STAFF CHANGES
AFTER
16-years with the business, general manager, Mark Cameron, will be leaving
Ardfern on 30th June and will be replaced by managing director,
Andrew Ashton.
Andrew
will continue to work closely alongside the existing workshop, boatyard, chandlery
and office teams, together with dealing with the general business side of the
company.
As
a family owned business now in its 39th year we remain committed to
Ardfern along with the customers and the skilled staff, without whom, the
business would not operate in the way that it does.
With
the majority of boats now launched for the forthcoming season Bob, Fraser and
the workshop team continue to be as busy as ever completing the final stages of
some larger jobs, along with spring re-commissioning, varnishing and work on
customer special orders.
Over
the winter, along with the standard annual maintenance programme conducted by
North West Marine, all of the pontoon decking received a spring clean, while
the purchase of a batch of new boat stands in the yard has proved invaluable
for boat movements, with the plan being to purchase more of these for this
coming winter.
We
have also been working hard at solving the connectivity issues with BT regarding
the installation of superfast fibre broadband to the business. Once this is up
and running and stable, it is our aim to install WIFI poles around the pontoon
network in order to get the best possible speed for customers to access. In the
meantime we are pleased to say that the local telecoms masts have been upgraded
over the winter and there is now a reasonable 4G signal covering the marina for
02, EE and Vodafone.
The
chandlery continues to be well stocked and a new larger storage container was
put in place behind the chandlery building over the winter, which gives us a much
better space for storing the wide range of products we offer.
In
the office we welcomed Bel Hawson to the team as company bookkeeper in the
accounts department in mid January and Grant Lees continues with the role of
marina co-ordinator alongside chandlery manager, Guy Neville, chandlery
administrator Larrissa Madden and chandlery assistant, Willie Young. This summer
we also have Rachel Fraser returning for a second season in the chandlery,
along with keen yachtsman, James Hoad who will also assist in the chandlery and
with visitor berthing/mooring allocation.
BROKERAGE
SERVICE
The
brokerage service run by Ardfern Yacht Centre Ltd will, however, cease as from
30th June 2018, as Andrew and the team at Ardfern focus on running
the marina, boatyard, workshop and chandlery that is our core business, while
Mark will continue to focus on his brokerage work under his own name.
Going
forward, Mark, who completed 7 years in the workshop office and 9 years as
general manager at Ardfern, will now offer an independent brokerage service
under the name ‘Mark Cameron Yachts’, which will cover the West Coast of
Scotland and beyond.
Over
recent years the brokerage section run by Mark at Ardfern has become extremely
busy and the directors of Ardfern and Mark now feel that customers will benefit
further from this new arrangement. We will continue to work closely with Mark
in the future, in what we are all sure will be an amicable and customer
enhancing experience going forward.
DATA
PROTECTION
Lastly, from 25th May 2018 the personal data laws are
changing under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in the UK. If you
would like to receive any future updates from Ardfern Yacht Centre Ltd please
reply to this email with the statement ‘YES’ in the subject line to confirm you
would like to keep hearing from us when we send out occasional news updates by
email. If we don’t hear from you we will remove you from our mailing list for all
future mailshots or newsletters later this month.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Mark
for all his hard work and leadership at Ardfern over many years and to wish him
every success in his new enterprise, while also wishing you all an enjoyable
cruising season over the next few months.
Joanna Ashton & Nick Baker
Directors
Ardfern Yacht Centre Ltd
