Tag Archive for 'motor home hire'

Motor home hire and rental prize-giving day arrives with Mandy’s fingers firmly crossed

Published on February 12, 2009 in motor home and motorhome. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

If Mandy had been religious, she would have prayed for good weather but, in the event, the weather on Ruarc’s motor home hire and rental prize-giving day was about as good as it possibly could have been for late November in the South of England.

As Mandy walked over to the motorhome sales office, she mentally ran through all the things that needed to be checked relating to the motor home prize-giving day. The sun was peeping from behind the tall trees and the rooks were cackling and swooping above.

By 11 o’clock when the gates opened, sunshine was pouring down and Ruarc’s motorhome sales was beginning to look almost festive. In the centre of the circle of motor homes had been placed a marquee where visitors could congregate and talk about their experiences and dreams of motorhoming. Outside the marquee there was a raised stage where the prize-giving would take place.

By midday Ruarc’s motorhome sales was humming with people chattering, laughing and enjoying the day. Even Ruarc lent a hand talking to the customers and Mandy saw him leading off a pair of sisters who were interested in a motorhome rental for a holiday in Italy she heard them planning.

Gladys was enjoying seeing all the people she’d been talking to for weeks on the telephone and was even exchanging kisses with some of them. It was almost as if Ruarc’s motorhome sales had suddenly grown an extended family. However, Mandy knew that each new member of the family was a prospective customer and the good relationships that were being developed that day would be needed to see the motorhome sales business through the next months and possibly years.

2 o’clock came, all too quickly, and the stage was set to announce the winners of the free motorhome holiday. This was a moment they had been working towards for weeks. Mandy’s fingers were firmly crossed that it would go well. How would all the people who had hoped to win a two weeks’ holiday feel when they found it had gone to somebody else? Perhaps there would be a riot. Perhaps they would no longer feel so friendly.

Ruarc, took to the stage and spoke into the microphone, in his rich Irish brogue, instantly charming many.

“Hello, hello. 1 2 3 … Can you hear me?”

The gathered crowd roared “Yes!” Many still had wine glasses in their hands and a contented glow in their cheeks.

“I have to make an announcement before I pass you over to the distinguished counsellor who has not only worked so hard judging your excellent entries but has also agreed to make the presentation of the prize.”

An announcement? Fear clutched at Mandy’s heart. She had no knowledge of any announcement. Ruarc was just supposed to welcome the guests and hand over to the local councillor. What on earth was he playing at?

“I, as proprietor of this humble motorhome sales business have been so impressed by the quality of the entries for this competition that I have decided to offer not one but three free holiday prizes and a few minutes ago, I asked our distinguished judge to select two more winners from the list of entrants.”

Loud applause greeted this announcement and someone even started off three cheers. Relief flooded through Mandy.

“I will now pass you over to our distinguished friend from the Council,” said Ruarc. He winked at Mandy, as he came off the stage. The wink said that he was still in charge and would  run the show as he wished. He was obviously enjoying her discomfort and his little surprise. Mandy suddenly felt she had been warned.

The councillor stepped onto the stage. He was a short round, balding friendly looking man. Mandy could see how many people would feel at ease voting for him. His best quality was that he was inoffensive.

“I must first thank Ruarc’s motorhome sales for the opportunity of coming here and presenting these prizes. Of course it was a very difficult task to choose the winning entries from so many. However, generously expanding the winners from one to three certainly made the choice a little bit easier.”

The names of the winners were called out and they all trooped onto the stage to collect their certificates detailing their prize except one of the winners who was disabled. Instead, his carer collected his certificate and took it down to where he sat in his wheelchair, looking pleased.

There was a lot of clapping and even some cheers. Then it was all over and people started drifting away.

“I hardly dare to ask,” said Mandy quietly to Gladys. “How many sales?”

“Two,” said Gladys.

“Oh!” said Mandy, disappointment washing over her.

“Zero,” said Gladys, with a triumphant smile on her face.

“Twenty! screamed Mandy with excitement. That’s fantastic. Now we really do have something to celebrate.

Katerina joined in the group hug and they were still jumping up and down with happiness when the first caravan appeared bearing Ruarc’s family.

Within minutes, one caravan had turned into a steady stream.

Mandy makes steady progress with motor-home hire and rental strategy

Published on February 6, 2009 in motor home and motorhome. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

The next few days passed for Mandy in a blur of activity. Katerina, who was slim and small, slept in Mandy’s motor-home luton. Since Ruarc point-blank refused to agree a wage for her, Mandy said she would reimburse Katerina out of her own pay.

The wages Katerina said she’d previously been paid whilst in the UK were so pitiful it would be no great hardship, Mandy thought.

At least, Ruarc agreed for Mandy to take a laptop from the farm shop and install it in her motor-home so Katerina was able to make a start with improving the Web site design aspects of the motor-home business.

Customers came and customers went. Sometimes Mandy felt optimistic and sometimes she felt in the depths of despair. The recession was biting hard and everybody had horror stories to report about shops closed down and businesses failing.

But the motor-homes were looking spic and span and the customers were reading the information now sellotaped to the motor-home windscreens alongside the price and obviously valued the information.

Entries for the motor-home competition were also now going strongly and the telephone and email information was proving invaluable for follow-up calls made by Gladys who looked in her element.

Gradually the motorhome rental side of the business was growing and, although no motor home sales seemed imminent, Ruarc had begun to treat Mandy more like an employee and advisor than a lackey.

Perhaps he had warned Ralph off too because his son hadn’t been  around causing problems with Katerina.

For a few days, Mandy had been worried about the gang-master coming around for his share of Katerina’s wage however, as it turned out, it seemed the gang-master had so many workers that, if one went missing, it was not so important, especially one as weak and tiny as Katerina.

A group of fishermen entered the competition and then came around to make a regular motor-home hire booking. Seizing the opportunity of regular business, Mandy was even able to agree a special deal price with them which left them very satisfied.

It seemed they needed the motor-home to go away together for regular sea fishing expeditions.

After the first trip, the four fishermen  left the motor-home they had rented in quite a state but Katerina with a shrug and a smile quickly set to work to make it spic and span and good as new.

One day, a middle-aged man turned up and quite took to Mandy. He was going into hospital soon for radiotherapy and didn’t want to travel the 60 miles each day for treatment. His plan was to park the motor-home at a campsite near to the hospital for the duration of the treatment. He told Mandy that, when his treatment was over, if it was successful, he would come back and try to persuade Mandy to go out for a date with him. Mandy found herself shedding a tear as the man drove away in his rented motor-home.

Which made Mandy wonder about Tom Hutchinson. For somebody who seemed so keen, it had now been several weeks that he had not called. Perhaps his plans had changed or perhaps she had mis-read his intentions.

Each day, Mandy went to work at the motor-home sales office, greeting customers and working hard to make sales. Katerina started her day cleaning the motor homes then sat studiously updating Rick’s motor-home sales web site on the laptop.

When the month-end came, Mandy handed Katerina her share of Mandy’s wages and was pleased to see Gladys was also continuing to be paid.

The grand finale to the motor-home hire promotional competition was rapidly  approaching and Mandy made arrangements with the local press and media to televise the prize-giving. It would be good public relations for Ruarc’s motor-home sales business.

Mandy’s only worry was that Ruarc was insisting his suppliers should come down and join in the celebrations.

Mandy had not forgotten Ruarc’s special relationship with his suppliers and, according to him, their special needs.

Mandy pays a home visit and admits to having further plans for the motor-home business

Published on February 3, 2009 in motor home and motorhome. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Gladys was sitting up in bed looking worried as Mandy entered her bedroom. She didn’t look ill but she didn’t look happy either. She’d obviously decided attack was the best form of defence.

“I suppose Ruarc wants to know when I’m coming back to work for him, well he can go and take a running jump. I haven’t been paid for two months and no pay no Gladys is my new rule and I don’t take kindly to him sending people to check up on me.

“I’m not checking up on you,” said Mandy, taken aback at the outburst. “May I sit down.”

Gladys hesitated, nodded and Mandy sat down gingerly at the end of her bed.

“Ruarc said he was worried about you and wanted the know if there’s anything he could do to help.”

Mandy was making it up as she went along. It didn’t sound as if Gladys was coming back to work and the fact she hadn’t been paid for two months made her position, in Mandy’s eyes, seem very reasonable.

“He’s probably more worried about his creature comforts than the motor home business and disappointed I’m not providing them any more,” said Gladys, archly.

“I think your personal relationships are between you and Ruarc,” said Mandy, evenly. “I can only talk about the business.”

“The business is going bust,” said Gladys, aggressively. “It’s been on its last legs for years and the recession is making it go completely belly up.”

“I don’t think you can assume that,” said Mandy. “I’ve made a couple of sales of motor homes, recently, and the new motor home hire and motor home rental options means that people don’t have to find so much money to be able to afford to drive a motorhome away. After all, motor home holidays might even become more popular if people stop going abroad for their holidays because of the economic downturn.”

“Okay,” said Gladys, looking Mandy in the eye, “bottom line – tell me straight – did you get paid this month?”

“I must confess that I did,” sighed Mandy, “but I think only because a rental sale I’d made the day before provided the cash to pay me. Of course, there was a complete lack of any wages paperwork which is an irregular way to go about things.”

“Everything at Ruarc’s motorhome business is irregular, often highly irregular, you just can’t imagine how irregular” said Gladys. “The whole family comes from a gypsy background and they’ve never properly integrated with the rest of society. They have their own way of doing things because they don’t know any better. When they purchased that corner of the old airfield for a motor homes business, we locals thought that they wouldn’t last very long but that was five years ago and slowly they seemed to expand, buying up farmland and building their business, apparently successfully. The local people usually take a long time to accept newcomers, I should know, I’ve lived here all my life. And it doesn’t help that they’ve never made any effort. I only went to work because it was a last resort. It provided me an income for a couple of years but now the business looks finished and there’s nothing else locally in prospect. My husband is only interested in his pigeons and keeping the Benefits Office off his back so he’s as much use as a burst tyre.”

A tear trickled down Gladys’ cheek which she rubbed away defiantly with the back of her hand then pulled the blankets up to her chin as if to keep her safe from a threatening world she couldn’t control and didn’t understand.

“If you won’t come back to work again, I suppose you’ll need to send Ruarc your resignation, together with your reasons why,” said Mandy, feeling the whole visit was looking like a waste of time.

“But I wish you would give the business another chance. I have some ideas that I really think could work and the more people to help bring them to fruition, the more chance they have of success.”

“What ideas?”

“I’d rather not say,” said Mandy, cagily. “Especially if you are not going to be working with us any more. It would be revealing business secrets. I think you have to make a decision about whether you are going to come back first before I can say more.”

Gladys looked at Mandy, as if trying to sum her up.

“I’ll have to think about it,” said Gladys, finally. “Can you see yourself out?”

It was a relief for Mandy to be driving the Nu Rio motorhome back to the sales office. She wondered whether the ideas that were slowly germinating in her head really would be successful and whether the revenues generated would be enough to pay Gladys and herself, especially after Ruarc’s family had taken their slice.

Mandy resolved to approach Ruarc with her ideas for beating the recession and saving the motor-home sales business as soon as she got back.

Motor-home sales staff meeting convened at the farmhouse

Published on January 27, 2009 in motor home and motorhome. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

The motor-home sales staff meeting was convened in the farmhouse kitchen with Mandy sitting on one side of the table and Ruarc, Ralph and Rita, who was Ruarc’s sister, sitting on the other.

Mandy had met Rita who spent most of her time in the farm shop tending to the steady but small stream of customers that dropped in, mostly collecting eggs laid by the chickens that clucked their contented way around the farmyard outside.

Rita’s face was almost as mean-looking as Ruarc’s. Ferret like, her dark features had something of a gypsy in them. When Mandy had collected eggs to eat from the farm shop, she hadn’t wasted her words. Her reply to Mandy’s enquiry asking the cost of the goods was simply, “Later.” Now Rita just sat there, silently, and, Mandy thought, rather venomously.

Ruarc started the meeting off.

“This meeting has been convened to consider the effing economic situation and the effing poor sales results of this motorhomes sales business recently … Since Mandy has been with us, mainly. So what have you got to say for yourself, gal?”

Mandy looked across at the three, their faces set and wondered whether it was a lynch party. She thought they were reckoning she would walk away from this table without a job and part of her wondered whether that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. As employers, they left almost everything to be desired. Perhaps it was better to be rid of them. Her problem was that at least it was a job, her accommodation came with the job and she didn’t think there was any chance of her finding another job elsewhere.

She decided the best form of defence was attack.

“Firstly, “she said, “I have sold five motor homes in the last three and a half weeks . I would have thought that the profits from those sales would be much greater than my meagre wages however high my bonuses.”

She saw Ruarc, mouth the word ‘bonus’ with contempt. Perhaps he was trying the word out for size. Mandy doubted whether it was a word normally in his vocabulary.

“However, I have two suggestions,” Mandy continued. Then she outlined her idea of improving the motorhome web site so it reflected more accurately new motorhome stock.

Ruarc’s main response was to moan that the motor home Web site didn’t need updating if she never sold anything.

Mandy’s suggestion to rent out motorhomes with a new motor home hire service drew more interest, though, especially from Rita who pointed out there may be cash income opportunities.

The mention of the word ‘cash’ brought knowing nods from Ruarc’s family. It was obvious they liked the word ‘cash’.

Mandy wondered whether there was a hidden safe somewhere at the farm where they stashed their wealth well away from the tax man.

It turned out that Rita was the Webmaster of the family and she agreed to update the Web site if Mandy would take the photographs of the new stock, if and when there was any. Rita also agreed to include motorhome rental details on the web site.

Ruarc, promised that he would include that the motor homes were now available for rent or hire in his newspaper advertising and the meeting was suddenly at an end.

As Mandy walked across the grass back to the motorhome sales office, she watched the rooks cackling and squabbling in the high trees above the farm, not a lot different to human beings, she reflected. The sun seemed to be shining more brightly and, amazingly, she still had a job and somewhere to live.

Perhaps, there was even still the possibility of romance.

She wondered when Tom Hutchinson would ring again.

Motor home hire – Mandy prepares do or die strategy

Published on January 26, 2009 in motor home and motorhome. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

The next morning Mandy arrived at work feeling in a good mood. Music from the little wind-up radio had cheered her as she woke up in her ancient motor home and the tiny trickle of water from the old motorhome’s shower had even felt a bit warmer and more plentiful than usual.

After crossing the short stretch of grass between the motor home where she slept and the old motor-home that served as the business sales office, she immediately saw a note on her desk from Ruarc, her boss, in his untidy scrawled handwriting.

‘Staff meeting 11 o’clock prompt at the farmhouse with Ralph and my sister. Be there! And you’d better have some ideas about how this motor-home sales business is going to make money – or else!’

Mandy sat down at her motor home sales desk and wondered if this was going to the last day of her employment. Of course, it was completely unfair for them to expect her come up with solutions that they had probably missed for years and, anyway, perhaps there  weren’t any. The UK, like the rest of the world, was a recession and people were not buying motor homes, cars, boats or anything else that cost a lot of money.

Mandy sat down at her desk and leafed through the comments left by the visitors who had taken a look at the motor homes but decided against buying. Perhaps there were aspects of the business prospective customers might have criticised which could be improved – apart from customer care when Mandy wasn’t around, she thought bitterly.

Several visitors had mentioned the lack of an up-to-date Web site. It seemed that they were unable to identify whether there was any new stock. They thought it was a long way for them to drive just to find out the same motor homes were available as at their last visit.

Also a telephone call was not as good as a picture, especially as in one case the poor customer had been told that there was new stock only to arrive and find the new stock, probably entirely fictitious, had just been sold.

Perhaps a new or more up-to-date motor home sales Web site would give Mandy an excuse for ringing around her list of previous visitors and jolt somebody into action.

Mandy looked out through the window of her little office. The window really did need cleaning and the draught caused by the window being partially open all the time to allow the telephone wire through was still a nuisance.

The motor homes stood, solidly and immovably in the weak sunshine. They were a dream of adventure and freedom but they were also very expensive.

To buy a motor-home, the prospective owner had to put down a large amount of money, perhaps from a retirement settlement, or they had to be able to raise credit from a lender and credit was exactly what had stalled with the credit crunch.

It was a pity, Mandy mused, that the motor homes couldn’t be rented out until the economy got better. Motor home hire would help people who wanted a go on holidays and it would help Ruarc’s business because it would provide him with a positive cash flow. He might even be able to keep his suppliers happy by taking on some more motor homes, perhaps even provided on credit from his grateful suppliers.

Armed with these two ideas and wishing that she was armed with a crowbar  to knock some sense into Ruarc and his family, Mandy crossed the grass to the farmhouse where the motor home sales meeting was to be held.