Development of volunteer numbers

That sounded a lot, so I tried to work out the numbers to see how it adds up, but I had problems doing so. Part of the problem is that in a few cases (especially numbers of platform staff and WR catering) I was really just pulling numbers out of the air. I only managed to get to 58, though (although it would be exactly 75 if all platform staff had to be 2 shifts).

Are you able to give more details on how you get to this number, please? Here's my attempt:

• 16: 4 train crews needed (between the 3 locos); assume crew of 4:
  • driver
  • fireman
  • cleaner
  • guard
• 6: signalmen (need 2 shifts due to evening train)
• 2: TTIs on service trains
• 6 Sheffield Park:
  • 1 ticket office
  • 4 platform staff
  • 1 museum attendant
• 6 Horsted Keynes
  • 1 ticket office
  • 5 platform staff
• 5 Kingscote
  • 1 ticket office
  • 4 platform staff
• 8 Catering staff on WR
• 9: in loco dept:
  • a running foreman
  • two cleaners
  • an "X turn" of driver, fireman and cleaner
  • a lobby attendant
  • a "spare turn" of driver and fireman

 

That's about how I counted it - as I said, only a quick estimate. You only need 14 train crew (because the evening GA and the WR are just Driver - Fireman) but you need at least some evening staff at each station on a Saturday (probably not quite as many as in the day, but still probably about nine in total - I'd estimate two at Kingscote, three at HK and four at SP). You would also have a person or so in the bar at HK in the evening who I think would normally be a volunteer. There is also a need for a daily Operations Supervisor and charge hands for the loco works, C&W, S&T and P/Way to sort out any immediate problems. They would normally be paid staff but are occasionally volunteers, at least the Operations Supervisor and I think the S&T role.

Obviously a smaller number on a Sunday because there is no evening train, so you save a loco crew, guard and all the evening volunteers.

Tom

 

No one in the shop or the buffet then, also anyone doing any work in the workshops / shed ?

 

The 75 figure was for operational volunteers, i.e. not people in workshops or paid staff (at least, I'd assume that the shop is run by paid staff). The shed would be X turn, I think.

 

Indeed, I was just looking at the bare minimum number of volunteers needed to ensure the railway didn't grind to an immediate halt, i.e. looking at rostered volunteers. You can add shop staff and catering staff (all paid) and all the p/way, C&W, loco restoration and a thousand and one other volunteer tasks which are essential to the long-term survival of the railway, but who wouldn't completely stop the railway running if they all failed to turn up on one day. Hence my Saturday estimate of about 75 rostered volunteers, but probably well over 100 volunteers working in total.

X turn is a group of loco running staff doing maintenance work, typically a washout or similar though it could be more or less anything. That's in addition to unrostered volunteers and paid staff doing actual maintenance and restoration tasks.

Tom

 

A more interesting figure, in a sense, would be what the PDSR gets by on in permanent, seasonal, part-time and relief staff, and what their annual wage bill is. Because without the savings engendered by volunteer labour, that's what you end up with.

This is the second time I've mentioned the PDSR in this thread, in a tone which could be construed as derogatory. I do not mean for it to be so - I mean to make the point in the difference between it and other railways - I think it would be reasonable to say that no other standard gauge railway comes close in the level of commercialism.

 

I pondered how much the minimum cost of employing paid staff to cover those 75 volunteer turns would be: what follows is only a "back of an envelope" exercise and not part of a business plan - but here goes.

Leaving out NI, pensions and admin, and assuming they were all on minimum wage - which of course they wouldn't hang around long on - and these are 7 hour shifts.

75 X 7 X £6.19 = £3249.75 (wage cost for the day)

So how may return adult trips is that equivalent to?

£3249.75 / £13.50 = 240.72 (Return tickets)

Turning that into BOS (B*ms on seats) 240 / 64 = 3.75 TSOs

That's a minimum equivalence, I'd guess a more realistic figure would be at least to 7 TSOs: which is certainly not to sneezed at.

Since those were saturday figures, that would be 7 TSOs of customers through the booking hall every Saturday: which I think would be worth having.

Food for thought. Obviously the point has already been made, that volunteering should be marketed alongside commercial marketing.

 

I think up thread I made a rough, back-of-the-envelope estimate of 17,500 volunteer-days (when making the point about the costs of paying expenses). That was based on an average of 100 volunteer-days each Saturday and Sunday and 30 for each mid-week day - I've assumed that level of activity year round even though we don't run midweek all year, but we do have volunteer activity on non-operational tasks pretty much every day.

Let's assume each "shift" is 8 hours and a more realistic cost of £16 per hour including on-costs (NI, pensions etc). That recognises the fact that a considerable part of the labour is doing skilled or semi-skilled tasks, and certainly wouldn't do them at minimum wage as a job (even though they are prepared to do them for free as a hobby!). Obviously, some volunteers would be paid more than that rate if you had to pay them as employees (machinists in the loco works, skilled woodworkers in the C&W; the S&T engineers; certain management grades etc) and some would be paid less (loco cleaners, buffet attendants etc). But £16 per hour seems a fair compromise - that probably means a mean take-home pay of about £12 per hour, or £25k per year across all grades for a 40 hour week.

OK, 17,500 days * 8 hours * £16 per hour = £2.24million "cost" for labour that is being given freely.

To put that in context, the Bluebell has an annual PLC turnover (fares, catering etc) of about £3million p.a.; a Trust income (voluntary donations) of about £1million p.a. and a Society (member donations) income of about £200k.

In other words, if you factored in the real value of volunteer labour, you would end up with a total balance sheet of about £6.4 million in round terms, of which:

- Membership: 3%
- Charitable donations: 15%
- Fare income: 47%
- Donated labour: 35%

Or, looked at another way, the passengers pay slightly less than half the real cost of the operation and the rest is effectively given by the members and donors, either as cash or in time.

Obviously, this is all "finger in the air" sort of stuff, but I doubt is too far wrong.

Tom

 

Would be interesting to see if volunteering is really their "thing". May be a cultural difference. Some research/ideas in this article:
Volunteer Genie | Who do you want to recruit?

Looking at other volunteering articles, there are a lot of suggestions about "exit interviews" - asking people why they have stopped volunteering - and how few organisations do these.

Richard