Trials and tribulations of the Finance Director

Rain, rain, go away

2009-11-20T16:55:00.001Z

And, much to my surprise, it really has. I felt thoroughly confused yesterday evening, staring at the BBC weather forecast for the area. The summary made it absolutely clear that there would be torrential rain, yet the neat animated map showing the movement of cloud and rain over the area that the BBC kindly provides showed no clouds in sight.

Well, as we opened Living Crafts for Christmas this morning, there was a sprinkling of rain which quickly disappeared to be replaced by the kind of glorious sunshine which makes all the colours of the countryside light up in an almost-neon fashion. I love this place – why did I ever work at Canary Wharf? Great people, but London never shone like this.

This was a point not lost on a visitor today – John Lovell from the Lovell Partnership. John is a magical combination of property surveyor and tax accountant and knows more about capital allowances than, well, anyone I can imagine. There is probably someone at HMRC who may disagree with that statement but he knows enough for me. We spent an enjoyable hour or two inspecting the wonderful Sawmills development which impresses me more each time I see it. It fits its spot so well and looks, well, attractive. Thankfully it is heading towards being fully let at last. Anyway, John moved from Oxford to Islington but you could see the wistful look in his eyes as we came over the crest of the park and caught the kaleidoscopic radiance of park and palace stretched out before us.

On the other side of the world, Antonia (from our education team) is still teaching at Future Hope School in Kalkota. Having escaped the heat for a day, trading the orphanage for a luxury hotel, she was looking forward to G&Ts at the side of a luxury swimming pool. Sadly the rain arrived a couple of months early and quickly put paid to that too. Just over a week to go and she’ll be back with us.

Back here, Roger (Property director) took advantage of the boss’s absence to have a look around the decorated palace and the nearly-ready Living Crafts for Christmas event. The theme in the palace this year was toys and nostalgia and there is some wonderful old stuff in there. Most people are attracted by the giant metal toys and antique teddy bears but I just love the meccano and lego. We couldn’t suppress our smiles though on hearing the saga of the lego castle. It had lain, fully built, at the bottom of the wardrobe of the son of our Head of Education , Karen Wiseman, and was brought in carefully and treated with kid gloves. Until, that is, Heather “unflappable” Carter laid her mitts on it. Most of us would know, of course, that you can’t pick up a lego model from the top…

Google is a great tool and it was quickly put to use as, needless to say, the instructions were long gone. Having come up trumps, poor Andy Frost from our Palace team found himself up to 1am rebuilding the thing. Go and see his handiwork at the end of the Long Library. I get the impression that the last two weeks has seen a lot of Palace staff keeping quite about their childhood hobbies (Heather: did you have a model railway when you were young; Andre: yes; Heather [big smile thrusting a large railway box without instructions towards him] All staff= lesson learned)

The weather looks great for the rest of the weekend with Living Crafts for Christmas. It is a great show, not a traders’ fair but full of real craftspeople. The Palace looks great too. Do come and join us and make sure you see the Palace too and GET YOUR ANNUAL PASS!

The Joy of Marketing part II

2009-10-30T17:14:00.001Z

Some naughty and troublesome souls have suggested that my last post presented marketing people in a very bad light.

It is further insinuated that I then paid a gratuitous compliment to our own marketing team in a desperate attempt to claw back the lost goodwill.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our team are consummate professionals and always willing to get into the spirit of any occasion,witch often involves dressing up.

If you want to see more, head for Blenheim Palace tomorrow for Ghosts in the Gardens….

Scary…

The joy of marketing

2009-10-30T14:53:00.001Z

What is the right collective noun for a group of marketing people?

I pose the question having spent an enjoyable day with ALVA (the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions) at their annual conference, a gathering mostly comprised of representatives of the marketing teams of the afore-mentioned venues.

Collective nouns fascinate me – my favourite examples include:

A corps of anatomists
A conjunction of grammarians
A clique of photographers
An aggregate of geologists
A brace of orthodontists
etc

So, what is the bond that binds marketing people? Does it give me a clue for their rightful collective noun? They are certainly an extremely positive bunch. That is pretty much a requirement of the job. In that respect, they represent a complete opposite to my own profession, in which appreciation of risk (ok, outright pessimism) is an invaluable attribute. So it is probably natural that I would feel slightly bemused having spent significant time in their company.

I am probably not on my own – I can fully understand Sir Alan Sugar’s perspective on marketing (“I've written books on advertising... cheque books”). Yet, before I choose a collective noun, I have to accept that this is a year in which “they” have been right and I have been completely wrong.

I thought, given the economic backdrop, that 2009 would be a year of retreat for visitor attractions. Short term, it clearly wasn’t so. More than 3/4 of ALVA members reported growth in 2009 and almost all of that was done with reduced marketing budgets. The only significant falls come from known external factors – some Liverpool attractions have seen falls from a 2008 high driven by their status as European City of Culture. “Stay-cation” was one of the buzzwords though, as Alan Love from BDRC pointed out, it has been less a question of people cancelling treks abroad and booking weeks in Scarborough, and more a question of people not holidaying at all – instead taking more local days out. I didn’t expect that so, there it is, I was wrong. I am one of a “sum” of accountants (not a “snooze” of accountants, as one unkind soul suggested…) who were too pessimistic.

To a last man/woman, our marketing rivals see only a possibility of growth next year. Can this be true? I would estimate that the average impact of stay-cation has been +15% this year. That seems to be a fair consensus and means that, if an attraction did less than that, they underperformed. The marketing team for anyone who did more than that deserves credit.

But will stay-cation endure? There seem to be three possibilities:

life gets worse. People stop going out. Stay-cation dies.
life gets better. People go to find the sun. Stay-cation dies. (but we may make up some visitors elsewhere)
life stays where it is. People do the same things. Stay-cation lives. Hurray! (but no further growth)

I could bore you all (unless you are part of the snooze) on the reasons why things might well get worse out there in the greater economy. But, you’re lucky – I don’t have to. I only have to point out that, as with 2009, there is a measurable risk of either points 1 or 2 happening. If either one happens, we have to brace ourselves for a dramatic downturn in visitor numbers and any marketing plans (indeed any expenditure plans) should be built to recognise that possibility.

Listening to the folks at the ALVA conference, this was clearly not the case, with the exception of the publicly-funded museums where the economic dynamic is different (free entry for all but the prospect of the government axe falling on their expenditure budgets means that they have to contemplate what they would do with cuts of 10% or more).

So, should my chosen collective noun for marketing people recognise “short-sightedness”? (A blur of marketers?)Well, that would be a bit daft of me given my predictive accuracy of the last year. People in glass houses etc.

It was notable that the biggest murmur of appreciation came when the National Trust’s successful decision to ramp up marketing spend in 2009 was highlighted as if it was the model for all of us. Get real! They have a very different attitude to risk from the rest of us for very good reason. A single bad decision on marketing (or anything frankly) is not going to bankrupt NT. Or result in enforced redundancies. That simply isn’t the case for the rest of us. They will have been incredibly rigorous in their decision-making process but their risk profile is just different.

There was clearly a yearning to follow NT’s path, balanced by a knowledge that it probably wasn’t going to happen.

Realism? Well, maybe. No-one was really going to change their marketing strategy (ourselves included) for next year – there was a feeling that “it” had worked very well. But what if the year’s success really did come down to a stay-cation phenomenon? In that sense, we have not been successful at all. It is one thing to take share from a static market (good marketing); it is another to simply drift up in a growing market (wasted marketing).

No-one wanted to talk about this. Like I said, everyone sees only growth next year. So, optimism does seem to be the enduring trait amongst marketing people.

As, I have to say, is talking. A “gaggle” maybe?

Having said that, looking at our own excellent team (Hannah Payne, Victoria Bellamy and Ulrika Ericson who have achieved 50% growth this year!!! Eat that, NT) are a distinctly sociable bunch so perhaps I should settle on a “bevy” of marketers. That would apply quite fairly to the lovely bunch at ALVA, who in the tradition of all marketers enjoyed the celebratory wine put out for lunch at the conference….. Tell me you didn’t see that pun coming.

Still, I’ve learnt my lesson from last year and from now on I refuse to be too negative:

All copyrights acknowledged and please do go to the Dilbert website for more of these!

Water, water, everywhere

2009-10-23T13:31:00.001+01:00

On Wednesday, I circumnavigated the M25. I’m told that, when it opened, people used to try to complete the circuit in an hour. I would judge that rather more difficult today. Anyway, my Honda which passed its 100,000 miles minutes after my last blog is now well past its 101,000 miles.

(I know the above is a rubbish picture but the key point here is that, after complaining two weeks ago about my inability to position pictures using the blogger.com interface anywhere but at the top of the post, I thendiscovered Microsoft Live Writer. This is a free application which is part of Windows Live and can easily be downloaded from http://download.live.com/writer. It is a cut-down word processor especially designed for blogging (offline!) but it links easily to your blogging account so that you can easily preview and play with layout just as if you were in something like Word. Anyway, the above picture is not at the top of the post and nor will the next one be!)

What drove me to such levels of tedium? (I refer to the M25, not to the geek-speak in the last paragraph. But I understand the possible confusion.)

Well…. for that, I need to tell you a story!

Blenheim Palace Natural Mineral Water is an important business for us. The water course runs under the Palace and then flows across the estate towards Combe and beyond. There are actually two water courses (deep down and about 10m apart) under the park. We use the deeper one as it has a more distinctive taste – the higher one apparently tasted like Hildon! It is a very stable supply, allowing us to claim the hallowed status of Natural Mineral Water.

The first bottling plant was actually at the Palace. A wise veteran of the water industry (John Odell) had uncovered the water course and arranged to test it. He and the Duke quickly went into a partnership which runs to this day. Initially sold locally, the demand for the water quickly outstripped the capacity of the plant, so the decision was made to follow the path of the water course and build a better water plant down at Park Farm, in the heart of Blenheim Park. There, a much larger plant was built to fill glass bottles, and a second line was added to fill the large 19 litre bottles you see on top of commercial water coolers.

With the prestigious bottled water mainly sold into high end hotels and restaurants in London, the business has grown to a much larger size, selling over 2.5 million bottles a year. The local market has grown recently too, as Oxfordshire hotels and restaurants have become more sensitive to the environmental implications of shipping water from Scotland – or even, Lord help us, Fiji!

Blenheim Palace Natural Mineral Water drank in Oxford will not have moved more than ten miles in its life – and unlike mains water, it won’t have been through the human body seven times either. Go to our website for details of suppliers. PLEASE!!

Anyway, when I was appointed as Finance Director back in 2003, John (our CEO) thought it would be very funny to put me in charge of the water business (“oh, don’t worry, you’ll enjoy the P&L responsibility.” Ha!). In the run up to a trustees’ meeting, I have little time to spend on that business so I tend to over-react afterwards and run around to see customers etc.

Now, bear in mind that I am a simple Northern boy. In the North, cities have a centre. They’re not too big. You can get around them fairly easily.

Bear something else in mind. My knowledge of London is pretty lousy too. I may have worked there for six years but that only taught me where Canary Wharf, Oxford Street, Paddington and Marylebone are. I still think London is laid out exactly like a tube map. And (fatally in this context) I have no idea where London starts and stops.

My plan was to visit two very important London business partners for our water business. The first was Casa Julia, a wonderful Italian wholesaler which distributes a lot of our water into London. The second was Love Water, a water cooler company supplying cooler water into London and the Southern Home Counties.

How hard could it be to visit two customers in London in one day. Hell, I’d be back in time to do some work in the afternoon.

It was only as I checked my routes on Google Maps that I began to see the problem. It turns out that the London which Casa Julia is based in is Braintree, Essex. And it further turned out that the London Love Water was based in was…wait for it… London Gatwick.

It turns out that these two Londons are not exactly close to each other….

Come to think of it, they are not exactly near London either.

But it was a great trip nonetheless. Casa Julia was a fascinating visit, which I undertook with our sales manager Bernie Drewell. Enzo, who runs it, is a giant of a man who has patiently built up a wonderful operation over 30+ years. Their site has a slight mirage quality to it, rising up beautifully out of an industrial estate

Yes this really is their warehouse! And they have built a mirror image opposite. They are growing very quickly and working very hard to grow our business too, for which we are very grateful. Their reputation among London hotels is very strong and they are treasured partners. More than that, they insisted we join them for a light lunch and managed to produce delicious gluten free bread for sandwiches. I think I love them!

Love Water is a water cooler company in which we have made a sizeable investment, backing Nick Swan who we have known (and traded with) for many years. He does not have beautiful offices but he does have a superb track record and, like the Casa Julia team, possesses great integrity – not always a given in any industry.

Thanks to guys like these, we will continue to grow this important business which is led by the completely inimitable Trevor Rawden. There are many photos which I could publish of this colourful man. But don’t worry, Trevor, your secrets are safe with me (well, and everybody else too). I will confine myself to this showing Trevor and some of his team celebrating a recent contract win…… Luckily, we just happened to have a camera to hand to capture this spontaneous moment.

Our sales effort is led by Bernie Drewell and Alan Smith, an unstoppable combination who could write the manual on selling. Where they get their stamina from I do not know but they keep Trevor and his team very busy!

We are very blessed in this business with the quality of partners we have and, as with all of our businesses, we try always to be great partners too. We know that, wherever our water goes, there also goes our name and reputation. That is something we feel very relaxed about, due to the quality of our team, our product and our partners.

And that is why I was still smiling as I completed my circumnavigation (well, that plus the fact that United had just taken the lead against CSKA Moscow…..).

PS my challenge for next time is to work out how to wrap text around the photos :)

I've just realised - I'm a FAT accountant

2009-10-09T16:59:00.006+01:00

LORRY HITS PALACE SCANDAL - see end of blog for the exclusive story

Fairly disastrous meeting with my GP today. Apparently the reason I have chronic indigestion isn't anything external and dramatic like an ulcer, or even my blatant disregard of my gluten intolerance (how was I supposed to know that pizza had gluten, anyway?).

Oh no. Much, much worse.

According to HIM, I am overweight. Yes, this discomfort may in fact be MY OWN FAULT.

I am pretty sure that I was not overweight after doing the Blenheim Triathlon. In fact, without wishing to blow my own trumpet, I think I was in pretty good shape. I almost had a six-pack (I have one now, but without the plastic thingy that holds it all together). My tummy didn't flop over my trousers when I sat in the car. (Ooh, we'll come back to my car later.) I even ate healthy salads from Hampers pretty much every day, in a virtuous "my body is my temple" kind of way. And, of course, running and cycling everyday covers a whole lot of dietary sins.

Like before, I emerged from my early June triathlon determined to maintain this healthy state. Five seconds later, I decided to modify it slightly. After all, I had been good and trained every night for several months. Really, I deserved a treat, and what harm could a few evenings in front of the TV eating some cake do? Besides, training every night was very mean to my wife.

Roll on four months. Oh dear, I have adopted some very bad habits. I came slightly unstuck four weeks ago. I had been dropping my daughter off at school then heading to Starbuck's in Summertown and having a quick breakfast of coffee and a gluten-free chocolate brownie. You see, in my mind, "gluten free" equals "healthy". I had neatly screened out that fact that this gluten-free chocolate brownie was not actually sugar-free. Or chocolate free.

Anyway, by chance my wife and I had headed into Summertown at the weekend. She fancied a latte and a break so in we went. The girl at the counter smiled.

"Black decaf Americano to drink in, is it?" she said. Cue poisonous look from She Who Must Be Obeyed as realisation slowly dawned on her that this may not be my first visit...

That is, of course, the heart of all the problems. I have equated "gluten-free" with "healthy" for the last four months. e.g. Cadbury's Dairy Milk is in fact gluten free. Therefore, it is healthy.

Therefore, whenever I eat I now get chronic indigestion (except, annoyingly, when I eat either salad or, yes, you guessed it, Starbuck's gluten-free chocolate brownie). This biological ignorance is mainly due to my very poor science education - I didn't go much beyond the amoeba and do not have a clue what a protein is. Yes, Mr Potter, are you reading this? Are you proud?

Anyway, I haven't been back to Starbuck's recently.

I have had no sympathy whatsoever from the accounts team downstairs or the rest of the Estate Office. At least the team in Hampers have taken to waving salad boxes at me as I go in to dissuade me from choosing worse options.

Our property director has suggested regular runs around the lake which is more useful. Not as nice as chocolate, though. And, to be fair, he did egg me on to buy two meals from the chip shop yesterday, so he is probably feeling EXTREMELY GUILTY now he realises the pain I endured on his behalf.

My recovery, once I have let go of my GP's throat, will clearly have to be exercise-led since I lack will-power. Which means more Blenheim staff laughing at me as I run around the lake. I'm told I run like a girl, anyway.

Drifting on - mention of lake made me think of the Dam repairs up at the cascades - but our wonderful Dam repair people have managed to plant 35,986 bulbs around the top of the Dam. They are so cost-conscious that someone actually counted. Marvellous work but I am puzzled at how they did it. I only mention it because it seemed like a good idea two weeks ago to buy a bag of 200 mixed bulbs from Homebase. I have a fancy bulb-planter (a bit like a spade but it cuts a circular divot and pulls it out so that you can drop a bulb in the bottom then drop the divot on the top). The ground outside my house was so hard that I could not get a single bulb in. I accept that one reason I chose accountancy was my extreme physical incompetence in other areas but that was not the only reason for my failure. The ground was ludicrously hard. So I clearly need to find out how they did it before taking on the job again. Maybe the rain over the last few days has softened things a bit.

Anyway, I am stopping this blog now because my excellent never-goes-wrong car - a nine-year-old Honda Accord with a strangely-bent aerial - has reached 99991 miles. I am determined to be watching the dashboard as it flicks over to 100,000. Obviously watching the magic moment would be a bit dangerous on the A34 so I am going off now to drive around the Estate very slowly. It would be extra magic to photograph the moment although that would probably be impossible.

However hard you try, you could never catch that kind of moment. Although, one poor delivery driver driving through our main Hensington Gate in a large lorry might beg to differ. We got a report that a lorry (unknown) had managed to come through the gate so close to the big stone pillar that he had caught the "sticky-out" stone that caps the top. That's probably not the right name for it but I bet that is what the 18th century builders called it. Anyway, he was asked if it was him "wot did it". Believing he was on safe ground denying liability (and probably feeling a bit of a fool for aiming so badly), he proclaimed his innocence.

I mean, who would be so lucky as to take a photo at that exact moment? What would the odds of that be?

If I was any good at this, I would say the answer is at the foot of the page. But as I can't seem to put the photo at the bottom, the answer strangely enough is at the top of the page.

Yes the white thing to the right is a large piece of gate column obeying the laws of gravity.

Jeri's baby

2009-09-22T08:37:00.004+01:00

We were delighted to launch a new book at the Woodstock Literary Festival, our first book dedicated to the history and development of the gardens at Blenheim Palace. Jeri Bapasola has spent many many months researching new material for The Finest View in England: The Landscape and Gardens of Blenheim Palace - now out in hardback! While many of us know the broad brush-strokes of the big players (Henry Wise, "Capability" Brown and Achille Duchenne), Jeri has unearthed - mild pun intended - a wonderful wealth of detail on many other important contributors, not least several Dukes and many wonderful head gardeners.

Jeri has been one of the jewels of our business - an inspired researcher with a deep love of Blenheim Palace - who has produced a series of popular Blenheim Palace books (my favourite is Household Matters about the lives of the servants of the Palace) but this new book is her biggest opus yet. Watching her labour over the book is a little like watching someone go through pregnancy and labour (well, the view from outside the birth suite anyway - I'd probably be better to limit this particular metaphor). Yet she does it by choice and without getting a penny in royalties - simply happy to research the subject she loves and leave behind her a wealth of publications recording for posterity the stories she has uncovered and told.

For those of you who missed her launch and talk at the Woodstock Literary Festival (at which she was regaled by those Spencer-Churchills present), we will endeavour to persuade her to do some themed talks for our Annual Pass holders..... In the meantime, you will have to buy the book!

These books are all published by us rather than a third party, which means we take on the financial risk of printing everything up front - quite a commitment. But it was a relatively easy decision for a book filling a clear gap in our portfolio. As we stared at the main publishing business models, a friend pointed out that there was an older approach - publication by subscription. In older times, the first edition of a book would not be printed until a group of subscribers had been found to cover the cost of that first edition. the author would go to friends and sponsors, explain what the book was about and persuade 200 of them to pre-buy first editions in return for being named as a subscriber. If it then proved popular, the profits from the first edition would be reinvested in a second edition, which would be printed speculatively and so on.

Well, being a prudent (or mean, depending on your perspective) finance director, I persuaded Jeri and Odette Christie de Rivas (in our retail team) that this was the way to go. Did it work? Well, partly. We ended up with about 100 subscribers - whose names are beautifully printed in the front of the book - which both paid for a reasonable % of the print costs and also gave us confidence that the book would sell.

However, finding the subscribers was very hard work. Interestingly, writing to some of our Annual Pass holders produced slightly disappointing results, and an email shot to the rest of the database was even more disappointing. However, a Friends of Blenheim Palace cocktail party listened to a speech from our Chief Executive about news from Blenheim, in which he highlighted the subscription opportunity - and this speech triggered a rush of people into the arms of our waiting retail team and author and a lot of subscriptions. Obvious in retrospect, but not at the time, the vast majority of subscriptions were gifts to other people.

I suspect we will try this route again, applying our learnings from first time around. It was an interesting exercise which produced interesting insights into the level of engagement wanted by our visitors.

For those who did subscribe (including She Who Must Be Obeyed), they have the pleasure of both a very good book but also the knowledge that they have left their permanent mark of support on what will always be the definitive account of the gardens here at Blenheim Palace.

So, to Jeri, Odette, our retail team and all our subscribers - a big thank you!

Autumn Fun

2009-09-14T09:53:00.004+01:00

Had a lovely trip up to our friends at Harewood House on Friday, having a look at how they run their membership scheme. Their members are a much bigger part of their total business and they have been doing memberships for a long time so we are trying to learn as much as possible from people like them before we head into next year. If you do get up that way (they are just above Leeds) then I would definitely recommend a visit - this year the price includes a planetarium visit too! In Friday's balmy sunshine (Elaine tells me the sun always shines in Yorkshire), the Courtyard was a lovely relaxed lunch setting, with a side view of the penguins. Yes, really...

Our revised retail team lineup is taking shape, with Lucy heading off to Canada and Shelley Days has taken up a permanent contract with us. (And I do mean permanent, when you are a 300 year estate you do have a different sense of perspective from other enterprises - Shelley, did you really read the indefinite servitude clause?) The team had a superb stand at the very successful Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials and scored their highest ever sales at the event. The event itself was very well managed and enjoyed by a very large crowd - congratulations to Mandy Hervieu and her team for taking this event to another level.

And to my Spurs-supporting Chief Executive and Property Director, I have just two things to say to you. "Three" and "One". Sadly, Spurs title dreams evaporating appears to coincide with the melting away of the best of the Summer weather but do keep coming, we have so much more to offer you through the Autumn. Look out for Bike Blenheim Palace , The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival and Living Crafts for Christmas as well as our lowest ever priced Sunday Lunch in the Orangery!

Have a good week.

Just stuff...

2009-09-04T09:56:00.003+01:00

Wow, what an August we have had! OK, the weather was frustrating at times but we grew visitors by 50% in the month. One of the great things about Blenheim Palace is that we can, on the whole, grow visitor numbers without feeling particularly crowded so our visitors still get a great experience.

But it's back to school time now and that means the grown ups can come out to play. September is one of the best months to visit Blenheim Palace, with a glorious Indian Summer lighting the Palace and park landscape. I cannot let the moment pass without pointing out that if you have an Annual Pass (and why wouldn't you?) then you can come in and enjoy a briefer visit at no cost! I would particularly recommend a walk with a friend around Queen's Pool after the kids have gone to school....

Despite the busy Summer, our staff have grabbed the chance for holidays far and wide and have come back revitalised, just in time to relieve our wonderful seasonal staff who drive us through the Summer. Many of those are university students who come back to help us year after year - these are now heading back in waves to university. Well, except Emily File in our retail team whose term does not start until 8 OCTOBER. As her dad pointed out, more time for her to earn money.

One person sadly is going further and wider - we also say goodbye to popular retail assistant manager Lucy Tarrant who for some reason has decided to flee to Canada for a year. Was it something we said? Good luck Lucy, you'll be missed... hope you come back to us soon (with a Mountie in tow as discussed).

For myself, I did not go far (or indeed anywhere) but I did take a week to experience Oxford, with walks around the colleges, punting, Shakespeare on the roof of the Said Business School and, yes, a trip on an open-roofed double decker tourist bus! All great fun and very refreshing.

While we are generally staffing down, it is not a one-way process and we are looking to welcome two key members of new staff. Hopefully today we will confirm the appointment of a new retail supervisor to help replace Lucy. We are also about to start interviewing for a new role - Head of Membership. Yes, there are so many Annual Pass members out there (73,000 and counting) that we have decided to appoint someone very special to look after you all properly. We have had a great response to the advert and hope to make an announcement soon. This important role underlines our commitment to the Annual Pass scheme for the future.

Have a great weekend.

What really matters when the world is on fire?

2009-08-27T08:48:00.006+01:00

Sorry I fell out of the blogosphere for a while. We had a dramatic personnel issue which both sucked time and also preoccupied me (in the sense that every time I sat down to blog, all I could think about was this particular issue - which I was well aware I could not speak/write about).

When you are badly let down by someone you trust completely in a work environment, it is highly disruptive. I have spent a lot of time re-examining every aspect of that relationship and many aspects of that person's work. But, more insidiously, I ended up challenging the very notion of workplace trust - and that is a very dangerous path down which to go. Trust and confidence are very much the cornerstones of a functioning business and it is truly unfair on other colleagues when I start to treat them in a way which implies that I do not fully trust them (or feel that I need to corroborate things that they tell me).

On the other hand, those people who trust me to do my job effectively and protect their interests are entitled to expect that I will not make the same kind of mistake twice. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice.....

So, I don't know what path to walk at this point but I'd better work it out very soon. Oddly there does not appear to be much advice out there. I know my personal credibility has taken a hit with this incident so I need a strategy to rebuild that, if possible. Suggestions on a postcard please.

On a positive note, my mood was lifted recently by the visit of an good friend and someone whose business acumen I greatly admire - Simon McCrum from Darbys Solicitors. Simon cut his spurs in my old stamping ground (North West) at Pannones - a firm which took off in a very distinctive direction and grew quickly, not so much by rewriting the rulebook as simply cheerfully writing a new one. Now he and his partners at Darbys are seeking to break new ground by redefining the normal relationship between the public and lawyers with their Blue and Purple schemes. Simon is a fascinating guy who never loses sight of where he is going and knows how to rate and value his people. Writing a new business model once is impressive; if he can pull it off a second time, that will be a spectacular achievement.

As he recounted his story, one point that came across clearly (a point made in "The Upside of the Downturn" by Geoff Colvin) was the importance of "setting fire to the platform on which you are standing" i.e. it is difficult to convince a management team of the need for violent change if things are going reasonably well. Simon clearly set out his vision of impending crisis in the legal profession so that his partners would see why he was going to take the firm in a whole new direction. Having shared that vision, they committed to leaving "the burning platform" as soon as possible. Colvin uses this image to explain why recession is actually a great time to creatively rebuild a business - i.e. it is not hard to convince people that there is a need to change when the economy is on the rocks anyway. Buy One Day, Get 12 Months Free is our response to the burning platform and we intend to evolve it into a new relationship with local people.

Are we still on a burning platform? FTSE at a relative high. France and Germany have announced the end of their technical recessions. Bernanke has been given an early second term endorsement at the Fed and a bounce in all the Business Confidence surveys has been widely reported.

I still smell flames. I reproduce here almost ALL the headlines from the first two pages of the Guardian's business section today:

Toyota ponders UK output cuts as sales slump
What next after the scrappage scheme is scrapped?
US hotels let the stars go out as luxury becomes...taboo
Global advertising slump cuts profits in half at Sorrell's WPP
Downturn leads to dive at Five with revenue plunging 35%
Fujitsu cuts 10% of British jobs as IT work dries up
One child in six at home with no working parent

I don't see enough people responding to this burning platform. Simon and Darbys are unusual in redefining parts of their business model, as are we.

So do as Simon Says (oh, tell me you didn't see that one coming!). Set fire to your own platform or expose the flames which are already burning - with your trusted team, stop pretending that you are doing OK to survive the crisis thus far (if nothing else, remind your colleagues that unemployment is forecast to remain at record highs for several years). One of the great benefits of this approach is you get to see who is creative, unflappable and trustworthy when the fire is lit - and who ought to be left behind. In truth, no single leader can transform an organisation - he can only be the driving catalyst and focus of a team effort. While Simon has the likeable self-belief of someone who believes he can change the world, he is the first to admit that taking the team with him was a vital pre-condition.

While we at Blenheim Palace are ahead of the curve in changing our business model in this turbulent environment, perhaps now is the right time to focus on the people who have made that journey with us, because in truth every last one of them has done a superb job. It turned out that when the fire was lit, we had an amazing team who focussed and delivered all the way.

And that probably neatly answers the question of trust I posed myself at the beginning. I would be doing a great disservice to everyone if I let one very bad apple distort my appreciation of the wonderful team we have here. The power of a trusted team unleashed far outweighs the damage caused by one errant individual.

Thanks for listening to this stream of consciousness - I feel better for letting it flow.

Smell the roses

2009-07-09T18:12:00.004+01:00

Ooh, after weeks of being terribly inconsistent in my blog, today I am doing one EARLY. I'm very proud of this fact although it probably is a prelude to grinding out the most tedious blog entry of my life, or even forgetting to publish it at the end.

Anyway, the dreaded VAT inspectors are out tomorrow (actually, to be totally fair, they are very nice people) which will probably stop me from blogging then. Tonight we have a Friends of Blenheim Palace cocktail party. Don't tell the Duke - who is opening a village hall somewhere - but we might even be noisy without paying extra. 150 guests are coming to what should be a lovely evening. I may even upload some photos if I can figure out the camera on my Blackberry. Usually when I attempt to take a photo I seem to set off the Sat Nav.

The Summer trustees meeting came and went without incident but with a very nice lunch. I am delighted to say that we are trading pretty well given this dreadful economic environment and we are determined to continue to invest in our people and our visitors.

Anita (head of finance) is back after being knocked off her bike last week - good thing too given the impending arrival of VATman. Chris Keeler (our Head of Maintenance) and Clive Wilkins (Head of Construction) both slaved away for several days and passed/repassed their CITB exams - a fantastic achievement. I wonder why Roger File (Property Director) didn't volunteer to take the exams? Roger?

Actually, I quite fancy some more studies. I remember when I left the City to work in Oxford I looked with delight at all the continuing education courses available in the evenings (Cosmology to Indian Head Massage, Haute Cuisine to Tai Chi, Car Mechanic to Middle East Politics) and I quite fancied the then new Said Business School. Six years on, I have done sod-all. IT WILL CHANGE... Have to see if anyone else around here fancies something similar. Always good to have moral support. Actually the cooking one sounds really tempting; or maybe I have been watching too much Masterchef.

Perhaps this is a big part of the strain on the further education system - not just new graduates wanting to stay on but a whole bunch of relics like me wanting to get more from life, just when it looks like we might all be getting something less from life for a while. It is even possible to discern this trend in the massive increase in local visitors here and across the National Trust (yawn, no, we are not National Trust but I think there is an offer on in the NT magazine to come here cheaply - sorry, we've had that question just a few times before). We are just starting to take an interest in the things around us, wanting to get more from each day, maybe forget our daily stresses a little bit.

Fancy that haute cuisine course, anyone?

Lost

2009-07-03T12:31:00.005+01:00

Angry! A word that does not quite do justice to my feelings on hearing the news of the death of Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe - Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion of the Welsh Guards - this week in Afghanistan. Rupert was the son of Veronica Thorneloe, one of our amazing Head Guides. Described as a natural leader and with a young family, he was known to many here. The shock was resonant around the Palace yesterday as our staff digested the news in their own ways, all the while professionally greeting guests with a smile.

A man of my age, with a similar aged family, he had already done far more, given far more, risked far more than I know I ever will. He had the talent and natural leadership skills to succeed in any endeavour. If only such traits could have preserved him to give the world a full life's worth of positive contribution. Instead they gave him a courage which took him to the wrong place at the wrong time. He was clearly a giant and I can only glimpse the loss that Veronica and her husband must be feeling - but that glimpse is all I can take right now.

Moving reluctantly on, it seems to be a week of injuries with Trevor (head of the Water business) slicing off the top of his finger with a mandolin, Hannah (marketing) slamming her fingers in her car door and Anita (head of finance) being knocked of her bike and hospitalised. Trevor of course broke the news of his injury on Facebook and it took me a few minutes of puzzling before remembering what a mandolin even was (not a musical instrument or a small orange, it turns out...you can imagine my initial mental contortions)

Elsewhere on the Estate, our water business broke a sales record for June, shipping out 20,000 cases of mineral water. The forecast hot summer clearly does assist that business.

Roger File (our property director), Paul Orsi (head of Rural Enterprise) and I appear to have committed ourselves to enter yet another triathlon in September and in a moment of cataclysmic stupidity which i will live to regret (I hope) I appear to have signed up for a winter torture-fest known as the Helly Hensen challenge. Doing all these accounts has utterly addled my brain, clearly. Still, when I made that last commitment, I think everyone around was a little the worse for wear so, as long as I don't own up to anyone, I think I should get away with it.

At least the prevailing temperature for the Helly Hensen cannot be as hot as the last few days. As a pale fat white man, I do not exactly flourish in these temperatures so I support John's clarion call (see his blog) for air conditioning in this office.

Hopefully, we'll keep our cools for the Trustees' Meeting on Monday, always a challenging and enjoyable day. The Duke, as a stickler for tradition, arranges the same lunch every year - actually a very delicious lunch hopefully finished with fresh Blenheim Palace fruit.

His fondness for tradition hails from his days as a serving soldier, the memory of which will be playing on his mind as he reflects with sadness on the courageous and lost life of our Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe.

RIP

Could Oxford declare UDI?

2009-06-26T13:31:00.003+01:00

Back at last!

I'm out of the land of year-end accounts and tax comps, I've waved goodbye to my auditors and I'm gazing out of the window at what I confidently expected to be glorious sunshine. I mean we've had that all week with me too busy to enjoy it, so why wouldn't it be sunny now?

Practical application of Murphy's Law, I guess. If the rain wasn't enough to shatter the idyll, the Delice de France lorry which has just parked outside my office, with its rattly engine reaching cacophonous proportions, is shattering most other things.

No doubt the neighbours will blame Blenheim, but this is really nothing to do with us. I suspect some online database for sociopathic lorry drivers has listed this end of Woodstock as a great place to park a lorry while running the engine.... Which does get me thinking - I can actually think of several places where I would quite like to place such a lorry myself.

Last week, we were privileged to join the celebrations of some of Oxfordshire's best businesses at the Oxford Business Awards. While it is by definition a narrow segment of local businesses (businesses in decline not tending to win awards) it was a truly uplifting experience. The local economy as far as I can tell was very quick to "rightsize" itself when recession started to bite and has then confidently motored on. There is a slightly unreal feel to the local economy at the moment. Looked at on a micro level, it is difficult at present to find any obvious problems in the businesses with which we deal. The local economy seems quite vibrant (and this is not simply the consequence of She Who Must Be Obeyed's single handed campaign to drive up GDP). There is less transactional activity out there (acquisitions, etc) but most businesses we see are trading comfortably.

Yet how can that be? As a nation, we are toying with bankruptcy with unheard-of debt levels. £2.2 trillion anyone? That is just what the government thinks too. The OECD thinks it could be 50% worse. Even more scary, neither figure factors in the costs of:

unfunded pension liabilities (not just the lovely public sector final salary schemes but everyone's state pension)
all our liabilities under private finance initiatives
nuclear decommissioning and (my personal favourite)
the impact of demographic shifts - our population is aging meaning less tax payers and more pensioners

Does national debt matter to us as individuals and businesses? Well, last year 15p of our income tax went on interest payments alone....

Wednesday was Cost of Government Day - each of us has worked from 1 January until Wednesday to pay for the government's spending programme. Will we make it to the summer holidays next year?

We all have children here; indeed we employ a lot of young students here. I'm only 40 and yet I already know that the burden of this debt will outlast my working life. So in that context, Oxford businesses cannot really be in a bubble of immunity unless it can radically outperform the rest of the UK economy - at the expense of the rest of the UK economy I suspect.

Looking around me at the Oxford Business Awards last week, I feel like having a sneaky bet on them doing just that. There is a lot of entrepreneurial and intellectual power here, combined with a lot of long term wealth - especially at the universities. We are well positioned geograpically and, on the basis of what I saw last week, we possess a lot of belief in the future. If I have one conviction, it is that there is nowhere else I would rather be for the next few years.

Have a great weekend (and pray for more sunshine).

PS Yes, we saw Famous, Rich and Homeless on Wednesday. I would like to claim that the whole thing was a devilish plot by Lord Blandford, Love Productions and the BBC to ensure maximum publicity for a very moving, important and deserving cause. But I can't. However, I AM grateful that this will be the end result of his behaviour.

Triathlon time

2009-06-06T18:46:00.000+01:00

Exceedingly wet triathlon! I think I missed my target time by one minute, but I am sure our wave started late so fingers crossed for the official time. Which I sadly do not have yet as the IT gremlin is working hard here at Blenheim today...

Even in the rain, people's spirits were buoyant. The group of people who do triathlon are such a lovely bunch. Full of good wishes, encouragement and bonhomie, they are an amazing group!

Sadly, Roger whupped me by nearly 20 minutes... There's always next time!

Brilliant news! As I write this, I get my official time. 1 hour 59 minutes! I am so pleased!

Good luck to all tomorrow's competitors, especially my mentor Troels and Amber, daughter of our Head of Ops, in her first event.

Stepping up to my mark

2009-06-06T09:20:00.000+01:00

This is as close to live blogging as I'll ever get. I'm sat in the Operations Room at Blenheim Palace. My triathlon starts at 11:40. It is raining quite hard and has been for some time.

My bike and wet suit is, well, wet. That'll be pleasant to put on!

I've been here from 8am due to phone problems (now sorted - thank you Giles at Connect 2!). But many of our team have been in since 5am. Fed with bacon sandwiches, they have been hard at work in the rain, preparing for a massive influx of visitors, participants and pure race spectators. We have a wonderful team this year; many very local people, many of those are younger relatives of current Blenheim staff.

What is particularly pleasing is how many of our staff have stepped up to take on new responsibilities. No wonder our customer satisfaction scores are so strong this year!

When people step up to the mark, it makes life so much easier all around.

I am now hanging on for Roger, our property director, who will beat me in today's race (my latest excuse in advance is that I would clearly be mad to cycle flat out in these conditions!). Soon it will be time to step up to my mark too, alongside nearly 6,000 others this weekend. Why do people do this voluntarily?!

I'll let you know how we get on. Even over the course of this blog, my nerve levels are getting worse. I'll be a nervous wreck by the time the start klaxon sounds!

That's why I suddenly quite like Mondays

2009-06-05T15:32:00.000+01:00

What on earth possessed me to enter another @+;%£ triathlon?

I am thoroughly depressed, staring out of my office window at the rain drops which are forecast to accompany me through the whole race. Arguably this will not make a great difference to the lake swim (one piece of unexpected good news is that the lake is a record-breaking 22 degrees centigrade! Wonderful, I am now going to fry in my thermally efficient wet suit).

The weather makes a mockery of my latest acquisition - a magic triathlon quick drying top - if it dries in this weather it will have merited its price tag.

My real fear is now the bike ride; with the rain across our narrow estate roads, one or two fast corners may well become treacherous.

Can you tell that I am obsessed by this thing?

Anyway, my auditors have pretty much left site but also left me with a shopping list of documents needed. Specifically all the documents that a competent FD would have written through the year (or at worst the week before the auditors arrived) but somehow never got around to because he was blogging instead.

My computer has started misbehaving, clearly in league with my newly arrived Sky HD box (which has the worst standard definition images I have ever seen).

Monday cannot come quickly enough.

It's about how well you finish

2009-06-03T16:44:00.003+01:00

Sorry for skipping a couple of postings. For once, I really am beset by trials and tribulations and since no-one actually reads this I figured it wouldn't matter if I kept quiet.

It turns out that some people actually do read this so now I feel even more beset by trials.

I have a very nice group of auditors in at the moment (I mean it, like many FDs I started off with audit training - with KPMG up in Liverpool). Bizarrely in the world of accountancy, they are still called that.

Q: Why did the auditor cross the road?
A: Because he crossed it last year.

Boom boom.

Another favourite but I always use this against myself

Q: What does an accountant use as a contraceptive?
A: His personality

This is my frantic time of the year. The summer trustees' meeting looms large. I have endless sets of accounts to prepare with the aid of my trusty abacus as well as a bunch of tax comps. I have to drag long forgotten concepts from the depths of my soul (consolidation of unit trusts anyone?). So this would be the time of year when you wouldn't want commercial problems, or any big events or in fact anything else to happen at all.

Which rather begs the question of why I am competing in the Blenheim Triathlon this Saturday.

No, I haven't a clue either. Dragged along kicking and screaming by my training conscience (his name is Troels Henrikssen), we enjoyed a great final lake practice in scorching sunshine in North Oxford. No-one really wanted to get out, it was that nice. I even swam in a (moderately) straight line. Nothing can stop me - with the possible exception of the heavy rain now forecast for Saturday.

As previously mentioned, we have a fair contingent representing Blenheim Palace in the competition. I was amused to see an email from John (our CEO) explaining to a trustee that he was not competing as he was needed to run the event on the day! Don't worry, John, I'll cover for you next year!

We are trialling a new "Park then Pay" arrangement for this event - something our site is not well set up to do but is now essential for this event as a lot of the traffic comes in one mad early rush. If you do experience it, please let me know what you think.

We're wishing all competitors a great race, with the exception of Roger File my training partner (and our property director) who I wish to finish only a respectably small number of minutes ahead of me.

My main strategy for achieving this relatively modest goal is to get out of the water and up to transition ahead of him. Then I'll remove the handily-designed quick release front wheel from his bicycle.....

Just kidding, Roger. What I like about triathlon is that because you go off in waves 20 minutes apart, no-one watching has a clue what my time is. All I have to do is finish strongly and everyone will think I have posted a great time!

Which is roughly the way I approach these wretched accounts and the trustees' meeting. I am glad they cannot all see me now. I will sleep well when both things are over!

Message from Tony White's family

2009-05-18T09:40:00.000+01:00

It is hard to believe that it will be two months tomorrow that we lost our dear Tony. On behalf of his family, Mary, Tania and Dominic, I would like to thank everyone we met from the Palace, for their kind words and assistance during this very stressfull time. I would also like to say things are getting better, but I'm afraid Tony was such a larger than life character that we are all still missing him terribly. However, it is a measure of the man's popularity that I am proud to say the Funeral Directors informed me this week that a total of £1,129.21p has been raised for the two chosen charities of Cancer Research (£424.71) and British Heart Foundation (£704.50). God Bless Tony and everyone who donated in his name.
Kind regards to you all Mike Lanaghan. (Tony's Brother-in-Law)

Sorry lads

2009-05-15T12:25:00.005+01:00

Often the frenetic activity which propels Blenheim Palace along is hidden nicely below the surface. The vast majority of visitors see a serene setting centred on a beautiful Palace and give minimal thought to the work going on "down below".

Today is NOT one of those times. Filming for Gulliver's Travels continues, creating a fascinating and unusual scene in the Courtyards - a scene which provokes a great deal of interest. On the Showground, the build for Art, Design and a Taste of Summer has started (this is a high end craft fair for the Spring Bank Holiday weekend which we are organising with Living Crafts - the same people with whom we run Living Crafts for Christmas). It will be a memorable show

We are very close to the build for the Blenheim Triathlon, which..... I am dissolving in shock as I type this..... is only THREE WEEKS AWAY. No panic. Nice measured breathing. In. Out. In. Out.

That's better. Until I think of the lake.

Roger File (our property director) and I started our lake practice about a week ago. I should point out that we are not cheating and using our own lake here. Oh, no. That would be against the rules (and we don't plan to break those rules until next week). For this, we borrowed a lake in North Oxford. I had a terrible time in our lake last year. All my planning went out of the window. I got kicked, dragged under, realised that the water was a funny brown colour, swallowed most of it, all in the first five seconds. Panic then ensued (and I mean real "I'm going to die" panic). I got colder, realised that I was all alone and that it was a very long way to the edge. I would have quit but I couldn't face admitting to people that I had dropped out after completing the first three metres of the triathlon.

Anyway, with Roger alongside me, it will all be different this year.

Jumping in the practice lake brought back all sorts of memories.

The first memory was about the cold. We really must look into heating the lake, Roger.

The second memory was triggered when I opened my eyes under water and saw my wedding ring slowly sinking in front of my eyes. I grabbed it and put it on the jetty. It is not normally loose but, as I suddenly recalled, when you jump into something THAT cold, your fingers shrink slightly. In fact every bit of you shrinks slightly (so my friends watching from the bank as I removed my wetsuit can STOP that sniggering - it's just nature).

Anything that I have gained in speed and confidence from last year has been more than offset by the complete loss of my sense of direction in the lake. The straight lake swim is hard enough without me attempting what appeared to onlookers to be a complete circumnavigation of the lake in question. I have a horrible feeling I will end up tacking along the Blenheim lake on the day.

One would like to think that one could rely on one's friends to shout a warning if they see one heading off the wrong way. You don't know my friends. I bumped into one, Richard King Smith, in the middle of the lake on a return leg. "Oh, you gave us such a laugh", he said, "the best bit is when you all started off together and you managed to head off at 90 degrees from everyone else".

Thanks Richard.

Roger is training well and he has, in my opinion, the clear advantage of actually being able to bike and run, which he denies but I maintain is a definite advantage in a triathlon in which you, well, swim, bike and run.

And we have more estate competitors (all like me, I suspect, doing it to avoid having to work on a very busy day).

Anita Donaldson, our Head of Finance, competes at a very high level. She is in hard training to try to qualify for the world championships later this year. Needless to say, I will not be comparing times with her.

Nick Bainbridge is another outstanding triathlete, and he works in our Rural Enterprise team helping lead the forestry work which is so defining of our park landscape. I don't think I will compare times with him either. I beat him by about a minute to the finish line last year, which pleased me immensely - pleasure only marginally reduced when someone pointed out to me that he had started one hour after me. Still, I do recall that he was out of breath from the strain of catching me. You ought to try training, Nick.

Two of our Maintenance team are taking part in the team event (Paul Loakes and Chris Monaghan) together with Rhiann Orsi, who is married to our head of Rural Enterprise. Paul, her better half, is too busy helping run the event to take part. He is one of those annoying folks who could probably just go out and do a triathlon without really practicing...

And Hannah "Buy One Day Etc" Payne, our Marketing Manager is also part of a team, although she had the good sense to look around at the athletic specimens on offer here and chose instead to team up with two non-Blenheim people.

Obviously I would like to beat any of them. Trust me, by the time I write up the results on this web-site, I will have beaten most of them. It's not so much the victor writing the history here, as "he who has control of the website" writing the history.

Sorry lads.

What is going on out there?

2009-05-08T14:06:00.002+01:00

I have to say (and I have a meeting coming up this afternoon which could change things) that it has been a pretty nice week.

We all had a fantastic time at Jousting over the May Day Weekend - a flood of letters from our visitors confirms this view is widely held. Over a quarter of our annual pass holders came over this weekend which is a great result. We know the car queues slowed you down but we are working on plans to sort this. With your help, we had roughly twice as many visitors at this event than last year.

The gloss was obviously taken off it by learning that many of our peers did just as well (btw did you spot the very subtle pun in there? oh never mind). National Trust are doing well with visits roughly doubled too. Our Treasure House friends are all reporting strong progress.

How annoying is that? We've worked really hard to attract more visitors. They could at least have the decency to report lower numbers than us.

It is one of the quirks of our "industry" that in many ways we are not direct competitors of our equivalents. For example, Chatsworth House is in many ways a comparable place to us but in reality no-one wakes up and thinks "I feel like going to a stately home, which shall I go to? Blenheim Palace or Chatsworth?"

All of this means that we do become good friends and tend to admire each other rather than anything else. We had a visit from our friends at Chatsworth this week, in which we feigned great pleasure at how well they were doing. In all seriousness, it's definitely a house worth visiting - if you enjoy Blenheim, you'll absolutely enjoy Chatsworth too. If you go, ask for Sarah Montgomery and tell her she should copy our "Buy One Day Get 12 months Free" offer. She'll like that.....

We are all getting out more. I think the National Trust article above explains some of this effect. Stately homes offer an awful lot, while the branded theme parks are very expensive (Futuroscope in France at Easter was great for all four of us but it was £200 all in). Annual memberships offer great value for money, especially for somewhere like an active stately home as there is so much to see, and it frequently changes through the year. As an example, our jousting tournament brought out 1 in 4 of our annual pass-holders as it was there for three days only (well, actually it is back in August).

It seems that while people are cautious with their money, they are prepared to work to get great value from UK visits.

It does also seem to be a stay-cation year, as they say. Many of my friends are planning either no foreign holiday or less than normal. The gain is felt by attractions like us. The UK is also cheaper to foreigners thanks to exchange rate movements but frankly if you are an insolvent American the fact that we are cheaper than last year in dollar terms is no comfort whatsoever.

The challenge for all stately homes is to ensure that this is not a one-year phenomenon. It is a challenge for which we are already planning.

Meanwhile, keep coming; the Park and Gardens look more stunning with each sun-filled passing day. And yes, Billy Connolly is still hanging around!

Four weeks until the triathlon - first lake practice on Sunday. It's all a bit too close for comfort.

The days are just packed

2009-05-01T18:34:00.007+01:00

Some of you may have come across a set of cartoon books called Calvin and Hobbes - a hyperactive and over-imaginative boy called Calvin and his toy tiger Hobbes who comes to life. The world through their eyes is full of excitement and imagination and adventure but they are occasionally dragged down to Earth by reality.

It often feels that way at Blenheim Palace; I think that the variety in one day here is one of its most interesting features, frankly, even if the pace of it does leave your head spinning.

Gulliver's Travels is being filmed here, today was a full filming day - of a game of basketball in the Great Court. The stars were out in force: Jack Black, Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate, Emily Blunt, the big bloke out of Gavin and Stacey. I'd like to make clear that I had heard of two of them (when your kids are into Doctor Who you pick up a bit). Jack Black's most notable role was as an animated panda (which John, in my defence, is why I didn't recognise him!)

For some visitors it was a bit disruptive, but for the vast majority it was very exciting indeed. As stars go, these were clearly good-natured and pleased to interact with their fans. I lost count of the number of staff and visitors who joyfully showed me photos on their phones and cameras of them posing with a star.

"I chatted up the Big Yin" one lady gleefully told me as we queued for an ice-cream (a nutritional requirement of the triathlon, by the way, OH MY LORD IT IS ONLY FIVE WEEKS AWAY, WHAT AM I DOING HERE WRITING A BLOG?) Back to the lady, she told me she was staying in a nearby caravan site, had got her free annual pass and would definitely be coming back. Several times. Sadly, I don't think they are filming this weekend, but she promised she would occupy herself with our jousting tournament instead. Nice Lady...

I trotted off to look at the jousting arena and infrastructure. They always put on a great show. For many parents though, the big appeal is that next to the arena is the Pimms "Silver Bullet". Be rude not to, really. We're lucky to have it this year, on the way in it took a wrong turn and got very stuck indeed. Our maintenance team, either through professional determination or a fierce unquenchable desire to drink Pimms, managed to get them back onto the right site. Heroes all.

It tends to be me who brings people back down to Earth. With some colleagues I went to RHS Wisley yesterday to meet some of the RHS team and compare some operating numbers etc. We were given a fascinating tour by the Curator and their head of fruit and vegetables (what a great job!). I could have spent a very long time wandering around those gardens. But we went to our meeting room and the spreadsheets came out. There was some very interesting stuff in there, and as the accountant in the room I soon got carried away.

Pointing at one set of figures, I blurted out "I'm really excited by this financial model!"

Their commercial director fixed me with a disbelieving stare.

"We've just taken you around one of the most inspiring gardens in the world and.... you're..... excited..... by...... the........ spread....... sheet." His voice dripped disbelief. I backtracked rather hastily. I like gardens as much as the next man, though the speed of our grass growth here at Blenheim is proving to be a bit of a problem. But our gardens team are manfully keeping up.

I stood marvelling at the pace of it with our Head of Operations, the unflappable Heather Carter. "I couldn't do this", I told her. "Trying to get my head around all of this and not panic." She grinned and pointed to a nervous looking photographer, master of ceremonies and a wedding planner standing at our Flagstaff entrance. "It'll be them not coping soon", she told me. "The bride-to-be is running very late...".

By the end of the day, order is restored. Filming is still going on (yes, they are late too) but the arena is built, the bride is married, the Pimms van is functional, the grass is shorter than in started the day and an awful lot of people have had a great deal of fun (with the possible exception of the driver of the Pimms Silver Bullet who had apparently had better days).

Tomorrow will be an even better day, I think. And the next day too.

Like I said, the days are just packed.

Hannah and the award

2009-04-24T16:09:00.007+01:00

Jolly good news...

John (our Chief Exec) and Hannah (our Marketing Manager) trekked up to York last night for a swish dinner at York Railway Museum - now there is somewhere I've not been since a school trip decades ago - to find we came runner up in the Enjoy England Awards for Excellence Large Visitor Attraction of the Year.

Hannah and John are pictured above with the award.

Being a girl, she completely failed to spend the evening admiring the Flying Scotsman and all the other steam age relics lying around. Unforgivable!

John, on the other hand, is one of the steam age... oh never mind, it wasn't going anywhere anyway. Unlike my job, probably.

Some shower called Harewood beat us (just kidding Elaine, we love you really).

Fishy tales

2009-04-24T09:31:00.010+01:00

Well, I am back from my holidays. I had a fascinating time in France, wandering around the Loire Valley. We stayed at Chateau Vary, near Jarze - a lovely base with great facilities, big thanks to Paul and Benedicte who looked after us (and to Benedicte's dad for the Easter eggs!). Sadly, my complete lack of self control in the area of croissant consumption means my training schedule has had to be stepped up!

One of the weird things about working at Blenheim is that I find myself unable to visit any other attraction without looking to see what layouts, systems and staffing they use. The Loire is stuffed full of chateaux, ranging from the real heavyweights such as Chambord and Villandry to small family-run chateaux like Montgeoffroy.

Villandry is stunningly presented, with astonishing gardens (including formal vegetable gardens and beautiful love gardens). It really is on a par with anything I've seen in the UK and I'd recommend a visit to anyone. Do use the Audioguides, about 4euros per person, but they help a lot! Incidentally, has anyone tried our garden audioguides here? But the weird thing about Villandry is that we went in the Easter holidays (yes the French Schools were off) on a sunny day - yet the place was empty...

It does seem that there is less interest in France in their chateaux than we tend to see in the UK. Montgeoffroy on our last full day was another stunning venue but the exterior falling into heart-breakingly poor condition. I would like to think it would not be allowed in this country. Go see it soon, I'm not sure it will be upright in a few year's time.

At the other extreme was Futuroscope, a large cinema based theme park near Poitier. Revered within the industry as a brilliantly organised attraction, this place was busy but, my oh my, it soaks the crowds so easily. State-funded, money was clearly not in short supply and it is also wonderfully French! My favourite quirks were the closure of all food facilities at 2:30 dead on, food to die for (well, relative to UK theme parks anyway where you tend to get food to die from- I had an avocado and crayfish tails starter - that's my first fishy tail by the way- a pasta carbonara main course and tarte tatin for 15euros) and the wonderfully discreet shops - we really had to hunt to find one. Bliss! Oh, and great rides etc - put it this way, we spent 10 hours there! The condensed lunch period had certain advantages (everything was fresh cooked to a very high standard), the downside was that the queues were more than for any ride.

As we headed for Caen and the return ferry, we popped in to see the Bayeux tapestries. Of course, the French haven't actually heard of these, they take little interest in an obscure piece of embroidery on a trivial detail like THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. Again, beautifully presented but not on a par with the amazing Tapestry of the Apocalypse at Angers. Now that's a tapestry to compare with those at Blenheim. Both, again, well-explained with Audioguides.

Now I am back, I have been suckered into going deep sea fishing (an annual staff trip!) next week. They do have some adventures out there but I am not sure I have the stomach for it. It probably serves me right for not going trout fishing on the new trout lake here. Graham Peck (pictured above on the last deep sea trip with something that is definitely not a trout) has worked hard to put this new venture together. The lake is now teaming with trout - rainbow and brown, he tells me with much enthusiasm. "Where have all the pike gone?", I asked innocently. A slightly guilty look crossed his face. "we've moved them all up into the main lake" he told me. I walked away, impressed by his planning and attention to detail.

Then I stopped.

"You've done what?? I'm supposed to be swimming the first leg of my triathlon in seven weeks in the main lake!"

Graham assured me with a grin that they are very tame and shy and have no interest in my toes.

"When 200 men in wet suits jump in and start swimming, believe me they go to the other end of the lake" he pointed out.

Now there's an incentive for keeping up with the rest of your wave....

And in case you think I am making too much fuss, click on this to see what we are up against.

Cycles everywhere plus thumb update

2009-03-30T17:02:00.005+01:00

The cycle of life continues at Blenheim Palace. As we prepare for the funeral of Tony White (our construction manager) we received joyful news today of the birth of Alison Digweed's grand-daughter (Sophie Grace) ten days early. Alison retires tomorrow as our payroll manager, both to try to keep up with her husband and to share the lives of her grand-children. Remarkable timing really - and there was me thinking she wanted to avoid a payroll year end! Remarkable is a word that fits Alison very well really; she has done a stunning job.

As I said to one group today, these events remind us that life moves relentlessly on. You can either rage against it or smile and flow with it, enjoying and making the most of the ride. Alison is most definitely doing the latter. We are very lucky to have been part of the last 15 or so years of her life, we wish her the very best in the next 15 as she and Chris bless their grandchildren's lives too.

It was also great to see so many former members of staff at our farewell celebrations for Alison, proof if ever needed of the enduring strength of the family which makes up Blenheim.

We continue to focus our efforts and investment in our year long "Buy One Day, Get 12 Months Free" promotion. We had some credit card glitches over the weekend, causing delays for our guests and stress for our staff. I was impressed and proud that our IT Manager Tim Long responded by offering to shift his working week so that he is in every weekend until the end of summer and that he will base himself in the heart of our Operations team to provide the best support possible both to our reception teams and to our guests. Ensuring that we give the best and smoothest welcome to our guests is incredibly important to us. That we are usually achieving that is clear from our performance - again this weekend we had 50% more visitors than this time last year. (No, we are not full!)

I met a lot of happy visitors on Saturday afternoon and I took some dear friends around both the State Rooms (guided tour) and Blenheim Palace: The Untold Story (guided by the ghost of the first Duchess's maid Grace Ridley). Sometimes we get so familiar with this that we take it for granted; the look on my friends faces reminded me what a special experience Blenheim Palace is.

I am glad to report that my thumb has healed. I am utterly underwhelmed by the sympathy that was not aroused. My triathlon training staggers along but I get on my bike this week to ramp up the training.

Which probably brings us back to the beginning of this missive....

The sun is shining, except on my thumb

2009-03-23T09:04:00.012Z

I start this blog in something of a state of surprise for two reasons. One - I have sustained my first blogging injury. A sprained thumb! No, really, I am actually in pain typing this, albeit I only use my thumb to hit the space bar. You may find I use a lot of very long words in this post. And two - to my horror I have received emails telling me that people are actually reading this. That is less surprise, more shock; I had come to regard this blog in quite a short space of time as something of a private confessional. The discovery that it is not private caused me to very rapidly reread what I had previously written in a state of mild panic. I think I may have got away with it though, as long as She Who Must be Obeyed doesn't find out.

I actually hurt my thumb in triathlon training, swimming at Westminster Hill (one of those humiliating training sessions in which a twelve year old girl glides past me twice every length without any effort on her part - why do I work so hard to go so slowly?). This is my second Blenheim Palace Triathlon ; I entered last year. My training has picked up sharply over the last ten days and I do, of course, have a much better idea of what I am facing this year. But the pressure is so much greater. My colleague, Roger File (our Property Director) kindly came along to support me last year with his family. They watched as I crawled around in a dreadful state (I nearly drowned, honest!) so I regaled them with tales of how demanding and challenging the triathlon actually is. To my horror, Roger has now entered this year's triathlon and will therefore quickly realise just how uselessly slow I was. The only possible ray of sunshine is that he is asking me for advice! So, here goes:

Rest is very important. Do absolutely nothing for at least three weeks before the race

Getting adequate carbs is also very important. I recommend a large bag of chips every night for the same three weeks

Roger - you wanted to know which bikes I would recommend. I have done some research and believe this picture represents state of the triathlon art

How long is it until the race? 8 weeks....

On the same subject, our Head of Finance, Anita Donaldson, is now working part time to accommodate training for qualification for the World Triathlon championships! I can't even imagine being good enough to contemplate that level of performance. Go for it, Anita, we are all in awe of you right now!

On Friday, we bid farewell to our popular Under Butler Stephen Duckett. Stephen is a big loss, apart from his normal duties, he also led music at Blenheim. Visitors were often surprised and delighted to be regaled on the Willis Organ in the Long Library, or on the smaller (and much more interesting) Chapel Organ. He introduced the Sunday music in the Long Library and set up the Blenheim Singers who performed Handel's Messiah at the end of last year. This loss, however, is tinged with happiness - Stephen leaves us to fulfil his lifelong ambition to take up Holy Orders. Take care, friend - we are proud that you have followed your calling. We'll try not to worry too much that total isolation from the world seemed preferable to another day with us.

In spite of the sadness surrounding the death of Tony White, our construction manager, there is some creeping optimism around the place. While the news each night still carries gloom and doom stories about recession, our numbers are well up. The weather has also been terrific, and Blenheim Palace is a bewitchingly beautiful place in the sunshine. Deep down, we feel this will be a great year to enjoy Blenheim Palace. The daffodils are out and blooming, the Palace stonework radiates a honey-coloured joy from all around, the park is as stunning a landscape as ever. Especially if you are an Annual Pass Holder (and why wouldn't you be? get it free with every Palace ticket!), I would strongly recommend popping over in the week in the sunshine to bask in this opulence. Come and sit on the slope inside Woodstock Gate overlooking the lake, gazing across at Grand Bridge and Palace in the sunshine... you will be uplifted, I promise you!

Incidentally, I had intended to write something about our business response to recession (given that this is a finance director's blog) but once again I seem to have run out of time and space. Next time...

Rest in peace, Tony

2009-03-18T10:23:00.002Z

Just as the year seemed to be going our way, we received terribly sad news last night.

Our popular and well-known Head of Construction, Tony White, was found dead last night. It appears that he may have suffered a fatal heart attack while out walking his dogs near Cornbury Park but we won't know the full story for a few days.

Tony was a remarkable man. He was so astonishingly capable at his job that we tended to forget what a challenging job he did. He led our new-build programme at an amazing pace. Yet he was never too busy to lend a hand to anyone who asked. And when you asked, his response was always overwhelmingly kind and supportive.

We'll always remember his spontaneous generousity - the muffins, the Easter treats, the strange alcohol which would come back from his travels! We'll remember Friday nights at the Kings Arms.

We'll remember the laughter in his eyes as he drily recounted the latest mischief on his sites.

We'll remember the way he would always stand up for his friends or for a stranger wronged on the street (earning a pair of black eyes for the latter).

He has left a permanent mark on each of us and he has left a permanent mark on the Estate.

God bless you, Tony.

Keeping it going...

2009-03-13T17:08:00.003Z

Three thoughts here based on this title.

1) obviously, despite having had loads of blog ideas BEFORE I started writing this blog, I now find myself bereft of ideas. ONE WEEK IN. This is potentially disastrous. I know it takes several repeats of everything to develop a good habit (well, any habit I suppose. I probably have more experience of bad habits in truth). Surely I cannot possibly fail in the first week? Perhaps I can blog about four English sides going through in the Champions' League? Maybe not - and maybe there shouldn't be an apostrophe in Champions' League. No, I shall keep blogging...

2) my preparations for my second Blenheim Triathlon are going CATASTROPHICALLY badly. No, this is not trying to lower expectations. Swimming, biking and running are almost non-existent in my week. I just cannot seem to develop the reasonably good training habits I managed last year. It's a bit too much like hard work. To be clear, it's not as if I am any good at any of the disciplines. In fact, my talent if anything seems to lie in being very good at Not Stopping. I am a pretty good Not Stopper, if I do say so myself. So, next week is it - from Monday I am going to be a very serious student of the athletic arts. There is clearly room for improvement from last year (avoiding a near-death experience in Blenheim Lake would represent progress). I will keep going on this too. Or start going anyway.

3) business point. Sorry, I have to do this otherwise someone will notice this blog and actually question its value. Anyway, you are probably only reading this because of the Blenheim Palace connection so I really ought to humour you with some business. And business is tough out there, for example we have had two big Blenheim Palace Natural Mineral Water customers go bust in the last two weeks and our investment in debt collection is growing fast. Yet, even in this slightly luxury end of the market, there is opportunity out there. We have really pushed on in our London sales efforts for the mineral water and have landed some nice new business. We are even now exporting water to Hong Kong (surreal, isn't it, but there is a big ex-pat community out there which yearns for all things British and, let's face it, there are few things more British than Blenheim Palace and shipping water around the world wrapped in a heavy glass bottle). We are also hunting investment opportunities in the water market and may be close to landing a really good one. My hat goes off to Trevor Rawden who runs that business and is doing a terrific job - he is feeling a bit unwell right now (he is an Arsenal fan) but we all appreciate him and wish him a very speedy recovery. David (his No 2) and I will try not to mess everything up behind his back.

Incidentally, in our main visitor business, we are up 20% across the board this week despite extremely grey weather. Apparently Sunday is going to be stunning - and apparently I will be keeping the garden going too (according to She Who Must Be Obeyed).

Ah well...

Starting my blog

2009-03-06T14:18:00.007Z

Well, here goes. I've agreed to write a blog for the Blenheim Palace website. In fact, even worse, I volunteered to write a blog. In truth, no-one was going to ask me (I'm the Finance Director - can count a bit, can write a bit, hopeless with people) and doing a blog on our website is about as close to public profile as I'd dare get.

It took a bit of pondering to figure out what I should blog about. I'd read Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel - a classic of its genre. That scared me - don't overtly market, be incredibly honest, write very frequently. Er, I'm an accountant. Have you seen accountants marketing?

I kept reading - I'm good at that, by the way. Could I sustain a blog about the trials and tribulations of the Finance Director of a famous estate?

Then life here began to get exciting and a little bit terrifying. It was, of course, looking like a tough year to run a heritage visitor attraction. We had undergone a substantial cost reduction programme last year as the full extent of the likely recession began to emerge. For us, that pain was compounded by some mandatory works on the Blenheim Dam (big numbers! More about that another day - suffice to say that Capability Brown was a genius at landscaping but, by modern standards, he has something to learn about dam construction. And easy access to formal gardens too - that's another one for another day.) In this climate, no-one was expecting bumper visitor numbers.

Then we had a cunning idea. It's a tough year for everyone, we all need help. I had cunningly cut the marketing budget, so whatever we did, it had to involve extremely efficient use of marketing money. And then it came to us. Just give every visitor an annual pass - I mean a proper gold-plated (almost) photographic pass for a year. More paying visitors, lots of return visitors plus a huge jump in our customer relationships and goodwill.

We knew some heritage houses owned by charities had done it quite successfully - Leeds Castle do something similar with Gift Aid but I think there you just hold onto your paper ticket and use it until it falls apart. There's an obvious flaw there - they miss out on all the customer information which we treasure. Sadly, it turns out that there was quite a flaw in our plan too...

Our execution required that we take name, address, contact details and photos from every customer and print them beautiful membership cards on the spot (actually on several spots). We had about two weeks to find kit, to write the software, find marketing partners, train lots of staff. We opened - and all hell broke loose. It turns out that, even though we thought we had made the process as fast as possible (an extra £500 per card printer took 20 seconds out!) (I like parentheses, by the way) it still took far too long. Our marketing partners at the Oxford Times did a great job. Lots of people arrived. I mean, LOTS. Queues formed.

Somehow "queues" does not do it justice.

Try Queueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueuueueueueueues.

We tried desperately to speed it up. Emergency meetings behind kiosks. Much interesting language. Extremely good-humoured customers and staff. Very calm Operations team. At our size of business, you don't get nice integrated IT systems for this kind of thing. We had our hotchpotch of hardware, a custom designed "processing system" and and off-the-shelf system
for grabbing photos and printing cards. It wasn't talking very well. In fact, at times the "magic whoosh" button wasn't working at all. Whooshing is the process by which the card printing programme gets all the information about the visitor and puts it on the card with the photo - apparently it's an IT term.

Overnight, every night, we made changes. We built more conversion points. Staff got faster. Miracles frequently occurred. Until Saturday 28th February. The Day the Database Got Too Big. To everyone queuing on that day, we hope you are still in the good mood with which you blessed us as you queued. We know it wasn't good. Our staff suffered too. Loads of you gave us your data online instead - a very good idea! We talked to many more of you as you queued - shared your frustrations, marvelled at your good humour. Agreed many times that it was such a good offer that it was worth the wait!

Just to reassure you, the database has been redesigned by two miracle workers. We have learned loads of lessons. It will never be that busy again.

And the sun is shining this weekend.

And I have worked out what this blog will be about.

It'll be about the people at Blenheim Palace - staff and visitors. Standing in that crowded courtyard, I realised more clearly than ever that it isn't the buildings or the landscape that makes Blenheim Palace special. It is everyone that was there that day.

It'll be about the real experiences of people here. Those who visit. Those who work front of house. Those working behind the scenes. It will be about the days when the magic whoosh button works. And it'll be about the days it doesn't.

Feel free to tell me when I'm talking tripe - I won't edit you out (that button doesn't work either).

Have a good weekend