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What Colour is January…..?

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What colour is January - Chief Executive Blog
26 Jan 2015

What Colour is January…..?

Strange question you may think. I understand some people attribute colours to days of the week – Monday – White etc. This led me to thinking what colour would months be? From my point of view January would definitely be Grey. No surprise there you may think – certainly in Northern Europe it can be a month of not only grey skies and cold weather, but in the UK certainly a time for paying bills and meeting the demands of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs! Ah Joy! Hence the grey. Once I started thinking about this, I found however that some people do indeed also see months in colour and so that you can throw this into conversation at dinner parties, the condition is called “Synaesthesia” (there is a very interesting article about it by Angela Huth in the Spectator 21.1.12 look up “days in colour” in Google)

Is it as grey for the industry this January? We have been putting together the programme for the TATOC/RDO joint seminar for owner-run resorts scheduled for on 6th March in Warrington (before the TATOC Conference). The programme is starting to look really interesting and is designed to move the debate forward from last year’s seminar by starting to provide advice and promote discussion on how owner-run resorts can prosper in the current environment, with an ageing owner demographic and pressure on exit from perpetuity products. One of the key sessions will be the study of the problems faced by a ficticious resort  worried about its future due to a declining ownership base etc. Solutions will not only be offered by the panel, but delegates will be encouraged to offer their own solutions and/or advice – should be a lively session!

We have the next round of RDO Councils and our Board meeting next month, and the Board will be looking to finalise the exit provisions sent out to members in November, these will then become part of the Code and a decision will need to be made on how these provisions are brought to the attention of the public. One option will inevitably be way of the Internet and work is already underway on proposals for this. One of the reasons why the fraudsters have been able to make progress in this area during 2014 is undoubtedly because of the lack of straightforward and clear information available to owners in need of help and RDO has to urgently rectify this problem.

Use of the Internet is not the only area where RDO is moving against these fraudsters. There is considerable work going on in the background against these organisations and it is recognized that one of the biggest problems the enforcement authorities face is a lack of resource and funding. RDO also recognizes this and is looking at ways of bringing pressure to bear on domestic authorities to provide more financial help. Meanwhile enforcement work continues in both UK and Spain.

Having written this – January is nearly over – we just have to struggle through February (Beige?) and it will be spring (almost) – onwards and upwards!

As a matter of interest there are two origins for that quote:

“Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin, but onward, upward till the goal ye win”   (Francis Anne Kemble 1809 – 1893)

Or

“Onward and Upward! To Nania and The North”   (C S Lewis – “The Horse and The Boy”)

Who says these blogs aren’t educational?

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