Heating Oil Clubs
Scarning & Gressenhall Oil Club
Your local club currently has 99 members and it was first set up on our system on the 30th Jan 2012. It has also been grouped with other surrounding village clubs within your NR19 2 postcode area, including Gressenhall, Fransham, Longham and Wendling, with members here, there and everywhere inbetween.
With regards to our ordering process, we have a panel of suppliers in each area, and every Friday afternoon they place their bids on our system for each area, we then contact any suppliers with higher rates to let them know they are currently being outbid by another supplier and if they are hoping to be allocated some orders they will need to lower their prices to be more competitive. This process goes back and forth a few times each Friday afternoon and then at around 4.30pm we start to manually go through and select the winning bids in each postcode area, and this will be the supplier selected to deliver your order that weekend.
Our team are well connected with our suppliers, and we also keep an ear to the ground via our customer service team to get insight into what our members are saying, so if there are any suppliers we hear are experiencing delays or staff shortages etc then we will elect not to allocate any orders to that particular supplier until they are all caught up on their existing deliveries. So although getting competitive prices is the priority for each ordering weekend, we also put a lot of focus into manually selecting our suppliers in the hope that it avoids unnessesary delays or issues for our members.
Dunham Heating Oil Syndicate (DHOS)
DHOS is a membership scheme that consolidates Members’ heating oil requirements into a single purchase order to buy in bulk at a discounted price. As a number of properties in Scarning rely on oil for their heating, the DHOS will manage Members’ oil orders to co-ordinate oil deliveries and take advantage of economies of scale. The Syndicate presently place eight orders per calendar year and the deadline for individual Members’ oil orders is the second Sunday for each order.
The scheme has now been running successfully for many years providing Members the best price for whatever quantity of oil ordered. This means that Members who only require a minimum top-up of say 500 litres can still benefit from the full negotiated discounted price. I volunteer my time to support the Syndicate and do not take heating oil myself as I have access to gas.
An analysis of orders for 2021 shows that the Syndicate is very competitive and regularly achieves savings against local oil suppliers and on-line options. Individuals buying for themselves are unlikely to beat the prices secured by the Syndicate. After four oil orders/deliveries Syndicate Members have achieved extraordinary value for money. Comparing the Syndicate agreed price with the BoilerJuice.com published price an average order has achieved £8:42 savings in January; £11:98 savings in February; £10:66 savings in March and £14:28 savings in April. And there are still four more oil orders/deliveries remaining for 2021.
A membership fee of only £5.00 per year is normally recovered from your first oil order placed. The fee covers the cost of communicating with approximately 15% of the Syndicate Membership who do not use the Internet. The service is much appreciated.
Ernie.Buckley@btinternet.com
07809 442173 – 01760 447414