.00 was raised and congratulations are due to all involved.
The breakfasts continue to be well presented this year and remain very popular. As do the Coffee mornings. Again thanks are due to those owners who occasionally donate cakes etc and to Bourne Leisure for the coffee.
Finally, we have heard that our thanks are again due to Geoffrey (The General Manager) for his approval for the Hardy’s facility to be used by the owners to organise their own functions on Boxing night and New Years Eve. As always, we promise to leave the place as we find it.
