What goes on at Pax Lodge

This is kind of like a guest blog, in that I haven’t actually written it. My guest today is Maia Faulkner, World Centre Manager for Pax Lodge. She’s a fellow New Zealander and a good boss. This is copy-pasted from an email from Maia letting everyone know what’s been happening at Pax Lodge lately.

Dear All,

I wanted to share with you all the fantastic work that we have all been doing by highlighting the last two weekends and some points of interest.

This is in addition to the very well received summer event programme that is running during the weeks, two staff being on annual leave and having the World Centre Review onsite!

I also want to say a big public ‘THANK YOU’ to Emma for keeping on top of everything both of the last two weekends.

Thank you also to Tirian, Nefeli, Paula and Kay for all you have done – especially that on top of your regular duties you have made beds and generally helped with everything that needed doing.  You are a great team and all kept smiling as well!

Last weekend we had a particularly busy weekend with the end of one summer event and the start of another event on Monday.

In between this Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were very busy with tours.  Friday July 30 saw 6 tours booked in and more arriving throughout the day as well as the closing of the event and the extra challenges the BBQ and evening party brings.  The shop sales were fantastic! Saturday was again busy with tours that just kept coming and Sunday’s large tour and lunch for 48 was flanked by other tours throughout the day and an evening programme!

The highlights for me were:

– the multiple large tours from Canada arriving directly from the airport and purchasing at least one of everything in the shop and hundreds of stamps!!

– the Mexican groups gifting us sombreros and tequila after they had booked in for a 45 minute tour and stayed for hours

– the Discover London Package that didn’t want to do the package but ended up buying almost all the parts of the package individually (which cost them a lot more!!)

– the fantastic evening campfire night with the Japanese group that didn’t speak English and wanted a tea ceremony and origami session and the American group that wanted to teach the Japanese group games (the extra hour outside after the programme definitely built cultural understanding) J

This weekend was even bigger with the end of centenary camp – we knew we were going to be busy but we would never have thought we would have large tours being turned away on arrival to do the Hampstead Walk so that we would have room in the building and shop to operate!!!!

Friday again was the last day of an event for more than 40 people and we also had a tour and pinning for 57 people in the morning, followed by the usual afternoon tours, and event BBQ and closing.  Saturday saw a full house change over in the rooms upstairs and thankfully only one group arrived for a tour in the morning!  With all the beds made by 13:20 we were ready for the afternoon tour programme with a 2pm tour for 12, a 3pm tour for 17, a 3.30pm tour and cream tea for 77 (mostly Japanese with very little English so Koto’s help on her day off was fantastic!)  Sunday was a phenomenal day with the full house of Japanese guests checking out and therefore a full house of beds to make (you should see the laundry!!!!!), an EF Tour at 9am, as well as a group of 11 Malaysian guiders wanting to present gifts, two more groups of Japanese girls arriving for a tour in the morning, a Canadian group arriving for a tour in the morning and staying for their booked in lunch as well as the pre booked afternoon tour for another group of Japanese girls.

Points to note from this weekend:

–         groups may be booked in for a 45 minute- 1 hour tour but they stay for anywhere up to 3 hours and spend a fortune in the shop!

–         in a 24 hour period from Saturday lunchtime to Sunday lunchtime we took £2,510.23 in cash for shop sales and a total of £4,145.83 if you also count the credit card transactions and tour payments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

–         two full house changeovers with another one to come tomorrow means 195 beds will have been made by lunch time tomorrow and the sheets will have been washed and ironed 3 times

–         more than 300 scones have been consumed

–         three boxes of gifts from around the world including dolls and soft toys, boxes of biscuits, flagons of maple syrup, a tea set, a Hong Kong tower and a USD $250 donation to Global Girls Fund have been received!

–         there were more Asia Pacific guests and participants over the last two weeks than Western Hemisphere and not only did we have a Maltese event group and tour group this week we have an event group from St Vincent and the Grenadines this week and another Maltese event group next week – diversity is fantastic – you never know who you will meet at dinner J !

Hope you all had a good weekend – Emma is looking forward to her days off and I am looking forward to another busy week J starting with a 5am early breakfast for 49 (Koto is looking forward to it!)

Kind regards,

Maia Faulkner

World Centre Manager

What more can I say?

xEmma