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2010??? Another year over, where does the time go? From a business point of view, personally I’m glad its over! In all my years, I have never experienced a time when the economy has had such an impact on the Society’s business. The Annual Report will soon be sent to you and it’s very clear to see the downturn in the work for 2008/9. But, it’s the bottom line that really tells the story. For any business to suffer such a large drop in turnover, yet only show a small loss is quite an achievement. When you read the Chairman in the Annual Report, you will understand why, simply put, had we the Board not taken such drastic action in reducing the expenditure of the Society, you wouldn’t need to be a mathematician to see that our loss could have been huge. Unfortunately, to achieve these savings meant we had to focus our attention on areas of the business where costs were high. First was the complement of staff we employed. It was a very difficult time for me because most of the staff came under my jurisdiction and I had to be involved in the whole redundancy process, which I assure you was not a pleasant experience to have to go through. Other members of staff were also very accommodating for the Society by volunteering to reduce their hours or even change their shifts. Sadly for us, the Board had to also decide not to give any salary increases or pay staff a Christmas bonus. The Board also reduced some of their own hours and the |
 annual hourly increase that is permitted in line with the fare increase, was not taken. A decision not to present drivers with a Christmas gift was also taken and my view on this was that if you cannot give something fairly substantial, then do not give anything because it may well offend. What is going to happen in the New Year? Well, due to the BoM not being clairvoyant and able to predict the future - although some would have you believe differently - all we can do when setting budgets is to fall back on our experience and speculate how the year will transpire. So far, the current trading year trends are demonstrating that we are in line with previous years. By this I mean that September, October and November are the busier months and have already helped us to show a marginal trading profit. December, which is only a three-week month, is normally not as profitable as we’d like because of the increased staffing costs we incur, usually caused by covering the extra shifts worked over the holiday period. We hope that by the end of December, we will show a small profit; but a small loss would not come as a surprise. January takes |
a couple of weeks to recover
from the festive period and is not normally a month for showing
huge profit. If we can get to the end of January and still show
at least a break-even figure, then the slightly busier months of
February and March should start to help us to get through April
- another tight month due to the Easter Holidays. If we are still in the black by this time of the year and if the trading trends stay the same, June and July should set us up well to handle August, which as we all know is a very quiet month. So, unless there is a total downturn in our work, we should be in a good position by the end of August 2010 to show a respectable yearly trading profit. But the important point for us all to remember is this. The Society is in the service industry and if we are to have a successful year, then our service must be more than the normal excellent service we provide. If we just maintain this, our clients will do no more than just accept that that’s what they are paying for. If we give poor service, the chances are everyone will know about it. But the only chance we have of receiving that pat on the back or that all-important compliment is for us all to go the extra mile and not take our foot off the pedal. If we all remember that, then I believe 2010 will be much better for us all. And on that note, I’d like to wish you all and your families a very happy and prosperous New Year...
Keith Cain |
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