More 4NCL

[Rob Thompson]

Alan, what is likely to happen with the venues (and I still have to finalise the details) is that the numbers of rooms held on large block bookings (probably four or more) will be treated by the venues as definitive two weeks before the weekend and charged to the booker's credit card. If individual rooms need to be cancelled just before the weekend for reasons such as illness, bereavement etc the venues will of course exercise discretion. The two weeks deadline is the best I can get as a compromise (reasonable or otherwise) between giving the captains a fair chance of finalising their teams and the venues a fair chance of reselling the rooms in the event of cancellation.

As a former captain myself I know that this isn't exactly going to make captains' jobs easier to say the least given the difficulty of getting players to commit in advance, but the venues are adamant that they not prepared to countenance continuing loss of revenue on the scale that has been happening. I expect captains who block book will need to scale back their block booking to a level they are comfortable they are going to be able to commit to a fortnight out and have players not covered by the block booking make their bookings on an individual basis.

If anybody has any thoughts on whether this arrangement can be modified in a way that will be acceptable to the venues before it is finalised I would be glad to hear from them.

Would it be worth looking at a sliding scale? i.e. from 2 weeks the venues will take say 20%, a week 50% and at a day or two 90-100%? (the figures are just invented, it's the idea i wanted to get across)

[Jonathan Rogers]

Well I certainly have no intention of paying for rooms for up to 20 players in advance of a weekend! Not all teams are sponsored, you know - in fact the majority of captains who need to pre-book four or more rooms have no sponsor, and you have no idea how inconvenient it would be for me to recoup the money (£46) from each of my 20 players! I should imagine that we would not use 4NCL venues at all if that came to pass.

Remember, if you will, that Barcelo at Hinckley Island two years ago required £10 deposits per room. That was quickly scrapped when a number of other captains (besides myself) complained about the disproportionate extra work in collecting £10 from each player. So imagine £46 per person instead of £10 ...

You could still justify some tightening. If any team cancels more than one room with less than two weeks to go, the team would pay the Hotel the cost of the extra room(s) if they are not taken up by anyone else, and perhaps a penalty £5 per room to the 4NCL even if they are, to reflect the inconvenience caused in the meantime.

But payment of all rooms in advance is in my view not viable.

[Alan Walton]

I would have to agree with Jonathan with the pre-charging, my dad who organises all of 3Cs rooms, just laughed when I told him this proposal, and said a very similar thing as Jonathan has said

[Mike Truran]

Jonathan, if you have no intention of paying for rooms in advance, then I suppose one answer is for you not to block book but to have the players book individually. If I understand you right, it's your players, not you, who are actually paying for the rooms at the weekend anyway, so presumably they could make the booking in the first place?

I can certainly put it to De Vere and Barcelo though that even if the room numbers are locked in as at two weeks out, any shortfall between the final amount paid and the number reserved two weeks out is charged to the credit card at the weekend itself rather than two weeks before - which is similar, although not identical, to the suggestion in your penultimate paragraph

Alan, I'm not sure why the idea of pre-charging in itself caused such mirth when, as you said, the idea of prepaying for discounted rates is pretty normal in the hotel industry.

[Alan Walton]

Mike, I am not opposed personally about pre-paying for individual rooms, but as the 4NCL is a team competition we would try and guarantee all of our members at the same hotel and block booking is the only way around this

I would put this example across to you, our second team is composed of 6 juniors (3 twin rooms) and a minimum of 2 accompanying adult (say 2 singles), if we cannot block book (without pre payment) can we have a definite guarantee that all our players would be accommodated at the same hotel? (very important for a junior team)

[Mike Truran]

As I said, I will talk to De Vere and Barcelo about charging any shortfall at the weekend itself rather than two weeks out.

I suspect that as their main issue is the shortfall in revenue through late cancellations rather than the timing of the credit card charge it won't be a big deal - but of course I may stand to be corrected.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I really cannot imagine 20 of my players each phoning up to reserve a room at the Hotel ! - at least, not until the rooms are already gone ... in terms of man hours and recipes for confusion, etc, it make sense for one person to do this with three or four venues at the start of the season, rather than 20 people doing so five times during the season, and often attempting to do so only when it is too late.

But ok, you could perhaps have a deposit system. The captain could pay (say) £50 two weeks in advance, on the understanding that he would forfeit it if he then cancels more than one room of his allocation from that stage onwards, though I am not completely happy even about this, being unsure how efficient the hotels would then be in issuing the refunds.

Also, you could have a rule that if anyone block books (at any time) more than (say) twelve rooms at the outset, then the booking would be taken subject to authorisation from Mike himself, who will notice if any team has booked several more rooms than they would appear to need, bearing in mind the numbers of teams entered. That might reassure the Hotels that no one is likely to book many rooms only to suddenly cancel six of them much later down the track.

But do we need some quid pro quo here? Many of these venues still take bookings from outsiders (there seemed to be a wedding party in Daventry) and that too must have been a reason why some players could not book there. Perhaps Mike will say that we are not in a position to argue that they should refuse bookings from outsiders but I think the issue should be on the table at least, and we may insist on it if/when the 4NCL has a better record of filling venues at weekends (though really, I thought it had quite a good record already?)

[Alex Holowczak]

I really cannot imagine 20 of my players each phoning up to reserve a room at the Hotel ! - at least, not until the rooms are already gone ... in terms of man hours and recipes for confusion, etc, it make sense for one person to do this with three or four venues at the start of the season, rather than 20 people doing so five times during the season, and often attempting to do so only when it is too late.

Perhaps this is the greatest problem. Rooms need to be booked well in advance to satisfy the hotel's requirements. Often the composition of teams isn't known as far in advance as the rooms need to be booked, so the only way to do it is to block-book. I can understand why a need to centralise the room booking is required. I suppose the heart of the problem is that the 4NCL has grown so big that the hotels can't necessarily accommodate everyone. If there were surplus available rooms, there wouldn't be a need to block book.

The 4NCL is too popular!

[Alan Walton]

The 4NCL is too popular nowadays, I come back to the point that the current venues are too isolated, people don't want a 15/30 minute drive from one hotel to another, if they cannot stay at the venue

Back in the days of playing in Birmingham city centre, if you didn't want to stay at the official venue, there were plenty of hotels within walking distance, also because it is a team event with requirements of at least 8 rooms each weekend, the team could then can negotiate individually with hotels as 3Cs used to do in those days (we actually got the rooms cheaper than the Moat House)

[Roger de Coverly]

The 4NCL is too popular nowadays, I come back to the point that the current venues are too isolated, people don't want a 15/30 minute drive from one hotel to another, if they cannot stay at the venue

The most recent weekend wasn't helped by the proximity of the event to the 1st November rating list and the initial decision to use that rating list rather than the 1st September list for board orders. So if you have teams in divisions 1/2 and 3, there was the possibility of rating surprises affecting the allocation of players to hotels

[Alex Holowczak]

The other major issue here is that the 4NCL is at the beck and call of the hotels.

The hotels offer very good deals for room rates and playing space. Without them, there would be no 4NCL. The whole event would become too expensive. So the teams need to be prepared to compromise themselves. This extends to block booking, where it might well be best for your team, but has the potential to make a mockery of any hotel agreements Mike has arranged.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Agreed with Alex's last point, and have suggested a number of compromises myself, having objected "uncompromisingly" only to paying the full amount up front.

Roger is mistaken. September ratings were used for board orders in the November weekend, though this was perhaps clarified only at a relatively late stage, and it is true that it would help if such decisions were made sooner (for other reasons besides hotels).

[Roger de Coverly]

Roger is mistaken. September ratings were used for board orders in the November weekend, though this was perhaps clarified only at a relatively late stage, and it is true that it would help if such decisions were made sooner (for other reasons besides hotels).

That was my point entirely. My match captain protested that he was unwilling to confirm names to hotels until he knew for certain who could play in which team. The proposed 4NCL approach until the hotel issue arose had been to use November ratings. The likely teams and board orders (ratings permitting) had been circulated to the players much earlier.

[Ian Thompson]

If anybody has any thoughts on whether this arrangement can be modified in a way that will be acceptable to the venues before it is finalised I would be glad to hear from them.

I hope you will remind the venues that they are not entirely blameless in this. Its only 18 months ago (3-5 May 2009 weekend) that the De Vere Staverton Park failed to honour a booking made by the Guildford team. See this thread. If there are to be penalties for teams making late cancellations of rooms there should also be penalties for hotels failing to honour confirmed bookings.

[Ben Purton]

Alan , The fact is your not going to get as good playing halls/venues as you do in these current venues.

These venues make there money not by people visiting the area but by just holding conferences there. I use to date someone who was a waitress at a de vere in hampshire and literally it was golf(business), wedding, wedding, golf......never anything else really.

I think the perfect venue does not occur.

We get to stay in plush rooms, have food i cant eat but looks very good for both dinner and breakfast for £40 all in, thats pretty good.

At least they have a bar.....

Ben