Second assessment week (Long Ridge Gliding Club)
1. - Chart the five performance objectives to show the differing expectations of club members and casual flyers and compare these with the actual service delivered. Long Ridge Gliding Club is a not-for-profit organization run by its members. The main activity of this organization is the practice of cross-county flying. This club allows its members to use their facilities: ‘a large grass airfield located on the crest of a ridge’ and their ‘fleet of three single-seater and three twin-seater gliders’ and also offers this service, in a limited way, to casual flyers who ‘want to enjoy the thrill of soaring above Long Ridge’s dramatic scenery’. Apart from enjoying their flights, the club member’s must take care of the administration of the organization, and sometimes, the most experienced pilots collaborate with the instruction of casual flyers. The five performance objectives are: 1. COST: There are two different sides to consider with regard to the cost aspect. On the one hand, casual flyers are usually offer trial flights which last 10 minutes for the average price of £70, whereas club members fee is £350 per annum which let them fly whenever they want to without pre-booking(and also with unlimited time). Costs are very important, especially for club’s members, as Long Ridge Gliding Club objective is providing a service for their own enjoyment and not gaining profits. By paying an annual fee, members pretend to cover the maintenance of the gliders, the hiring of instructors and the facilities. Selling trial flights is just a source of money for the development of their activities. For this reason, the fact of offering a cheaper product for casual flyers is not really a primary objective for club member’s as they are more interested in improving the membership’s conditions than making business with casual flyers. Moreover, the text mentions that ‘income for casual flyers is seen to be small compared to membership income’. According to this fact, with the aim of reducing costs, it would be more effective to increase the number of members than providing more trial flights for casual flyers.

2. DEPENDABILITY: excellence when performing the activities of the club relies mainly on club members, specifically on those who are in charge of launching the gliders and attend casual flyers. As the number of employees is really low and the development of the activities depends on the presence of club members, trial flights are often delayed, or even turned away, so the prebookings done by casual flyers have a limited effect. The eventual lack of engagement of club members with respect to trial flights do not come up to casual flyer’s expectations. Club’s members can also feel disappointed with the service when the attention received by casual flyers prevents them from flying themselves. On the other hand, flights are quite dependent on weather conditions which mean that neither members nor casual flyers are able to fly when the weather is adverse.

3. FLEXIBILITY: Long Ridge Gliding Club fails when attending casual flyers. As it is mentioned before, the service is contingent on the presence of available club members which allow them launch the gliders. In case of absence of club members, the organization is incapable to solve on time the dissatisfaction of the casual flyers which do not receive the service they are paying for. We can also refer to inflexibility in relation to the range of activities offered to club members. The organization should consider including new activities in order to make a real difference for those who pay an annual fee. 4. PRODUCT QUALITY: The quality of any product is one of the most determinant factors when we acquire an item or contract a service. In this case, as we know, there is a not-for-profit organization whose members are responsible for all the activities so it is difficult to determine what is exactly ‘quality.’ We can associate quality with the satisfaction and gratification of the customers. The club tries to provide well maintained casual flyers and winch machines for everybody, so the club is doing well in this aspect. The club, every year generates a surplus of around £10,000 to upgrade the gliders and the facilities so as to make them better for next courses. This is a way to show that the club is progressing and that it adapts to the technological changes and improvements. 5. SPEED: it is a very important factor that every company must take into account when doing business. Flights above Long Ridge’s must be done as quickly as possible so as to have all time to attend the great demand of members and casual flyers. We can classify the speed from an external vision, which means "

elapsed time between a customer asking for a product or service and getting it" From this outlook, the casual flyers, want to be attended the sooner the better and they want their flight to launch on time. It is so hard for the club to follow strictly schedules because casual flyers depend on other pilots who are busy doing their own activities.