A LOOK BACK TO THE BALBIRNIE FUTURE!
So here we are at the end of January 2022! It literally feels like it was yesterday, when with trepidation which I had never experienced before in hospitality, that I was knocking our Pearl Suite door on an evening back in March 2020, to inform our next day bride that so very sadly, we would be unable to proceed with the wedding the very next day. Heartbreaking circumstances.
Of course, on that night back in March 2020 we were under the impression that everything was going into 'a circuit-breaker for weeks', and we had absolutely no idea what we would be faced with, as has transpired, over the incredible challenges of the next two years in hospitality.
As at being closed in June 2020 we delivered a blog which set out how even at that point, we envisaged a £1M hit. As it has now transpired, through to the publication now in Companies House of annual accounts to the end of April 2021, we are very close indeed to that £1M figure. But that's it. No more than that!
Following the implications of closing down March 2020, and losses racked by that through to the end of April 2020 in the previous year, we had an accounts loss of £179,407 - and next year accounts now show the implications of ongoing closure from the beginning of May 2020 to re-opening into very severely restricted trading 6th July 2020, and onwards to April 2021, with accounts loss of £816,841 - total losses therefore defined at £996,248 - a sair yin for sure!
Figures are stated in accounting terms, as such all accumulated pandemic government and Scottish Enterprise grant assistance is not shown as revenue. Therefore the actual cash loss in real terms is less than the figures stated.
However, and whilst our company auditor is of course obliged to state in these new accounts, that there is 'material uncertainty' (as is standardised accounting practice amongst the racked losses), in my annual accompanying director introductory Strategic Report, I am so very humbled in the context of what we've been through, and truly delighted to now be able to state, with the agreement of company auditor based upon today's financial circumstances and future-forecasting financials through to end April 2024, the following:
'The directors are optimistic (writing as at January 2022) that financial results to the end of April 2022 may show a return to profit, and this is despite trading with very severe restrictions especially through the first quarter of the financial year beginning May 2021'.
We have to bear in mind that accounts publishing today from April 2021 are also not a full reflection of where we have now thankfully arrived at 9 further months onwards.
In summary, I think it's now fair to say upon reflection, that having taken the £1M hit as at summer 2020, we have somehow subsequently managed thereafter, and admittedly to say the very least that it has been a truly epic challenge on the hospitality rollercoaster, but we have held our financial ground and are broadly speaking at break-even since then, despite all ongoing trading restrictions, and despite the further instructed total lockdown of hospitality in December 2020. 'Close or become a Takeaway!', we thankfully chose the latter!
Underlined, this subsequent circumstance has been significantly assisted by all phased hospitality grant assistance, summer 2020 furlough during hospitality closure, temporary Business Rates Relief, and temporary reductions in the rates of tourism vat. It's truly staggering to think of what hospitality has actually been through.
And this takes me to my next paragraph in Strategic Report:
'Since re-opening July 6th
2020 after 3 full months of closure in that financial year, we applied extreme
levels of innovation to enable us to somehow continue to trade during enforced
restrictions. Otherwise the new loss amounts would potentially have been very
significantly worse. Our directors pay tribute to our entire hotel brigade for
embracing all such ongoing innovation, and we thank our local community for
truly incredible support during the unprecedented pandemic circumstances'.
Well where to even begin? In the interests of keeping this blog post brief (and anyone reading can of course head back into the blog timeline to drill into the details of each phase of the two year adventure), by way of very quick summary today:
- Spring 2020 by circumstances alone, creating of Virtual Reality prospective new wedding client showrounds.
- On 6th July 2020 Balbirnie House became Scotland's first cashless hotel.
- Summer 2020 starting only with 12 of us, and working only with 10 Gazebos for Bistro al Fresco on south lawns, we were quickly able to become busy enough to bring all of the brigade back to work. What a summer that was. (Excluding my birthday in August 2020 and a late summer week away in a motor home (for sanity purposes!) it would be a full year before I could justify taking another single day off work.) Support over the opening months and ongoing from our local community defied belief, our sincere gratitude as always.
- From a standing start, through summer 2020 we would go on to rack 10,000 App Orders. Incredible.
- August 2020 became the busiest month we've ever seen, for incoming new wedding bookings. (January is normally always the busiest month, via festive season engagements.)
- Autumn 2020 we launched 'Food in the Woods', in our Millennium Ballroom. No booze allowed!
- So, Winter 2020 launched 'North Courtyard Bevvy Zone'.
- January 2021 started Balbirnie Takeaway, with 1,000 orders in week one. Still cannot believe that happened! Once again, local community support was simply incredible. A thousand thank yous for that first week alone. I am still speechless!
- Having budgeted for unrestricted trading onwards from end April 2021, May, June, July and the first 9 days of August however, saw severe restrictions on numbers of guests able to attend weddings.
- Through spring 2021, £250,000 invested into upgrading kitchens.
- June 2021 we then re-opened Balbirnie Takeaway in a brand new purpose-designed kitchen.
- Since August 10th 2021, we have been working with restrictions ongoing.
- September 2021 we opened the phenomenal value Seven at The Orangery originally as a 4 month pop-up to thank our local community, it has been so successful in concept and truly unprecedented guest feedback nudging 100% approval and delight, that we are continuing into the future.
- Then of course, the next pandemic stinger when in December 2021 we saw government telling everyone to avoid festive parties etc. Ah well, onwards we go!
- January 2022 and 350 metres of new festoon lighting provides a new backdrop for external dining up on our top (southern) lawns. North Courtyard can similarly be used.
Amongst all of this journey, our amazing wedding planning team continued with the same mentality as during the first lockdown, simply doing their absolute best for every single wedding client, amongst the evolution of 30 phases of policy, doing our utmost to adapt and keep helping clients in absolutely as far as we could so so.
The end results? The busiest calendar years we have ever seen before for wedding numbers in a year, are 2014 and 2015 with 163 weddings and 165 weddings respectively.
Today in the 2022 calendar year we currently have diarised confirmed bookings for a record-breaking 184 weddings!!!
And if I may be so bold as to say so, that is a modern era Balbirnie hospitality miracle!
During the first lockdown in 2020 I would have a walk in and around Balbirnie House every day over those 4 months with Balfour the hotel Cocker Spaniel (we live in Balbirnie Park). At that point my very lovely wife and fellow company director Gaynor was working from home every day, liaising ongoing remotely with our many future wedding clients. Senior Wedding Co-ordinator Christine Lowe was doing the same. In this ongoing process I could see that our clients were most thankfully not cancelling their intended weddings, they were staying with us, but postponing.
Positivity amongst hopelessness, hope amongst pandemic fear, and a wished-for future of one day eventually hearing 'normal life' returning in and around the house. Laughter from kitchens, the house piper tuning up, drumsticks crisp on a snare drum, the resonating vibrations of a wedding gong from the day's MC. Weddings apart, the usual background of Euro downtempo groove on the sound systems. The eeriest thing of all in that first lockdown, was the sheer silence of everything.
So, here we are today. Two years through a financial grinder, and now most thankfully getting firmly financially back on track back to where we were before the pandemic. Fingers and toes crossed that there are no further lockdowns!
Many hospitality operators were 'clinging on' before the pandemic, never mind the implications of Brexit. Many have very sadly not survived, and others especially in remote locations and unable to recruit EU nationals, have closed as they cannot find staff locally. We are very thankful firstly that we have Rebecca Harper at Balbirnie in the human resource role of Talent and Culture Manager, and secondly that we are surrounded by a very significant local population, so we are fully staffed and ready for our busiest year in history.
Whilst the buck at Balbirnie stops at MD Balbirnie, our decision-making through these last two years has been from across the span of our entire management team. It'll certainly be a couple of years that we won't ever be able to forget. As always, I pay tribute to our team.
Our many blessings counted, bring on the future!
All best wishes, yours in Hospitality,
Nicholas MD Balbirnie House
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