St. Ives report 11th February 2019

CMOA Reps Pre-Season Meeting with JFH Management St Ives Holiday Village: 11 February 2019

JFH Representative:

Carenza Waite, General Manager St Ives Holiday Village

Owners Representative:

David Toman

Review of Previous Year:

The St Ives Holiday Park won 2 awards last year. One from the John Fowler’s organisation themselves for most improved park within the company and one from Cornwall Tourism where they won a bronze medal in the Best holiday village category.

Carenza and Kevin also want to achieve an Environment Friendly Category award within the foreseeable future.

A good year for the park overall, steady progress has been made on site each year regarding running of the site generally. Most of the old-style chalets have been replaced with the newer model of lodge. The few remaining wooden chalets are planned to be replaced soon.

Overall the Season went well but there was a high turnover of site entertainers, it is hoped to be more stable in this regard within the coming season.

Sarah, the previous entertainment manager has now been promoted to dept manager.  This results in a more comprehensive management cover when Kevin and Carenza are not on site.

Main Building Upgrade:

Plans have been drawn up but are still awaiting approvals from the JF development team and local planners.

Service Standards:

 All services providers are generally the same companies as last year, head office is currently reviewing all contracts in order to improve services for the site.

All prices for utility services are dealt with by head office and are constantly under review.

Bad weather at each end of the season is one reason for higher bills last year.

The Park can only use approved products when carrying out the of replacement of broken or missing items within the lodges, owners can probably get cheaper prices if able to replace themselves.

All inventory packs make life easier for the site, it can be expensive for an owner to set up but once in place all items are easier to replace like for like. Some owners properties have far to many personal items in their lodges and some have had to have them reduced. These items are all labelled for easy identification and ready for collection.

It takes significantly longer to clean and dust properties that have excessive amounts of ornaments in place.

Roads and Lodge Parking Spaces:

Roads have improved on site year by year but there is a significant moss build up on most tarmac services and is becoming an issue. Power washing is taking place to improve the situation on paths to lodges.  Road sweeping has taken place, but it has had minimal effect on reducing the moss level build up.

Gas cabinets for containing the LPG bottles are available but still expensive, Carenza to look for a contractor for other alternatives and will also contact Ollie Fowler who had worked on the issue previously.

Bus Timetable:

The site has no control over the present service provider and have continually contacted him with emails etc but promises not followed up on to date.  One of biggest complaints from the provider is low season numbers not making the service profitable.

Trip Advisor:

 Much better comments in general now that the old chalets are off line. A small number of owner’s properties were generating poor comments on Trip Advisor, but work has now been carried out to improve this situation.

The site is opening earlier this year but only owners are on site to date. Guests start to arrive from the end of February. The website for owners to see what bookings have taken place is not been accessible for quite some time and no one from head office will reply to any emails requesting information or clarification on the matter!!

New Facility:

New food banks to be made available for visitors who are leaving site and want to deposit left over tins of food and dried goods. To be positioned at the side of restaurant next to the shop entrance.

There is to be new waste bins on site,  only glass will be asked to be separated. All waste for the new bins will be sorted at the waste recycling facility to generate an electricity source, the JF site in St Ives expect to be 100% recycled waste standard from April onwards.

Carenza agreed to start owners’ group on Facebook as another source to make it easier to stay connected with any matters relating to the holiday village at St Ives.

AOB:

No issues raised at this time.

David Toman thanked Carenza Waite for her time and helpful inputs towards the meeting and for her continual support towards the CMOA members.

Meeting Concluded at 11.0