It's Not Like It Used To Be

"Sodding hell, I've got another one!"

"Another complaint letter?"

"Yes."

"Is it because there weren't any craft stalls?"

"Yes."

[Sound of head hitting desk]

It's been hard work changing a long standing event. For many years now we have held an annual Christmas Fayre, with numerous stalls situated in and around the house. Each year, however, visitor numbers grow smaller as competition grows greater. The problem is we are a small property with a smaller budget. We simply cannot compete with the garden centre up the road or the big shopping centre in town when they advertise that Father Christmas will be arriving by reindeer-drawn sleigh, as opposed to Mini Metro, and will then be available in a proper grotto that isn't just a hastily erected shed. To make matters worse, neighbouring properties have also jumped on the Christmas Craft Fair bandwagon, often holding the same event as we are, on the same day, thereby effectively, and pointlessly, thinning out the audience.

In previous years we have had all the fun of moving the heavy oak furniture upstairs in the house to accommodate the craft stalls, helping the traders unload their cars and set up their stands, and then listening to them complain bitterly all day that there aren't enough power points, that the lighting is insufficient and that there aren't enough customers and we should have advertised it better.

So, for 2008 we decided to change our Christmas event. Let's play to our strengths, I said. Let's feature what we do have and stop trying to compete with properties with more money or big commercial operations. What we have is a unique, moated medieval manor house. We shall hold an authentic medieval Yuletide event!

The re-enactment group were most enthusiastic when I explained the concept to them. I wanted the public to feel like they'd stepped back in time by 500 years. Characters in costume would be making medieval Christmas food, staging mumming plays, bringing to life and illustrating the origins of many of our modern traditions, everything from original meat-filled mince pies, to Yule logs and Saint Nicholas.

I tried to sum up the essence of the event in our promotional material. The press releases, the adverts in the local papers, the posters, even the banners on the road all emphasised the living history aspect of it all. "Enjoy a Merrie Medieval Christmas" went the blurb. "Experience the music, food and customs of Yuletide as it would have been 500 years ago. See the Great Hall decorated with foliage from the estate and join the household as it prepares for the Christmas festivities." I stressed to anyone that would listen that this was a turkey and tinsel free zone. One thing I was very clear about, one thing it did not say in any promotional material at any point was that this was a craft fair.

The event itself went very well. Visitor numbers were high and our re-enactors were fantastic. The public seemed particularly fascinated by the food piled high on the tables and kept our household ladies very busy with questions about it all. One unexpected point of interest was the skinning of a hare! The group had brought some game with them - a hare, some pheasants, a mallard - so that the men would be able to return successfully from their staged hunt. On the second day of the event one of the medieval ladies asked me if there was anywhere secluded in the courtyard she could go to skin (or pluck, in the case of the birds) and gut the game before it spoiled. I set her up in a discreet corner, where no one had to be privy to the blood and guts of real meat if they didn't want to, but still on show if anyone took an interest. She ended up with a huge crowd around her! Children in particular were quick to express an "Ewwww" and immediately draw closer with a volley of follow up questions.

At the close of the weekend I felt confident that we had provided a top quality educational and entertaining event, with far more people in attendance than at the Christmas Fayre the previous year.

Then I received a letter. It stated how disappointed the author was with our Craft Fair this year. There weren't any stalls at all. I replied to say how sorry I was that he was disappointed with our Merrie Medieval Christmas event but that this was not a craft fair and had never been advertised as such.

Then I received a couple of emails which said pretty much the same thing. The complainants came to our Craft Fair every year but this year it was rubbish! The re-enactors themselves were good, they said, but the courtyard had no trade stands whatsoever. What kind of Craft Fair was this?

Almost every week since Christmas I have received another letter complaining about the paucity of stalls at my Craft Fair. I really don't know what more I could have done to raise awareness of the fact that this event was not a Craft Fair other than emblazoning "NOT a Craft Fair" over all my publicity material. There is annoyance that the event has changed, even though the new event is much better than the old one. There is annoyance that they were unable to not buy anything from a selection of tat-laden trestle tables despite the fact that we were surrounded by venues offering exactly that on the very day they attended.

I truly believe that if I invented a time machine and actually transported people back in time to experience the house in its medieval prime, some people would still be disappointed that the paths were muddy and that there was no opportunity to buy a hand-painted tea tray. It confounds me. Why come for a day out at a medieval house, for a medieval event, if all you really want or enjoy is shopping?

Heaven help me if I ever decide to change the format of our Easter Egg Hunt!

Undercover Doris

Hello!

I know, I have been quiet of late.

And now I have taken the blog to invite only! "What's going on?" I hear you - yes, you - wail.

Well, I write a monthly article for our local magazine. Often there is a bit of an overlap with what I write about on Stately Moans and what goes into print. Especially if a tight deadline is looming.

Some of you may remember a post I wrote a while back about a coach party. I tidied it up a little, made it user-friendly (I thought) and inoffensive and thought it would provide an amusing insight into managing a group of people who can't make up their minds what they want.

So I was somewhat dismayed to find an email from my Boss to say that he'd had a call from our Regional Office to say that a complaint about my article had been received and would I write no more until further notice. I hasten to add, it is just one letter, but rather than write to me, or the editor of the magazine, the complainant has chosen to go higher up the chain to inform the good people at Regional Office that I have "no empathy" for my visitors and that I should publicly apologise.

I have therefore decided to lay low until this situation is resolved. I have no reason to think anyone would search online to see if other amusing/offensive (depending on your point of view) articles on coach parties have been written, but decided to err on the side of caution until I am satisfied that all my posts on Stately Moans are safe to air.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

The Best Things in Life are Free

Free Entry Day. It’s a nice concept. Open the doors to everyone, no charge, so that those people who might not usually have the income or inclination to visit can take advantage of this once in a year opportunity.

This year Free Entry Day coincided with our Damson Weekend, and some beautiful autumnal weather, so we were mobbed. So many people – so many of whom had no particular love or respect for heritage and the environment, but, hey, it was free! – meant a lot of wear and tear on the house and grounds. The toilets had that outdoor music festival feel and there were plastic bottles and rubbish strewn throughout the gardens.

There was also some confusion about how much of the day was free. Many people wanted free damsons as well as free entry. “It didn’t say anything about having to pay for the damsons on your sign!” I had been under the impression that the concept of Pick Your Own was a well known one, but maybe all orchard owners and vendors of fruit have to contend with this. Maybe lots of people think the Pick Your Own signs are a genuine plea for passersby to gather all this annoying fruit and take it away and if money changes hands at all it should be going into their pockets for providing this service. I have learnt, over the years, that signs of any kind, no matter where you site them or how you word them, provide a source of unparalleled confusion in certain people.

That sunny afternoon I was busily picking damsons to bag up and sell for those people who did not want to pick their own, when my radio squawked. “Doris, can you come to the ticket office?” Aha, I thought, I bet it's a difficult customer to deal with.

I was right. A frowning couple, wearing dark glasses that never came off during our entire exchange. Their body language told me all I needed to know.

"Hello, can I help?" I asked, with my widest professional smile.

"Yes. There's an Apple Day at Somewhere Else today. The same day as your Damson Day. Can you tell me what the main difference is between your day and their Apple Day?"

"Um...Is it that they have apples and we have damsons?"

They did not find this remark as witty and charming as I did.

They went on to complain that whereas Apple Days have apple tasting, apple products, apple varieties to identify, apple experts and a whole plethora of apple-related activities, all we were offering was the chance to pick damsons and buy jam. They felt "misled". They kept brandishing the property leaflet at me, pointing at the events listing that says "Damson Weekend". They were cross that we hadn't specified exactly what the event was. They had made all sorts of assumptions about what a Damson Weekend should entail and were angry that their fantasy damson world, complete with damson parades and damson themed white knuckle rides, had not been actualized. At which point I interrupted to say that a press release had gone into all the local papers (and – oh joy - my colleague happened to have the newspaper article on hand to prove my point) which explained EXACTLY what to expect on the day. I had also been on BBC Radio Local to tell people EXACTLY what to expect on the day. They stuttered to a halt, for just a moment. But the woman rallied with "Well, yes, but not everyone reads the paper or listens to the radio".

“True” I said, “but you'll never reach absolutely every single person on the planet.”

And as for the property leaflet she kept flapping about in my face, I explained that we have to print those a year in advance, so no details are given on any of the events, as things often change in the interim, which is why it says at the bottom to phone this number for more event information.

I then discovered they hadn't actually progressed beyond the ticket office so hadn't even seen what we had to offer, but were complaining about it anyway. I described the beauty of the day itself, the lush orchards, the house, but to no avail. We didn't have free samples of damson cake to give away, so were therefore shit.

The woman then asked "Can we get something back for our wasted journey? We put money in the car park machine at the top".

"You want your money back?"

"Yes"

"You want your £2 back?"

"Yes"

Unbelievable. They may not have liked our concept of a Damson Weekend but they had actually used the car park. You don’t get your money back from town centre car parks because you didn’t find what you wanted in the High Street. And we are a charity. Still, I am an exemplar of customer care. I have been on a course. With great ostentatiousness I opened the cash tin to extract their £2.

“Here’s your £2 refund, with our apologies for your being ‘misled’”.

I returned to my wheelbarrow of damsons in the orchard. A sheep was eating the fruits of my labours. I looked around me - it is usually at moments just like these that someone will appear to tell me how lucky I am to work here.