Food Glorious Food

The 4th Annual Malton Food Festival took place over the 19th and 20th May. 

It was a really good afternoon with lots of fun for all the family. 

First stop for us was The Pizza Farm - fresh stone-baked pizza made in front of your eyes. Littlemiss9 was mesmerised by the whole process - from the lady that took our order, to the guy that made the bases, another that sorted our toppings and finally the gentleman above that cooked our lunch. And it tasted extremely yummy - hope they are able to visit us here one day.

We had a list of products that we needed to re-stock and The Chilli Jam Man was first on this list. We have enjoyed many of the Chilli Jams and the Jammonaise is a family favourite. Click here to visit his website for online ordering or to find out where he will be next.

There was allsorts going on - the Welcome to Yorkshire Taste Trail went down really well with us all - chocolate and ice-cream for the kids, pigeon, beef and crab for the parents. It was also great to see Dee Marshall, Gary Verity, Sarah Barrowby and Janet Deacon from Welcome to Yorkshire and Craig Nattress looked fab in his pinny!

Are the awards worth it?

Why have you entered so many awards?

I’ll be completely truthful with you – marketing, PR, publicity – put it however you want, at the end of the day the publicity we have received as finalists in so many awards has been priceless. Whether we are a winner of not we are allowed to use a finalist logo on all our publicity material which can make us stand out from other parks in the area.

We also get so much more from them – the learning curve has increased sharply since we started entering. Each award has its own judging process – but for each of the caravan park/self-catering awards this process has included a mystery visit and a mystery phonecall. The feedback we get from these visits has been invaluable. We see the site everyday – the mystery visits make us see it through a completely different set of eyes.

 Judges have come up with new ideas that we have been able to put into practise, they have given us advice on where modifications could be made. Extra signage is on order for our tourist information area specifically due to a comment made in the feedback report in an award application last year. Both shower blocks shown on Look North in October last year have now been completely retiled as we could see they needed brightening up.

No-one has run a course on how to run a caravan park – 12 years later we are still learning –  we can’t build new ideas sat behind a desk – we have to find new ways of learning. The only cost involved in the awards is time (plus new dress, bag and shoes) but the rewards are incalculable.

How do the Outstanding Customer Service awards differ?

We were nominated for the customer service awards by guests and they mean so much to both of us. Last year a child fell over on the park – no fault of ours I hasten to add – his parents had been drinking outside their tent so had been unable to take him to hospital. Instead Damian took them all – he waited with them at Malton hospital and when a transfer to York hospital was needed Damian stepped in to help again. He waited at York hospital with them until all x-rays were completed and then brought them back to the site. Damian didn’t do that because it’s part of his job – he did it because he is a genuinely nice guy (although when I sprained my knee back in February it was 2 days before he would take me to hospital).

Will you be entering more?

To be honest we haven’t made that decision yet. There is alot of time that goes into each entry and its knowing what to put into each entry. Obviously we have made huge improvements to the shower block this year so there is scope for an entry this year but a time will come where we can’t do that. We will just have to wait and see – if Nick enters we will have to J A younger guest has asked if he can enter the girls into an awards so we may have to hold our own.

It's raining............it's pouring........

I’m sure we aren’t the only ones that are getting fed up of the constant rain. So many things we want to get on with outside and they are almost impossible in this weather. We can do most things in the wind and cold but add a bit of rain and things come to a halt.

I’ve also noticed that the phone is really quiet on days when the weather is poor – no-one is in the right frame of mind to be thinking of their summer holidays. Once the sun starts to shine again camping will seem like a really fun thing to do once more.

So, what are we doing?

You may think that with so little to do on the park we are sat indoors with the heating on relaxing and taking the time to rest. Nope!!! Since I started this morning I’ve dealt with three repair men, four advertising salespeople, ordered some uniform, made sure adverts are running in all the right places, worked on the website, helped with a newsletter and made a cup of tea. Thankfully its now lunchtime – and time to make a list of all the things I’ll do this afternoon.

Yorkshire - When are you coming?

Can't decide where to go on holiday this year? Let me help you make up your mind!

Y12

Seems we've gone through all seasons since I was sat in the garden writing the last blog. Sun, sleet, wind and rain - we've had them all - but thankfully no snow.

Its been a busy few days since my last blog. On Wednesday I attended Welcome to Yorkshire's Y12 conference at the Barbican Centre with over 1100 others wondering what the year had in store for us.

The chat show style event was hosted by Rob Walker (may have to start watching the snooker now) with guests Gary Verity - Chief Exec for Welcome to Yorkshire, John Penrose MP - Minster for Tourism, Mike Finnigan and a couple of llamas.

The day is always very inspiring and this year was no different. Gary and his team have a lot planned for Yorkshire:

• Back le Bid - A bid for the 2016 Tour de France to start in Yorkshire. You can help by backing le bid at www.yorkshire.com/backthebid
• "On Ilkla Moor Bah't'at" Rap
• Product Placement in Emmerdale
• Bronte's Yorkshire Garden at Chelsea

The finale was emotional for everyone attending. The first champions of Yorkshire "The Yorkshire Regiment" were welcomed onto the stage to collect their Y badges with a standing ovation and a few tears from Row B.

 



A little treat....

Treating myself to a lunch break today - albeit whilst blogging. Sat in the garden with a sandwich and cup of tea listening to the birds singing and the distant humming of a lawn mower.

These peaceful times will pass us by if we aren't careful. It's these snatched hours that make us lucky to be doing the job we do. Damian is at Crow's Nest plumbing in countless new static caravans so he probably isn't feeling as content as I am. To be fair, half an hour ago when surrounded by accounts and the constant ringing of the phone I wasn't as calm as I am now.

But right here, right now, enjoying the Spring sunshine I'm very happy I do the job that I do.......

What should I blog about?

I've read alot of advice on blogs over the last 7 days - looking for that niche - looking for that something that I can talk about that no-one else can and to be honest haven't got very far. Then I thought about the title of our blog and realised that by just writing a diary and by letting people know what happened this week I can give my account of whether it really is a dream job.

Working for yourself/family and illness aren't two things that can go together so despite this steaming cold that I, and everyone I know has, I've battled through the week sorting through accounts, bookings and social media updates. Has it been a dream job this week? Yes and no - I've not taken any time off work, I've sat behind my desk in my pjs and no-one has known - we've still taken lots of bookings but on the other hand I've not had the time off that maybe I could have had if I was working for someone else.

Feeling a little more human this morning, I've spent the morning updating the facebook sites for Jasmine and Crows Nest. So often we don't take full advantage of having the three parks in our marketing efforts so I've made sure that photos of Jasmine and Robin Hood appear on Crows Nest's facebook page and vice versa. If a guest has enjoyed their stay at one of our parks they are (hopefully) more likely to look at staying at one of the others.

If you follow us on facebook - any of us - what do you want to see on there? Why do you read my blog? What tweets do you like reading? I really want to extend the communication between ourselves and our guests/potential guests - stats show that people are reading our blogs and browsing our website as a result - how can I build on that? Comment below, email or tweet with your opinions and help me make the best of our blog.