Call Sign July 2008 - Page 21 - FOR DAC IT’S A BLANK HOLIDAY!

Although it’s July as you read this, if you worked overnight on the early May bank holiday weekend beginning on the evening of Friday 2 May and were looking to add some credit work to a notoriously quite period, you would have been unlucky. At 2215, a sudden power surge shook Dial-a-Cab House. Although it was spotted, everything continued working as normal and a joint sigh of relief was heard in the East Road building. Then in the very early hours - at 00.19 on Saturday 3 May to be precise – a further four electrical power surges hit the building, which proved to be a bit too much even for our failsafe system. The dispatching system went down along with all the telephones. Within an hour or so, the normally sedate overnight surroundings of DaC House were overtaken by a string of arrivals more usually seen during daylight hours. Chairman Brian Rice, who hadn’t been home for more than a few hours, left his leafy Hampshire abode and drove back to East Road. Also called in was Call Centre Manager Keith Cain, IT Manager John Bankes and Jonathen Winterburn, DaC’s Network Administrator. By 3.30am, DaC had managed to get the telephone system up and running, but couldn’t do anything about the despatching system. However, the team did spot the parts that had been damaged by the power surge and contacted the company about picking up the parts – only to find that unlike DaC, they do not do UK deliveries on weekends and that we would have to deal with them	*As the UK enjoyed a bank holiday weekend…* FOR DAC IT’S A BLANK HOLIDAY!
	Dial-a-Cab House returns to normal after its first anniversary weekend goes blank!
	in Belgium to get any service! DaC had little choice but to do that. Eventually the parts arrived and after one unsuccessful attempt, on the second go – at around 14.30 hrs on Saturday afternoon - the despatch system was finally restored. Throughout the night, whenever a driver phoned in to ask why they couldn’t sign on, DaC took their mobile phone number, sent them to a fixed point paying them an hourly waiting rate to go on standby and when a credit job was taken in their zone, they were phoned back and given details of it. They were, of course, paid for the job in addition to the waiting time. Few of the drivers realised that the person at the other end of the phone was often Brian Rice! Perhaps the most fortunate part was that it happened overnight on a quiet bank holiday weekend, otherwise it could have been rather hairy! Why the surges came, Call Sign has been unable to find out, however it also knocked out the phone systems of several large	companies in the area. Brian Rice told Call Sign after the emergency was finally sorted out and some 37 hours after first waking up on that eventful Friday morning - several hours earlier than usual as he was scheduled to make a presentation to a member of the night staff: "I would like to thank night dispatcher Dave Ivers for staying late and teaching me how to use the Aspect system and to Jon Winterburn, John Bankes (who also happened to be unwell) and Keith Cain for also spending the night here. In addition, can I also thank Allan Evans and Andy Parry for coming in on that Saturday and also to all the Call Centre staff who performed magnificently under very traumatic conditions. If I have neglected to thank everyone that I should have, I am sure they will forgive me – I’m now also going home to bed!" Amazingly, that same bank holiday weekend last year saw the same unexpected guests in the building – it was the weekend we moved from Brunswick House!

REVISED SUBSCRIPTIONS

Howard Pears
At a recent Board meeting, it was agreed that monthly subscriptions should be increased.
However, it was also agreed that to reduce the impact of the increase to members, the implementation date should be deferred until 1^st September 2008.

The revised monthly subscription rates are as follows: -

Members’ Ł124.00 (Ł145.70 inc VAT)
Second Drivers’ Ł67.00 (Ł78.72 inc VAT)
Third Drivers’ Ł21.00 (Ł24.67 inc VAT)
Journeyman * Ł124.00 (Ł145.70 inc VAT)

*A driver who drives a member’s taxi exclusively.

Howard Pears
Company Secretary

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