Tyneside Group has criticised Newcastle Arena for making a ‘booking in advance’ charge, over and above the ticket price, for events in the Arena. Now the box office manager has replied. He points out the costs of running a box office, which cannot usually be recouped from the promoter of an event. The Arena, unlike most local theatres, is unsubsidised. The Theatre Royal, he points out, is subsidised by the Council, most of whose council tax payers never attend performances. He suggests that if no booking charge was made then all ticket prices would have to be raised.
Do those who pay cash at the box office want to subsidise those who book in advance by credit card? This is a question with implications much wider than theatre advanced booking. What do you think?
Views to groups@ncf.info
It seems hardly believable that Croydon and District Consumer Group has been going well over a year now. Sue Payne from Bromley Group attended their first AGM and reports:
The members of the steering committee which was responsible for getting the Group fully operational were elected as officers. The Group has plans for involving more members in price and data collection and a further copy of their newsletter is under preparation.
The Group had been concerned about three matters in particular during its first year of operation - transport - energy efficiency - food safety. Three speakers came to the meeting to explain the latest developments.
A tramway to link the outer residential parts of Croydon with the centre is under construction. For many this is a welcome development. It will provide a priority route in and out of town with a known time table and should reduce the use of private cars considerably, freeing up roads and allowing essential car users to find somewhere to park. The speaker acknowledged that there are people with whom the tramway is not popular. In some instances this is just because of the temporary upheaval that construction causes but others are fearful of noise and other consequences.
The Tram Company is well aware of the objections and tries to alleviate them by keeping residents and businesses along the routes informed of progress. The Group will fully investigate services and noise when the trains start operating.
The speaker from the Trading Standards Department spoke about the Council’s energy efficiency programme for local housing. Raising standards will involve a lot of workmen. The Council plans to compile a list of tradesmen who have agreed to follow a set code of good practice in the installation of energy efficiency improving measurers. The Group plans to be involved in this process.
A Council Environmental Health Inspector explained about the risks of E-Coli and Salmonella contamination. Inspectors use sophisticated equipment when examining restaurants and catering premises and have a bar code system for reporting back to their headquarters computer. Most of the questions were about meat hygiene.
There are about twenty lower sixth form girls at a local Bromley school who would like to form a Young Consumer Group. The school’s development officer, a Council Environmental Services Officer and Bromley and District Consumer Group Chairman, Sue Payne, have talked through the possibilities using as a starting model the pilot scheme run in Guernsey last year.
The signs are encouraging. The Girls have decided to meet on Mondays at the school, form a committee, agree a list of projects, form a research team and, thereafter carry out their projects and prepare a newsletter for the rest of the school and parents.
Such a fledgling Group needs advisers and Sue, the Development Officer and the Environmental Services Officer have agreed to provide the advice, but have yet to be formally vetted and approved. They will not run or manage the Group. Some financial help is available though NfCG, provided by Consumers Association. This is to enable the Group to subscribe to relevant publications and to produce the newsletter. The girls will have to persuade the school to find some more money to provide materials and the school has already promised technical help. The girls hope to obtain some local sponsorship for research.
It isn’t only Newcastle Arena that levies a surcharge if you book with a credit card - Travel Agents do so as well. In the Summer Issue of "The Plymouth Consumer" there is a list of those firms which make a charge and those which do not, with their local addresses and telephone numbers. Those that do mostly make a 1% charge and a couple of firms do not take credit cards at all, which must be inhibiting for business these days.
The advice in the article is, nevertheless, to use a credit card to pay for your holiday as, provided the holiday costs more than £100, you get extra protection from the credit card company if anything goes wrong.
Plymouth Group carried out a survey into buying energy efficient Fridge Freezers. The first thing they found out was that the shop assistants were woefully ignorant about energy labelling. The second thing was that, in most shops, the energy efficiency label was on the bottom of the unit making it necessary for a purchaser, or even the shop assistant, to lie flat on the floor to read it. An odd spectacle.
The labels have to be informative but why put them in places where prospective customers cannot read them? The only exception was Currys, whose labels are placed where they can be read easily. The labels tell you what the energy consumption of the unit is, under test conditions, but that does not tell you what it will cost to run. This depends on the unit price of electricity, (7.84p/kWh in Plymouth). Multiply this by the rating (say 500KWh for a B class fridge/freezer) to give a rough guide, but it really depends on how often the doors are opened, how full the compartments are kept and other factors.
Exeter and District Consumer Group looked at milk container tops in supermarkets.
According to "eXchecker" for September, confusion reigns because different supermarkets and different dairies have a bewildering variety of colours to identify the various types of milk available. The most consistently marked was ‘Full Milk’, that which is not altered except for being pasteurised. Most retailers use deep blue tops. Sainsbury, however, uses a very light blue while Boots Full Milk came in a container with a red top!
In all they looked at eight retailers or suppliers and three varieties of milk, Full Milk, semi skimmed or half fat and skimmed or virtually fat free. As an example, skimmed milk came in containers with white, green on white, green, red, or dark blue tops. Surely, says Exeter Group, retailers and suppliers can reach some agreement for standardisation, it really is too confusing at the moment. They also make a plea for some agreement on descriptions. Semi-skimmed milk is also called ‘half fat’. Can the retailers not agree on a common name?
Milk delivered by your local friendly milkman has been colour coded for some time. Full milk will have a silver top, Jersey, fittingly, a gold top, red and silver stripes for semi-skimmed and blue and silver checks for skimmed milk.
Why do the shops and dairies who supply them not repeat this known pattern? Does anyone know the answer?
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