Most players will have noticed the kitchen bench re-organisation. Here is the story:
For our large sessions, particularly Wednesday and Friday afternoons, members have been reporting two problems: congestion and running out of hot water during the afternoon tea break.
The problem of running out of hot water is that the two bench-top hot water dispensers can in fact run out of boiling water in large session afternoon tea breaks and then take half an hour or so to reheat. The problem with congestion was exacerbated with players needing to be at the bench to collect a cup, choose their tea or coffee, then fill their hot water and finally add milk if they choose.
To address the shortage of hot water we initially considered an additional wall-based hot water dispenser on the wall between the fridge and cold water dispenser, but this was not only very expensive (requiring adjustments to the existing bench) but also might have made the congestion worse. So we have:
- Purchased an urn to supplement the existing two bench-top hot water dispensers
- Relocated the coffee machine to allow the urn to kept near a wall
- Changed the location of the cups, tea and coffee to the tables to allow these first steps to be done separately from collecting the hot water and milk and thus reduce some of the congestion
Of course any change takes a little getting used to, and the current Bridge for Brains raffle is also taking up some of our normal table space, but already the changes appear to be having a positive impact.
