This email is being circulated by John Sparrow of the Stoneyport Agency in Edinburgh and illustrates precisely one of the areas of tension that I am investigating. The commercial interests of the company that manages a chain of pubs (or indeed of a manager of one venue in that chain) does not fit with the idea of unpaif volunteers running a successful folk club. The club itself has to justify its exisitence in terms of drinks sales.
Here's the email and correspondence:
Hi
If it's not folk dying it's something else ...
:(
references:
Spirit Group run The Rockingham Arms, Wentworth, Yorkshire. Spirit group is the managed division of Punch Taverns, the UK's leading pub company with over 9,200 pubs nationwide.
The burden of the mesage is that The Rockingham Arms FC is to close - very soon indeed. "The Rock" has hosted a very succesful folk club for 33 years which has been run by the same guy all those years - Rob Shaw..
This message - below - arrived today from John Willis aka Jonti down in Doncaster Yorkshire and makes very sad reading indeed.
Says Jonti: "Just spoken to Matthew Crehan on the phone and there seems no way he will give Rob even a few weeks grace to move out with planned dignity. It's the unacceptable face of capitalism all over again."
Seems to me if you run a folk club in Spirit Group pub (and with 9200 of them there's a good chance there's at least one more club in a Spirit Group pub) you'd better be asking the manager what his/her plans are for what you do in their premises. I'd have thought that owning 9200 pubs was pressing at being a monopoly in fact.
jb
:)
.... I have already written a letter to the MD of Spirit Group Mr Andrew Knight..........sadly it never got to his desk but I have had a reply from the Spirit Group Business Development Manager Mr Matthew Crehan (I've copied the email exchange below in bold blue italic to save confusion should this email get passed on).
I have also spoken to the Spirit Group customer relations department and with Matthew Crehan (Spirit Group Business Development Manager) directly today (Tuesday). He has promised to look into it further and call me back again tomorrow - Wednesday.
He made it clear that his main job & concern was to increase the profitability of the pub but would take into account other factors if it could be shown that music @ The Rock' on a Friday did have a significant (£) contribution to make to the Rockingham Arms pub at Wentworth.....which we all know it does. - How one quantifies the "cultural value" of the last 33 yrs is a formula I will leave to smarter buggers than me!
I should point out that Matthew Crehan has been completely professional and "concerned" in the conversations I've had with him so anyone fancying having a "shout" at him would possibly not help things. With a bit of gentle persuasion/lying/cheating and stealin etc I did manage to get his mobile number from Spirit Group head office which of course I can't possibly circulate .........07884 113522m oops ! How did that come up?
I reckon 30 or 40 persuasive discussions might have some impact if anyone cared to call him direct or put a call through to the Managing Director (Andrew Knight) on the number below.............. that I can freely circulate.
Spirit Group 107 Station Street Burton on Trent
Staffordshire DE14 1SZ
Tel: 01283 545320 Fax: 01283 502357 e-mail: hub@thespiritgroup.com
I hope that people reading this email feel as strongly as we and do 2 of 2 things .........firstly email or call the company about this and secondly forward this email to other like-minded folks who may also express their concern by phone or email.
cheers
Jonti
copy of my correspondence
In a message dated 10/12/2006 08:34:06 GMT
Standard Time, hub@thespiritgroup.com writes:
Ref: ACK2/01256951 10
December 2006
Mr John Willis
35 Harrowden Rd
Doncaster DN2 4EL
Dear Mr Willis
RE: Rockingham Arms
Thank you for contacting us regarding the above Public House and letting us know your issues. Our investigation may involve a number of people within our business and I will ensure that you receive a full response, either from myself or a colleague whom I have personally asked to deal with your issues, as soon as we have reached a satisfactory conclusion. Please ensure that the reference number at the top of this letter is quoted on all correspondence.
Thank you again for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention.
Yours sincerely
Matthew Crehan
Business Development Manager
Dear Mr Knight,
Regrettably I find myself writing to ask your guidance and intervention in what I believe to be an unjust and commercially naive decision by one of your general managers of The Rockingham Arms public house in Wentworth Village, Nr Rotherham South Yorkshire.
The barn/function room of the establishment has hosted the internationally renowned Rockingham Arms Live (folk) Music Club every Friday for a few months short of it's 33rd (continuous) year. Your manager has just given 1 weeks notice that the club must pay a room rental of £100 per night rising to £150 in June.........this of course is in reality "notice to quit" as such a rent would make it impossible for the club to operate at all and also impossible to honour the artists contracts that have been agreed often some 6 months in advance.
Two years ago The Rockingham Arms Folk Club won the highly coveted BBC Radio 2 Folk Music Club of the year award bringing not inconsiderable kudos and prestige to the village, the establishment and by association Spirit/Punch Taverns (of which I am a nominee account shareholder).
The music club has been run weekly and continuously for over 40 weeks of each year for the past 32+ years by main organiser and founder Mr Rob Shaw with a dedicated (and unrewarded) small team of volunteers. These people have formed and continued this non-profit making club for all that time purely to keep traditional and associated acoustic music live, all for the benefit of local and far afield music lovers, up and coming musicians and artists etc.
Significant benefit is also brought to The Rockingham Arms by the dedicated (and unpaid tenure) of the music club. The existence of the music club adds significant cultural value to the venue, the locality and also your company. In addition to the cultural value there is and always has been significant financial value added to the Spirit balance sheet by not only the drinks revenue but also the accommodation that is often booked for visiting artists, bands and visitors to the music club.
There has long been a difference of opinion about the financial value accrued to the establishment by the operation of the Folk Music Club on the site. It has been suggested by recent managers that very little in the way of financial turnover is produced in the barn/function room........there is a degree of truth in this though further & thorough investigation, were it to be impartially undertaken, would prove the opposite. The drinks / beer stock in the barn has always been (A) very limited & (B) of consistently poor quality for more than 20+ years due to the general lack of use of the barn/function room bar throughout the week which impacts significantly on the quality of the draught beer in particular. Consequently, all the folk club regulars (& there are lots) routinely walk around to the bar in the main building where we all know there is not only much greater choice but beer of consistently good quality. This serves to disguise greatly the actual (rather than perceived) financial income that the operation of the Rockingham Arms Music Club brings to the establishment. This could be properly investigated as it has not been.
The club has many members from as far away as Manchester & the North East who regularly attend. I've been going there for most of the dates for the past 33 years and would estimate that the audience averages between 60 and 70 customers weekly. That's a lot of turnover over the years. If the club is forced to close or move so unceremoniously after so many years of loyal tenure I am certain that all the many people that visit The Rockingham Arms each Friday night would never walk through the door again and the disappointment with the treatment meted out by such an obviously inexperienced manager would have far reaching consequences.
There is no doubt that when local, regional and national press, radio and tv gets wind of the ousting of the club, the consequences for the establishment could be severe. (I don't recall who said that there was no such thing as bad publicity but perhaps it remains to be seen.) The Rockingham Arms gets a virtually weekly mention on National Radio 2 (Mike Harding Folk Show) when major artists are (regularly) booked and also is weekly mentioned (not just) in "The Music Listings" of local and regional newspapers but also in the editorial section due to the close links with journalists that have been wrought over many years.
All this positive and free publicity is brought to your door by the efforts of the music club organisers rather than by any effort or investment by Spirit. As an investor in the Leisure/Pub/Retail sector I fully understand the commercial rationale in trying to maximise shareholder value and returns. It may well be that the macro plans of your company leaves no place for "anomalies" like a folk music club in the managed house sector of your business.
I would hope that this were not the case but if it were, firstly a comprehensive audit of value should be undertaken to accurately assess the added value of The Rockingham Arms Music club at Wentworth and secondly you could walk the walk by bringing some fresh thinking to the way that you deal with partners with a 33 year track record. If your intention is to move the music club out then that's ok but surely some "entitlement to reasonable notice" could be applied in this case and at least allow the club to move on with some dignity and a planned relocation.
I would reiterate that no-one makes any money or personal gain from the operation of the music club except your company. The only "payment" that the organiser(s) of this institution gain is the satisfaction of not only running the country's premiere small music venue for music of our national heritage but also the satisfaction of providing a high value service to all music lovers that attend.
Please look into this situation more carefully and try and support and reinforce the value of one of the best assets of your establishment in Wentworth. I do trust that this letter will actually get onto your desk and I am sure that with such a strong career record in the industry you will be able to investigate, advise and intervene for the long term benefit of all.
Attached to this communication is the letter issued by your manager Mr Morton to Mr Rob Shaw giving only the one week to find the funds to continue. Do please try to apply some fresh thinking to this as it appears that your local manager is merely "taking a guess". There is no way that the barn can be let more lucratively within the next 2/3 months without a great deal of investment....so do the right thing and give the club a couple of months under the current arrangement to assess it's options.
yours sincerely
John Willis
35 Harrowden Rd Doncaster DN2 4EL
Tel 07939 148603
Filed under:
Rockingham Arms folk clubs Punch Taverns
