Do email with any comments or queries or feel free to talk to Andrew Emm.
(See his mobile number on emails you have received.)
NOTE: The mechanism to make this a private page was not effective so, while it is not listed in the menu, we cannot now use it to post confidential information.
End October will see our 50th trip with 30 more beyond that up to Dec 2027!!!
Thank you for what you have enabled. We are sure you will know how pleased users are. Fees for trips already booked will cover costs up to May 2027 including that big insurance renewal.
If you haven't supplied details please click the link and provide details HERE
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WTY will be buying this bus, it has had a 10 week safety check and a full service including a new battery. It is 9 years old and done 100,000 miles but that is not so much for a well maintained VW Crafter. Its second tail-lift safety check/service has been brought forward as it behaved oddly last week. It will get WTY livery at some point - sorry this is taking a while.
Things cannot be how they were but we hope to maintain the same standards and that drivers will continue to enjoy what they do.
What follows are mostly Andrew's suggestions on how we start to operate, some of it driven by saving the time of those volunteers managing the admin and operations. Some has already been modified by earlier driver feedback.
Let's see how it goes and please make suggestions and comments as we go along.
Ashorne Hill (CV33 9QW), the corporate training centre halfway between Bishops Tachbrook and Moreton Morrell, has kindly offered free secure parking, storage space for spare seats etc and access to a toilet (the toilet at least so far on weekdays).
An arrangement about the bus key will be put in place.
People doing admin will work from home.
The following structure is the current suggestion:
Daily Check: There will be the familiar drivers' daily check list book to complete.
End of trip text message: As mentioned above, the only feed-back needed after a trip is a text message giving the odometer reading, the fuel tank percentage full, any vehicle defects or observations and any personal mileage they wish to claim.
Bus Log: In case of any subsequent queries or security issues however, a log-book will stay in the bus for the driver to record :
Trip details: In the past, the detailed instructions for each trip were printed out and put in the shed. We need to work out other options and different drivers will have different needs which we need to collate. Some will be happy to print paperwork out at home, some might view documents on their phone or take a photo of a laptop screen, maybe some drivers can print stuff out for later in the week and leave it in the bus. We all need to explore this.
Note also that the trip information will have been captured in fields in a GoogleForms spreadsheet and not a nice A4 form (although maybe mailmerge could be used to turn one into the other.)
Volunteering shouldn't cost you money but we need to keep costs low and so propose:
Fuel card now set up. Each week they buy diesel in advance and that is the price we pay, not the price shown on the forecourt. This is not to be used at major superstores where we are charged extra to disuade commercial users.
1. We would like a volunteer please (or several) to set the bus up for when seats need to be removed or put back in.
The seat are heavy and just putting them down heavily can cause damage to the front legs which then are a problem to locate securely or might write-off a seat. Putting seats in needs practice, the mechanisms can easily be damaged or scarier still, seats can come loose with passengers in them.
2. Would you like a refresher on using the tail-lift and using the harnesses to secure wheelchairs to the floor? Do let us know when we are closer to start trips.
See calendar on Users' page for what days are under discussion or booked already. Soon you will be given direct access to a calendar on a shared Google Drive giving details of timings and destinations etc. i.e. not access via this website.