a typical 'out of season' week

Woo hoo, the Oakleaf blog's back baby!! Sorry it's been so long (5 months) but there have been plenty of marquee fish to fry since I last posted. Now I can commit to posting once a week at least until the season kicks off again (which currently looks like mid March).

Marquee hire work is obviously quite seasonal so people often ask 'what do you do in the winter?' and the slightly more forthright finish sentences with comments like ‘I guess you’ve got nothing else to do this time of year’. Well, this is absolutely not the case so I’ve decided to give a complete rundown of this week for you. This is what the Oakleaves have been up to at Oakleaf HQ (no yawning!):

-Minor service on a Land rover and Transit Luton (oil change every 6,000 miles don’t you know)
-Service five marquee heaters ahead of Christmas/New Year work (thanks Rob and Ed)
-Optimise our website for better search engine results (look out competitors, we’re coming for you)
-Submit quarterly VAT return
-Install a marquee for a party near Stalbridge, Dorset and remove another near Bridgwater, Somerset
-Three furniture hire deliveries/collections in Dorset  
-Keep on top of emails, enquiries and quotes (I call this ‘proper work’ as some of our guys are under the impression that bookings just appear out of thin air)
-Three site visits for 2015 bookings
-Load spreadsheets with details of our hire stock for uploading to a new IT system being implemented at the end of January (line upon line upon line upon line of data). This includes checking and counting stock in the first place; weighing it, allocating codes, descriptions, categories, sub-categories to it; loving it, holding it, nurturing it etc. It’s quite amazing that our inventory now numbers in excess of 600 stock lines!
-Keeping on top of accounts (invoicing, reconciling, paying, updating cash flow and P&L projections etc) – more ‘proper work’. Again, like bookings, it’s a common misconception that money just appears out of thin air too. I wish…
-Deleting junk mail both email and posted. Seriously, is it just me or is there more of this flying about now than ever? And I’m not talking about Viagra just to pre-empt any witty comments!
-Repair, overhaul and clean furniture and PVC (this is ongoing throughout the whole winter and spring)


So glad I’ve got this down in writing. Now when people ask me what we do in the winter I can refer them to this post with a smug grin on my face. This means you Andy!


Have a great weekend everyone.