Final Weekend: ALL rooms taken already for Sat 30 April!

[Keith Arkell]

Twin for Friday still needed. Thanks

[Alan Walton]

After reading that somebody booking 26 beds for 20-22 players does seem excessive, perhaps the discounted room rate should only be applied to the number of players required, therefore a squad requiring 20 players, would only be allowed 20 rooms at the lower rate, if you want extra rooms you pay the standard hotel rate (so you have twins if you required extra players) , this would mean that every team in the top 2 divisions are guaranteed discounted rooms and most of the 3rd division should also get discounted rooms.

The releasing of rooms is great, but pretty ineffectual, teams have to have accommodation sorted out well in advance of 2 weeks left, if you have tried booking that late would end up staying miles away, which I gather some teams may have to

[Ben Purton]

My Team has 16 players and 3-5 "reserves" dependent on how lucky I am and who wants to come.

We have 8 twins for the final weekend. I will probs need a Single and Double extra but when i rang up there was only 12 rooms left and I did not want to be greedy.

I hope these come to fruition in next few weeks.

It's my firm belief that teams like the Sharks who all share rooms are role models to the 'loner'-orientated teams such as Bristol who all appear to insist on Single rooms.

I presume AMCA have surplus players due to high parent+junior levels which is more acceptable.

[Ben Purton]

As the fact is , nearly everytime I stay in these hotels, the "single" rooms are doubles/Twins themselves with just one person in it...

[Alan Walton]

Ben, under my proposal if you decided to take twins instead of you allocated singles, you would be releasing discounted rooms back into the pool, which is a good thing, regarding the parent-junior situation, because said player get a single anyway, you easily convert this into a twin without any problems. What is happening is that people are booking well over there actual need just because they can, and knowing all too well that they will be releasing some of them.

[Alex Holowczak]

After reading that somebody booking 26 beds for 20-22 players does seem excessive, perhaps the discounted room rate should only be applied to the number of players required, therefore a squad requiring 20 players, would only be allowed 20 rooms at the lower rate, if you want extra rooms you pay the standard hotel rate (so you have twins if you required extra players) , this would mean that every team in the top 2 divisions are guaranteed discounted rooms and most of the 3rd division should also get discounted rooms.

The releasing of rooms is great, but pretty ineffectual, teams have to have accommodation sorted out well in advance of 2 weeks left, if you have tried booking that late would end up staying miles away, which I gather some teams may have to

How would the hotel - which has absolutely no knowledge about the 4NCL other than its hotel is being used for the event - know how many players each team has?

[Ben Purton]

Indeed not only are they booking excessively they are booking Singles also, so they are booking a room per person , we have <0.5 rooms per person.

Ben

[Alan Walton]

After reading that somebody booking 26 beds for 20-22 players does seem excessive, perhaps the discounted room rate should only be applied to the number of players required, therefore a squad requiring 20 players, would only be allowed 20 rooms at the lower rate, if you want extra rooms you pay the standard hotel rate (so you have twins if you required extra players) , this would mean that every team in the top 2 divisions are guaranteed discounted rooms and most of the 3rd division should also get discounted rooms.

The releasing of rooms is great, but pretty ineffectual, teams have to have accommodation sorted out well in advance of 2 weeks left, if you have tried booking that late would end up staying miles away, which I gather some teams may have to

How would the hotel - which has absolutely no knowledge about the 4NCL other than its hotel is being used for the event - know how many players each team has?

Because they will be discussions between Mike and the hotels prior to playing saying the quotas for each team, each team captain may be giving a specific booking reference code when their players book to get the discounted rate (and this is limited to 8 rooms, either single or twin)

Alex, before posting a comment why not think of a solution first, this is what I am normally told to do in my working life, some people say there are never problems only solutions to problems

[Ben Purton]

After reading that somebody booking 26 beds for 20-22 players does seem excessive, perhaps the discounted room rate should only be applied to the number of players required, therefore a squad requiring 20 players, would only be allowed 20 rooms at the lower rate, if you want extra rooms you pay the standard hotel rate (so you have twins if you required extra players) , this would mean that every team in the top 2 divisions are guaranteed discounted rooms and most of the 3rd division should also get discounted rooms.

The releasing of rooms is great, but pretty ineffectual, teams have to have accommodation sorted out well in advance of 2 weeks left, if you have tried booking that late would end up staying miles away, which I gather some teams may have to

How would the hotel - which has absolutely no knowledge about the 4NCL other than its hotel is being used for the event - know how many players each team has?

Because they will be discussions between Mike and the hotels prior to playing saying the quotas for each team, each team captain may be giving a specific booking reference code when their players book to get the discounted rate (and this is limited to 8 rooms, either single or twin)

Alex, before posting a comment why not think of a solution first, this is what I am normally told to do in my working life, some people say there are never problems only solutions to problems

This sounds pretty complex for John Bloggs at the hotel...

[Alex Holowczak]

After reading that somebody booking 26 beds for 20-22 players does seem excessive, perhaps the discounted room rate should only be applied to the number of players required, therefore a squad requiring 20 players, would only be allowed 20 rooms at the lower rate, if you want extra rooms you pay the standard hotel rate (so you have twins if you required extra players) , this would mean that every team in the top 2 divisions are guaranteed discounted rooms and most of the 3rd division should also get discounted rooms.

The releasing of rooms is great, but pretty ineffectual, teams have to have accommodation sorted out well in advance of 2 weeks left, if you have tried booking that late would end up staying miles away, which I gather some teams may have to

How would the hotel - which has absolutely no knowledge about the 4NCL other than its hotel is being used for the event - know how many players each team has?

Because they will be discussions between Mike and the hotels prior to playing saying the quotas for each team, each team captain may be giving a specific booking reference code when their players book to get the discounted rate (and this is limited to 8 rooms, either single or twin)

Alex, before posting a comment why not think of a solution first, this is what I am normally told to do in my working life, some people say there are never problems only solutions to problems

I had thought of this solution, but dismissed it as being too complicated for the hotel. I see Ben has come to the same conclusion. The problem being that not all teams block-book, some leave it to their individual players to book. So the hotel would need to keep a tab of all of these rooms being accrued for players from various teams. This process would take several months in some cases, Richard Bates said that he booked his rooms back at the start of the season. Presumably this included this Hinckley round. I was hoping you'd come up with a different solution to this.

[Ben Purton]

I know it sounds stupid and alot of work for someone, but perhaps the 4NCL can have someone on board or a volunteer to look over all 4NCL team bookings , so you book through this source. I am not sure regarding the card on the room protocol here but in terms of oversee-ing over bookings and to also check the hotel is giving enough rooms it agreed to , would this not be more logical?

[Alan Walton]

Not really that complicated, a simple spreadsheet with a couple of macros could do the job of keeping track of bookings (btw, I am not volunteering to do this), normally you have to speak with a specific contact anyway when booking at the hotel, so you have your ready made volunteer there

The only thing somebody like Richard would have to do is to get said code of his team captain/manager and then contact the hotel himself, then the hotel updates its system and hit the save button, it is an amazing thing that computers can save files for an awful long time.

All I am trying to do here is think of a more diplomatic way of allocation of rooms, as next season if the status quo keeps happening 3Cs will block booking from day 1 (something we have never actually done), to guarantee our rooms, and this may include overbooking to be on the safe side

[LozCooper]

I know it sounds stupid and alot of work for someone, but perhaps the 4NCL can have someone on board or a volunteer to look over all 4NCL team bookings , so you book through this source. I am not sure regarding the card on the room protocol here but in terms of oversee-ing over bookings and to also check the hotel is giving enough rooms it agreed to , would this not be more logical?

Or maybe you should have to quote a team name when booking a 4ncl room. Not sure where that would leave me though

[Alex Holowczak]

I know it sounds stupid and alot of work for someone, but perhaps the 4NCL can have someone on board or a volunteer to look over all 4NCL team bookings , so you book through this source. I am not sure regarding the card on the room protocol here but in terms of oversee-ing over bookings and to also check the hotel is giving enough rooms it agreed to , would this not be more logical?

Or maybe you should have to quote a team name when booking a 4ncl room. Not sure where that would leave me though

You could just quote a team regardless. The hotel wouldn't know whether you were telling the truth unless they look at the registration list.

[Alan Walton]

I know it sounds stupid and alot of work for someone, but perhaps the 4NCL can have someone on board or a volunteer to look over all 4NCL team bookings , so you book through this source. I am not sure regarding the card on the room protocol here but in terms of oversee-ing over bookings and to also check the hotel is giving enough rooms it agreed to , would this not be more logical?

Or maybe you should have to quote a team name when booking a 4ncl room. Not sure where that would leave me though

You could just quote a team regardless. The hotel wouldn't know whether you were telling the truth unless they look at the registration list.

Already thought of that one, that is why the 4NCL allocates a specific reservation code for each team to use (only known to the manager of said team), hotels currently use reservation codes for special offers, so it wouldn't be a major inconveinence to set this up for the 4NCL