Electricity for a Scout Hut

Robin9

@valiant24    Ring around the big suppliers and compare rates. My advice don't go to brokers - I had a bad experience

Does your tenant -  pay a realistic rate ?


I guess a lot of florescent tube?  Apply for Lottery Funding. 

chris1973

What type of daytime tenant? - Childcare or Playgroup?. Hike the price, they tend to increase prices for the parents using their service on a fairly regular basis without a second thought and most of them are minted. In fact if the daytime tenant is any kind of businesses whatsoever or a charity with a director paying themselves a Salary then I wouldn't think twice about hiking the rent. I'd be doing it with a big 'ole grin on my face.

Do you charge to hire the hall out?, do you charge enough?. The local scout hut (1960's wooden hut in every sense of the word) around here charges £65 for hire for a 3 hour Children's party and its about as no frills of a drafty old venue as you will ever find, yet its booked every Friday and Saturday and this isn't an affluent area.

Your energy company treat you like a business customer, and unfortunately I think to survive you are going to have to adopt the same mentality, charity or no, as the next few years are going to be tough. Your expenses have increased, so should your prices to those who are using that Energy and your building.

Alternatively, go old School, keep the rent the same but install a Coin Operated Landlord meter and let whoever is using the hall at the time feed it for the Electricity they use, your Emergency lighting will ensure no accidents if the cash in the meter runs out. I suspect it won't be long before your tenant will soon be rushing back to beg you for the rent increase originally offered as the first option........

theoretica

Really support the suggestion to do an energy audit, write down every single lightbulb/other electrical thing in the place. Maybe you need a fundraising drive to go LED - usually easier to raise funds or grants for something like that then ongoing electrical costs.  Do you have data to see how the electricity use varies over the year?  Might show something interesting.  Do you have a smart meter?  That would let you keep an eye on things and check you are passing enough of the costs on to different types of bookings. 

jennifernil

I am the Treasurer for our local Guide Hall, the rates you have been paying sound fairly similar to ours,  but the ones you have been offered are very worrying!

We are in a 3 year fix till January 2024, and I am not looking forward to what will happen then.  Just hoping that things might have improved a bit by then.  However I am expecting a large increase, and all we can do is minimise use and increase income where possible.  Otherwise we will have to dig into our reserves.

Heating is gas CH, cooking is all electric.

Our annual electricity use is not dissimilar to yours, but what is the size of your building, and how many hours per week on average is it used?

We have 2 halls, each approx 9m x 11m, plus kitchen, utility, toilets, and 2 other small rooms.  Both halls are in use every week day for between 1.5 hours and 2.5 hours for unit meetings, plus we have a Saturday dancing class in one hall for 6 hours.  We also have occasional hires on Sundays for Children's Parties. 

Our units pay from their subs an amount of, at present, £25 per child, per year.  There are about 200 children over 9 units.   Outside hirers pay £15 per hall per hour.    Neither of these rates have increased in the last 5 years.    We also hold an annual fund raising Coffee Morning which brings in £1000-£1200.   

What do your units contribute?  And what do you charge other hirers?  Is there any scope there to increase income?

Our biggest expense is about £4k for insurance as it is a timber building, then weekly cleaning, gas, electricity, looking after the grounds, general maintenance and repairs, and stuff like toilet rolls and cleaning materials.  We do not pay any rates or water charges.  Many simple repairs are carried out by volunteers.

We usually have a small surplus each year and have built up a good "rainy day fund" over the past 20 odd years.

Our internal lighting is all fluorescent tubes, but we may well change to LED in a couple of years.  Outside we have 90% LED lighting, which has saved a lot.  

We do use a broker when we need new fuel contracts, and have had no problems.  I found it difficult to get quotes for business rates from individual suppliers.

As small users, we pay 5% VAT.   

I would be looking at short term contracts at present in the hope that things will improve.

 Might your council have any funds available to assist you with higher costs?  Ours were recently helping with heating for community spaces, we did not apply, but during  Covid we did receive a very generous grant to assist with ongoing running costs when we had no income.

valiant24

Robin9 said:

@valiant24    Ring around the big suppliers and compare rates. My advice don't go to brokers - I had a bad experience

Does your tenant -  pay a realistic rate ?


I guess a lot of florescent tube?  Apply for Lottery Funding. 

Thanks.   As well as British Gas I have tried Octopus Energy (no cheaper) and EDF (won't quote).
The 3-year deal we're just coming off was organised by a broker and I was very pleased with them, funnily enough.
The tenant pays us about £55/day, CPI linked.   Been pretty happy with the arrangement to date.

valiant24

chris1973 said:

What type of daytime tenant? - Childcare or Playgroup?. Hike the price, they tend to increase prices for the parents using their service on a fairly regular basis without a second thought and most of them are minted. In fact if the daytime tenant is any kind of businesses whatsoever or a charity with a director paying themselves a Salary then I wouldn't think twice about hiking the rent. I'd be doing it with a big 'ole grin on my face.

Do you charge to hire the hall out?, do you charge enough?. The local scout hut (1960's wooden hut in every sense of the word) around here charges £65 for hire for a 3 hour Children's party and its about as no frills of a drafty old venue as you will ever find, yet its booked every Friday and Saturday and this isn't an affluent area.

Your energy company treat you like a business customer, and unfortunately I think to survive you are going to have to adopt the same mentality, charity or no, as the next few years are going to be tough. Your expenses have increased, so should your prices to those who are using that Energy and your building.

Alternatively, go old School, keep the rent the same but install a Coin Operated Landlord meter and let whoever is using the hall at the time feed it for the Electricity they use, your Emergency lighting will ensure no accidents if the cash in the meter runs out. I suspect it won't be long before your tenant will soon be rushing back to beg you for the rent increase originally offered as the first option........

The tenant is a private company providing day activities and care to vulnerable adults.   I've only recently moved them off the deal I inherited onto a CPI-driven annual review.  I could press them more but their income is the difference between surplus and deficit.  Also, we're all volunteers, if we start screwing them over too much they become more demanding and less understanding. 

Other than this tenant, most of our visitors are other Scout groups from around the country: Somerset is a popular place to visit esp outside winter.   My fellow Trustees would be uneasy in trying to cane these visitors too much, as we have an obligation to act in the overall interests of the movement.  I completely see that those overall interests are not best served by our running out of money, but this is a balancing act of some delicacy!

But, plenty to ponder, thanks.

valiant24

jennifernil said:

I am the Treasurer for our local Guide Hall, the rates you have been paying sound fairly similar to ours,  but the ones you have been offered are very worrying!

We are in a 3 year fix till January 2024, and I am not looking forward to what will happen then.  Just hoping that things might have improved a bit by then.  However I am expecting a large increase, and all we can do is minimise use and increase income where possible.  Otherwise we will have to dig into our reserves.

Heating is gas CH, cooking is all electric.

Our annual electricity use is not dissimilar to yours, but what is the size of your building, and how many hours per week on average is it used?

We have 2 halls, each approx 9m x 11m, plus kitchen, utility, toilets, and 2 other small rooms.  Both halls are in use every week day for between 1.5 hours and 2.5 hours for unit meetings, plus we have a Saturday dancing class in one hall for 6 hours.  We also have occasional hires on Sundays for Children's Parties. 

Our units pay from their subs an amount of, at present, £25 per child, per year.  There are about 200 children over 9 units.   Outside hirers pay £15 per hall per hour.    Neither of these rates have increased in the last 5 years.    We also hold an annual fund raising Coffee Morning which brings in £1000-£1200.   

What do your units contribute?  And what do you charge other hirers?  Is there any scope there to increase income?

Our biggest expense is about £4k for insurance as it is a timber building, then weekly cleaning, gas, electricity, looking after the grounds, general maintenance and repairs, and stuff like toilet rolls and cleaning materials.  We do not pay any rates or water charges.  Many simple repairs are carried out by volunteers.

We usually have a small surplus each year and have built up a good "rainy day fund" over the past 20 odd years.

Our internal lighting is all fluorescent tubes, but we may well change to LED in a couple of years.  Outside we have 90% LED lighting, which has saved a lot.  

We do use a broker when we need new fuel contracts, and have had no problems.  I found it difficult to get quotes for business rates from individual suppliers.

As small users, we pay 5% VAT.   

I would be looking at short term contracts at present in the hope that things will improve.

 Might your council have any funds available to assist you with higher costs?  Ours were recently helping with heating for community spaces, we did not apply, but during  Covid we did receive a very generous grant to assist with ongoing running costs when we had no income.

We have one hall, perhaps 10x15m, a small quiet room, an office, a storeroom, boys', girls' and one unisex disabled toilet and a small kitchen.

The site is used on most weekdays by a tenant, every weekday night by our Groups (and Guides and Brownies), and many weekend esp out of winter.

We have about 130 Scouts  paying £13/month, about half of which gets paid on to support District, County and National organisations.  The Guides are much fewer in number and pay us £2/child/week.  The tenant pays about £1,100/month.  We're just about to hire a cleaner, a volunteer having previously done it.  We pay about £400/yr business rates.  We own two minibuses and these are expensive to maintain.

Apodemus

chris1973 said:

...or a charity with a director paying themselves a Salary......

Charity law must be very different where you live...or you've been reading too many tabloids.

Robin9

valiant24 said:

.  We pay about £400/yr business rates.  

I assume you are getting the 80% Statuary Relief.  My council gives another 20% but you have to apply for it. ie we pay a net Zero



PS Did you get the Covid Business Grants ?

valiant24

Robin9 said:

valiant24 said:

.  We pay about £400/yr business rates.  

I assume you are getting the 80% Statuary Relief.  My council gives another 20% but you have to apply for it. ie we pay a net Zero



PS Did you get the Covid Business Grants ?

Hi, yes we get the 80% and a further discretionary 10%.   We got all the COVID grants: in fact from a purely financial perspective COVID was very good for us ;-).