Messing
Join Date: Mar 2005
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You have to remember that with civilian contractors they have to make a profit, so why not vote with your feet? If you dont like it then dont eat there.
In sunny Kernow, the accomm is cool. En-suite Bathrooms, PAYD is improving to a good standard (thats because we voted with our feet). Its YOUR mess fellas, so rather than moaning, do something about it.
In sunny Kernow, the accomm is cool. En-suite Bathrooms, PAYD is improving to a good standard (thats because we voted with our feet). Its YOUR mess fellas, so rather than moaning, do something about it.
Fat Albert
Join Date: Feb 2005
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It would be nice to have the luxury of opting out of eating in the mess however the charge for food is stopped directly from my pay. As it is I already have to go out and buy fresh fruit etc each week to ensure that I can eat a healthy diet.
I have no problem with civilian contractors making a profit so long as it is not to the detriment of the service that they are supposed to provide. The fact that the mess accommodation in many cases is in a state of disrepair due to age cannot be blamed on the contractor but they could at least make an effort to provide the best with whats available and have a little flexibility. When the messes were service run there was usually a fairly simple route to redress through the chain of command. These days everything has to go through the contract monitoring team and at the end of the day in my experience it is rare that you get a satisfactory outcome.
I have no problem with civilian contractors making a profit so long as it is not to the detriment of the service that they are supposed to provide. The fact that the mess accommodation in many cases is in a state of disrepair due to age cannot be blamed on the contractor but they could at least make an effort to provide the best with whats available and have a little flexibility. When the messes were service run there was usually a fairly simple route to redress through the chain of command. These days everything has to go through the contract monitoring team and at the end of the day in my experience it is rare that you get a satisfactory outcome.
What is the cost to live in these days? (Sgt's Mess or O's)
Is there an underlying "Well what do you expect for £x a week?" attitude there?
Do officers still have batties?
CG
Is there an underlying "Well what do you expect for £x a week?" attitude there?
Do officers still have batties?
CG
Join Date: Mar 2004
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4. I may not use blu tack on the walls or any type of pin/nail, instead any posters/pictures etc must be capable of sustaining the hover for quite some time.........!!!!!!!
Needless to say, it's white, leaving no marks and it isn't "blu-tac" nor "pin/nail".
As for the rest of the regulations, sounds like you may be screwed.
Join Date: Jan 2001
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Is there a messing suggestions book available? I thought any points raised in them need to be addressed by the relevant member of the Mess Comittee and ultimately the standards should be upheld by the PMC. We could get late meals left behind the bar if we were night flying, even if it was a salad or something (fridges in the corridor common rooms helped too, a bit like living as a student than a hotel patron, but it works). Life in the forces without the mess culture would be miserable.
Re: Messing
Life in the forces without the mess culture would be miserable.
Flippancy aside, Mess life has now deteriorated to a point where it is no longer worth living in, because we don't live in a Mess. We generally inhabit rather than live, substandard accommodation, with substandard facilities and pay the usual Dick Turpin contractors far too much money for far too little service. Sounds as though I am being melodramatic, possibly to some. However, I will leave you with this little tail of a very enjoyable 6 months spent holding at Bentley Priory at the back end of the 90s.
The place was run by contractors, as many others were at the time. The public rooms were imaculate and although the stables were in need of a lot of TLC, there was a real sense of history and air force ethos there and yes, depite being a Gp HQ at the time, with more scrambled egg in the Mess than you could shake a stick at it was a fun place to be. The Mess staff were amazing; friendly, almost overly helpful and standards of catering and ludicrously cheap bar prices (set for the benefit of the members rather than Dick Turpin's pockets) that made trips to the gym an unfortunately frequent necessity. I remember we had one steward there who was ex-RN and had spent many a happy year cruising the world on the Royal Yacht serving Aunty Liz before this lot made her get the ferry. Despite now being a contractor, he brought with him a pride and enjoyment in his job. Nothing was too much trouble - right down to volunteering to nipp off to the kitchens to make you a sandwich if you got back from town late and had missed dinner.
There were the odd career arse-kissers floating around, but you get that anywhere, but on the whole, despite it being an egg-infested Gp HQ, with pretty poor personal accommodation, it was a happy place to live in, without stupid rules made up by idiots that had no concept that the Mess is actually peoples' homes rather than their personal cash-cow. Don't know what it's like anywhere else, but at my place, when the list goes up for functions, people are checking their diaries not to see if they can fit it in, but whether or not they can come up with an excuse not to go because of all the joys of current Mess life.
The point is that people were prepared to put up with slightly sub-standard accommodation as the rest of the package was so good. Now it appears that the rest of the package has gone into freefall in many places with the general decline in standards of accommodation. I have to say, I think Mess life is on the way out if it isn't already dead- largely due to bean counters, contractors, jobsworths and being run by people that have no concept of what the function of the Mess actually is.
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: Messing
Surley this sort of moaning should be done on the dedicated RAF site? What will people think if they see you going on about the state of your room.
Matters that seem petty can have a serious impact on flight safety.
Join Date: Jun 2001
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Re: Messing
9.81m/s/s, do as I did (a few years ago I'll admit) and simply ignore the rules. I even had a sat. dish bolted to the wall just outside my window.
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Messing
Originally Posted by Mike Jenvey
Very warm
When aren't messes ridiculously warm? In every room I've lived in I had to turn all the heating off and still sleep/live with the window open all the time just because the pipes were giving out so much heat.
Once I found a small wasp's nest in my room which was obviously only a few weeks old. The wasp seemed to like warmth more than me but for the 2 days that I had my window closed to keep it out it was almost unbearably hot!
Looking back I don't know why I didn't just kill it and leave my window open
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Re: Messing
Originally Posted by Mike Jenvey
A good number of the rooms at Lyneham's Officers' Mess faced onto the car park (& a goodly chunk of the airfield, how unusual!), so any reduction in noise was very welcome.
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Re: Messing
After years in the RAF and other flying organisations I retired at 55 and joined the Civil Service. When I went on tdy to an RAF station the Civil Service would not permit me to stay in the mess as the facilities on offer were not up to the standard they expected. I think the main point they were making was the lack of en-suite 'facilities'; however none of the other stuff you would get, even in a 2* hotel, brewing up kit, TV etc. I did stay in one mess where the maintenance funds were clearly spent on the public rooms and nothing in the accomodation - chipped and missing tiles, dripping taps, radiators needing bleeding, green mould in the showers, blown bulbs, windows that couldn't be opened etc, etc!
Join Date: Oct 2002
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Re: Messing
Sadly this kind of cr@p exists more and more ...
I recall a certain Mess EGM when the DPMC asked the mess members to vote for some new cutlery for use by the top table only, at DI nights. It was so expensive the the mess could only afford about 24 sets!
I raised an objection on the grounds that;
1) I had no key for my room door and was unable to lock it.
2) The wall paper on my ceiling (yes, ceiling!) was peeling and hanging down in 3 places.
3) My hot water was brown.
A tirade of abuse followed and we didn't buy the spoons!
It would seem that the cost of refurbishing all those 1950s messes with shared en-suite bathrooms etc has been to cut back in other areas.
Answer (sadly) - move out. Rent, buy, share.
ps. I refer to a time when leaving my room unlocked was not a issue on 2 counts; I had nothing worth nicking, and no-one seemed really inclined to wander around the mess thieving. Unlike a certain OM, that has been rumoured to have had all its Christmas Draw prizes 'lifted' from reception before the draw !!!!!
I recall a certain Mess EGM when the DPMC asked the mess members to vote for some new cutlery for use by the top table only, at DI nights. It was so expensive the the mess could only afford about 24 sets!
I raised an objection on the grounds that;
1) I had no key for my room door and was unable to lock it.
2) The wall paper on my ceiling (yes, ceiling!) was peeling and hanging down in 3 places.
3) My hot water was brown.
A tirade of abuse followed and we didn't buy the spoons!
It would seem that the cost of refurbishing all those 1950s messes with shared en-suite bathrooms etc has been to cut back in other areas.
Answer (sadly) - move out. Rent, buy, share.
ps. I refer to a time when leaving my room unlocked was not a issue on 2 counts; I had nothing worth nicking, and no-one seemed really inclined to wander around the mess thieving. Unlike a certain OM, that has been rumoured to have had all its Christmas Draw prizes 'lifted' from reception before the draw !!!!!
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Re: Messing
A mate of mine was staying in his mess for a few days just before Xmas. As literally the only person daft enough to stay there, he bumped into a visiting civilian doctor who'd been invited to his base for some reason or another.
He was saying it was quite embarrassing to have to show this bloke around. The whole mess was locked, no-one had told him any door codes, and all the lights (and most of the heating) were off. Directions to this doctor's room were scribbled on the back of an envelope; and his room was freezing, with brown hot water and a walk upstairs on cold stone stairs to find a toilet. Lastly, there was centralised messing on, but no-one had bothered to tell him, show him where the JRM was, or book meals for him.
Unsurprisingly, the doc decided he didn't really need this sort of warm welcome, and leapt straight back in his car to go home. Must be embarrassing to show someone your mess like that. It's not what you'd expect from even the cheapest hotel, is it?
And on a personal note, I've come back after Christmas to find there's no heating in my room either. Excellent
He was saying it was quite embarrassing to have to show this bloke around. The whole mess was locked, no-one had told him any door codes, and all the lights (and most of the heating) were off. Directions to this doctor's room were scribbled on the back of an envelope; and his room was freezing, with brown hot water and a walk upstairs on cold stone stairs to find a toilet. Lastly, there was centralised messing on, but no-one had bothered to tell him, show him where the JRM was, or book meals for him.
Unsurprisingly, the doc decided he didn't really need this sort of warm welcome, and leapt straight back in his car to go home. Must be embarrassing to show someone your mess like that. It's not what you'd expect from even the cheapest hotel, is it?
And on a personal note, I've come back after Christmas to find there's no heating in my room either. Excellent
Join Date: Mar 2005
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Re: Messing
Many Many years ago I was living in the (old) Mess at Portland and we all suffered a similar tale of freezing cold cabins. So, we all nipped into Weymouth and purchased our own 2 Bar electrical heaters. Cost - £4.50 Result - snug as a bug.
Pusser then received the next eleccy bill and hit the roof...
result - heating turned up and Officers kindly requested to rerfrain from using eleccy heaters.
Priceless.
Pusser then received the next eleccy bill and hit the roof...
result - heating turned up and Officers kindly requested to rerfrain from using eleccy heaters.
Priceless.
Re: Messing
Briiliant - an excellent naval tactic !
Many years ago, we were frozen stiff in the sqn because the Blunt Ones refused to turn on the heating. The Boss threatened OC Admin that he'd personally come down and set fire to all the files in Admin Whinge one by one to keep warm unless the situation was unbuggered sharpest...
And lo - let there be heat! Yea verily there soon was!
!Many years ago, we were frozen stiff in the sqn because the Blunt Ones refused to turn on the heating. The Boss threatened OC Admin that he'd personally come down and set fire to all the files in Admin Whinge one by one to keep warm unless the situation was unbuggered sharpest...
And lo - let there be heat! Yea verily there soon was!
Join Date: Feb 2002
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Re: Messing
Top stuff, particularly from the likes of vecvechookattack and Mike Jenvey for naming and shaming. Lets have less of this weak 'the Mess at my base somewhere in Lincs' rubbish and get the worst offenders ID'd.
You never know....
You never know....
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
Re: Messing
Whilst One g has my sympathy, nothing has change in almost half a century. My first 'hit' was when I was sent a mess bill after graduation for my room key. As I had never had a room key I challenged the mess manager (sqn ldr rtd); he told me that I had signed for the key to WWUnn and not returned it. I responded that I had been in EWLnn and 'sod off'.
In Cyprus we were given parafin heaters only to be used when we were in the room, with the window open and not when we were sleeping. I bought a 3kW fan heater and used to put it on 24/7 at 1kW when I was out and 3kW when I was in over the winter.
As House Member at Wittering I dragged PSA and the barrack warden around the mess and made them repair the rooms and replace carpets etc. Mind you I wasn't helped by one sod that had an oily motorbike engine in bits on his carpet
In Cyprus we were given parafin heaters only to be used when we were in the room, with the window open and not when we were sleeping. I bought a 3kW fan heater and used to put it on 24/7 at 1kW when I was out and 3kW when I was in over the winter.
As House Member at Wittering I dragged PSA and the barrack warden around the mess and made them repair the rooms and replace carpets etc. Mind you I wasn't helped by one sod that had an oily motorbike engine in bits on his carpet