Loch Rannoch Highland Club Forums

Morning. I have just received my Management Fees invoice, and just wondered if i am reading it correctly.
I understood we were having a 5% increase, but unless i have missed something, the Leisure Fee appears to have gone up by 20%. Has that been agreed, and have we been informed prior to the invoice?
Cheers
John

Evening, I too received my Bill which was the same as yours and when we emailed and asked why the reponse was 'The leisure fees have increased when comparing to last year' ??? We have gone back and asked where we were informed about this and the reason for the Leisure increase, we are awaiting a reply,
David

Good Evening,
Here is the reply we got off Management

Dear Mr & Mrs Orr,
There has been a significant change in the distribution of leisure fees. As you may know, the Club has entered into an agreement with Loch Rannoch Hotel and Estate for the purpose of providing leisure facilities to its members and renters.
Following a series of re-negotiations, last December the agreement regarding Club-owned weeks was modified by mutual consent. Consequently, the hotel revised the leisure fee for the past financial year, removed access from Club-owned weeks, considered the losses from rental weeks, and increased the charge per member-owned week. The committee has decided to waive the additional charges in response to the additional support provided by our members last year in the form of a one-time increase of 14% in management fees. The Club paid this increase on behalf of our members last year. 
We have an even tighter and well-controlled budget this year due to the current economic climate and our efforts towards refurbishments, so we are unable to provide an additional support package for the leisure fee for our members. Therefore, the full amount requested by the hotel, including the increase from this year, will be invoiced to our members.
In order to continuously improve our facilities, we strive to monitor members' feedback. To demonstrate our commitment to all our members, we plan to conduct a survey to measure their satisfaction with the leisure facilities so far and the return on our mutual investments. When the contract is renewed later this year, the committee will make a decision based on the feedback received.

Hopefully, this helps to clarify the situation and I look forward to hearing from you shortly,
Best wishes,
Richard 

??????

We think "The Club" should pay a nominal fee to the hotel to secure the rights to use the complex and to entitle those who wish to, to purchase a weekly pass. A levy on all members of £5 per week would raise approx £20.000. Those of us who never will use the facilities are subsidising the hotel.

Thanks for that information David. I'll be honest, i had to read it a few times to understand it, and i'm still not confident i understand. If i do, then it appears that on one hand the club are saying the agreement was modified by mutual consent, and on the other, they are saying the "hotel revised the leisure fee for the past financial year, removed access from Club-owned weeks, considered the losses from rental weeks, and increased the charge per member-owned week."
They also say "Therefore, the full amount requested by the hotel, including the increase from this year, will be invoiced to our members". Doesn't seem to be a lot of "mutual consent" here, more like the hotel imposing their will. And i can't remember when the original agreement was signed, possibly 18 months ago, and if it was, that means the Hotel came back after 12 months (last december as the club says)and renegotiated a 20% increase. Did they get their original calculations wrong, because if they did it does not bode well for the future. And one other thing, the Club are saying that "they" paid this increase for us last year. Well i think they will find "we" paid it, from our 14% goodwill levy.

WADD003 - Thanks for reply, worth thinking about
John

I struggle with the increase given when we were up in February, the pool didn’t work, we booked it and were not informed at that point the heating had stopped working and had been like that for a while. We turned up and they told us the pool was cooler than normal it was freezing. The gym had leaks and we couldn’t book a table for dinner and were not allowed to sit in the bar for a beer
I’m hoping it was teething issues and when we go in August it will be much improved.

Hi everyone

I recently stayed at our Lodge and used the Hotel for meals and drinks with no issues, I also used the Spa Area which was great. Whilst I'm a bit long in the tooth for the Climbing wall; Squash; Badminton or the well equipped Gym I did reflect they were great facilities for anyone wishing to rent my Lodge, but now as I attempt to decipher Richard's response on the Forum about the increase in Fees, I'm wondering can people who Rent a Unit at Rannoch either one owned, or one held by the Club, can that Renter also make use of the Pool/Leisure Activities? It would be helpful if Richard Deak clarified this. Certainly whilst I was at Rannoch most owners I spoke with, or their accompanying friends/family, were making great use of the pool, more so I'd say than the Hotel guests who were having Spa Treatments.I
So money well spent I'd say, just as long as Renters can use it as well, otherwise we would be bang right back at the dismal starting block for Renters i.e. Pool/Activities on-site with no access to them for families who are Renting. So further clarification on this important point is needed.
Ronnie Robertson

From the reply it suggests that if there were more (owner) owned lodges this could result in paying less for the facilities per owner. I will stand corrected if I have misread this.

In the budget recently received the budgeted figure for resale of club owned lodges was only £9,000. Is this a deflated target?
The bigger question still remains of how many club owned lodges have been sold in the last 12 months which results in guaranteed income.

We have access to facilities which have to be used as a marketing tool to success in sales along with the lodges and location.

My understanding with regard to the leisure fee is that it is for owners use only, not renters, and it was renegotiated as it was cheaper to rent a lodge than stay at the hotel or at least it was better value for money to rent the lodge. Good for LRHC bad for the hotel.

As a business, the hotel can't sustain to give LRHC use of the facilities (£30 is cheap for a week pass imo) if they lose out on income due to people renting a lodge rather than hotel room. I do think it needs a better deal worked out with regards to renters but I don't think the owners deal is that bad.

We think £30 is about right, because like many other Owners we're unable to use most of the facilities other than dining at the Hotel, Spa Treatments (for which there is an extra charge) and Club use of the Room for Weekly Meetings. There is absolutely no doubt that the Hotel is an asset to our Club, but we believe that to raise the Leisure Fee would result in hardship for Owners living on Pensions and much unrest and objection. It's good to hear that the Hotel can now accept Owner Diners as well as their Residents, because this wasn't the case when we stayed in our Lodge last year. Looking forward to our stay at Rannoch next month!

having read the above comments we think that the cost we pay for the use of the hotel leisure facilities is an ok amount if the result of having these facilities available encourages more lodges to be sold and the Club to thrive. We did not use the facilities in June (apart from a pint from the hotel), but in March we used the pool on a number of occasions. Our daughter and family are at Rannoch next week and i am sure the facilities will be used by them.

However, if the leisure fee is an issue to other members of the club , it may be a good idea to try and assess how many members actually use the hotels facilities. This could easily be done over the coming years either by a paper or online survey, or probably more efficiently by a short verbal questionnaire when checking out (people are generally lax on filling in forms or replying to email qustionnaires.) This would provide valuable fedback information for both the Club and the Hotel.

Coming from perhaps one of the younger owners (sub 40), i'd happily pay a little more for the use of the facilities as overall for a weeks holiday the managment fees are great. I've stayed in a few airbnb's this year and the cost for 3 days has been more expensive for a similar sized property.

I have fond memories of Rannoch as a child, back when it was Barratt owned. I learned to ski on the dry slope and learned to swim (or rather got the confidence to be in the water by myself) at the pool. I remember the games room at the marina and the games room the hotel used to have. I'd be in there all night while my parents were in the bar with other owners.

I wanted the same thing for my kids so bought a HL in the hope that it would get back to the good old days and this is the first year we've managed to actually spend some time in the resort rather than travelling everywhere to entertain the kids. We've swam, walked, paddleboarded and rock climbed. We would have cycled had the hotel had kids bikes.

LRHC has great potential in my opinion but it needs to offer leisure facilites to make it appealing to families.

It's good to hear from CARR that you and the children were able to spend time in and around the Resort. There is also Archery in the village we believe. It used to be down near the Harbour and was great fun, even if none of us got a bullseye!

We too think that the Maintenance and Leisure Fees are realistic. All you have to do is investigate renting a similar property via a Booking Site to appreciate that LRHC is not expensive.

It was disappointing to see in the Newletter that 38% of Owners have still not paid their Fees - come on please, pay up quickly! If fees are not paid the Club cannot continue and not only will you lose your Lodge(s), but so will we. If you have not paid your Fees you are not being fair to those who have paid. Pay in instalments, rent it out if you don't use your Lodge and get your fees back or sell it either privately or via Julie and Debbie in the Office. They are doing a fantastic job of selling and swapping Lodges.

Some really good and relevant points raised on this post.

Over the many years owners paid( through their fees) for many activities including whisky tasting which not everyone attended. There was also the clan evening which again not everyone attended.

The leisure facilities provide so many different opportunities, especially around sales and I repeat, I would assume if there were more owner owned lodges, maybe the cost of having availability of leisure facilities on fees could be reduced? I may be wrong.

Out of interest ATKI004, have you had information on the number of lodges sold or is this relevant to some one you know as you mention swapping?
I know you suggested there could be a mini section in monthly newsletter telling all owners of this which was a great idea, but I haven't seen anywhere.

There used to be a great Exchange of weeks Service
organised by the Admin Staff. An owner would advise the office staff that they wished to do a swapsome with another owner for such and such a date. I think it would be an excellent service to reintroduce swopping between owners.

Regards,