- James Bamfield, Centre Manager

Marshland Hall is a vibrant and all-inclusive charitable trust, with a vision of being the centre of a lively local community. It is our mission to enable and facilitate a variety of activities which embrace and address the social, cultural and educational needs of all the members for our community. We pride ourselves on providing opportunities for our neighbours and villagers to meet and socialise, and encouraging all to lead a healthier, more active lifestyle through our work with Sport England.

Prior to the start of 2019, Marshland Hall had been running for just under a year and we were managing a number of bookings using a basic system that consisted of a paper diary and calendar. It was a laborious and repetitive process which required relaying most of the information to the treasurer and made keeping track of the ongoing bookings very difficult.

After introducing BookingsPlus, the streamlined system meant that all bookings were automatically added to the calendar, which was available online for all relevant parties to see. This has given our customers greater control when overseeing the details of each booking, which saves time and greatly enhances the efficiency of the process.

We have a diverse range of community groups that use our facilities, particularly amongst the elderly population which we work closely with to reduce social isolation. It was therefore important to us that we had a system in place which is simple and exceptionally easy to use and BookingsPlus offered the perfect solution.

Engagement with the younger generation of the community is equally important to us. We regularly host events such as school plays, holiday camps and sporting fixtures that help children from the local schools gain new skills, improve their fitness and make new friends. With such a variety of activities taking place, the integrated website system with BookingsPlus provides a great platform for promoting events, and is a valuable marketing tool to help generate additional bookings.

As I am the main individual responsible for the running of Marshland Hall activities, BookingsPlus has removed the administrative tasks, which frees up a significant amount of my time. This has made it considerably easier to plan for future events and populate the activity calendar. With the support of BookingsPlus, Marshland Hall continues to be the beating heart of the community.