Trevor Clarke
You would have all read in the last issue of Call Sign about the impending retirement of our Company Secretary, Trevor Clarke. He retired on April 24th and is now doing whatever retired people do! However, in Trevor's case he will probably be as active as he was before retiring. I have always told him that he'll find things very boring when he retires, but he assures me that he has lots of interests and will be as busy as he was when working - and I believe him.
   When I took over as Chairman almost five years ago, Trevor informed me that he would be retiring in April 2001, it seemed such a long time in the future but it has soon come around. I didn't think it was appropriate to pen my thanks to Trevor whilst he was still employed by Dial-a-Cab, but now that he has retired I feel it is more appropriate.
   Trevor joined the Society in February 1986 as Office Manager and then Company Secretary, what he doesn't know about the administration side of DaC is not worth knowing and he will be an extremely difficult act to follow. During my time as Chairman, Trevor has shown me loyalty, support and respect and for that I would publicly like to thank him.
   Even now I sometimes go to Trevor for his advice, I don't always take it, but I am always interested in his view as no one knows Dial-a-Cab better than Trevor Clarke. In conclusion, I would like to wish both Trevor and Jeanette a long and happy retirement and wish for them all that they wish for themselves. Thank you Trevor...

Replacement
As you will all know by now, I am always keen to change things when I think it will benefit both members and the Society. Just because things have always been done in a certain way, it doesn't necessarily make it the best way. To this end, the BoM have employed Warren Smith as

Financial Accountant to take over Trevor's duties in administration and the book-keeping side of the business and I would like to wish him a long and happy association with Dial-a-Cab.
   The Company Secretary's duties will be transferred to Howard Pears, our Finance Manager and Warren's boss, with immediate effect. Before one or two of you start running for your Rule Books, I have made enquires and yes, it can be done and is in keeping with most modern businesses. Again, I would like to wish Howard well with his added responsibilities.

Loss of Business
Some of you have spoken to me recently about one of our larger account clients using the services of a company that supply the small 'A' class Mercedes. I can't - and won't - tell you that they are doing the type of work that doesn't usually go in taxis. The work that they are doing is Taxi work and is in direct competition with us.
   The person responsible for supplying these vehicles is our former Sales Manager, after all that is what he was employed to do by the car company concerned, to get his foot inside the doors of our account clients and who can blame him? I have tried to collate as much information as possible on the way they operate, but as you can imagine, people are very coy with the information that they divulge.
   The 'A' class operate from outside of the premises of our account client, but they are ordered via the telephone. Any trip that finishes within a five-mile radius of the account address (as the crow flies) is charged at £10

and thereafter at £2 per mile. At the moment they are only servicing one department of our account client and completing approximately eighty trips per day.
   OK, I can hear some of you now saying, they haven't our size of fleet and will never compete with our volumes, but they don't want to. They will do their eighty trips a day and keep making their way back to the account client for the next job from their exclusive department.
   However, if the client rings for an 'A' class and there isn't one outside the premises, guess who they ring for a cab? I find this a very hard pill to swallow, just as I know you will. So what are our alternatives? We can threaten to withdraw our service unless the work returns to us - not a good idea because if I were in the clients position, I know what I would tell Dial-a-Cab to do.
   If their volumes fall any further, I could increase their service charge - but that just makes us even more expensive than the 'A' class and what with the 5.5% tariff increase - not a particularly good idea, so what do we do?
   We continue to give an excellent service - cost is not everything. We watch our run-ins and make contact with the customer as soon as we can to cut down their waiting time and also be as courteous as we possibly can.
   In short, we must out-service them. This could turn out to be a marathon and not a sprint, the worst possible thing that we could do is to stamp our feet, pick up our ball and go home. We must continue to service, especially you night men, although I can understand your reaction. If you do not persevere, our service will suffer and more and more of the account and our account base in general, will be eroded. Remember, the car company in question are putting on another 40 'A' class in the next few weeks. Do not cut off your nose to spite your face, however difficult that might prove to be.

Brian Rice