[Darren Boyle]

Jordagar.... Nice first post on oOple, dont know who you are since your "real name" is not your "oople name" so have no idea who I am replying to..

Interesting that I have "just get back from the shop", after spending 2 1/2 hours loading our van up (with my wife and young 5 year old helping out too) for the regional at Stotfold tommorow, ironically I am not even racing in the morning I am purely going there to support the meeting with the shop only.

I was at the shop on Monday from 10am until approx 9pm that night, Tuesday was a "normal" day and a was there from 10am until 6pm, Wednesday, went out to visit a few stores in the morning that we deal with, got back at 2pm then stayed late once more and got home (eat dinner etc at 8:30pm), Thursday, we opened at 10am , closed at 7pm, off straight to our local club which again WE run (which must also be just 7 miles from your house) and got in at 11:30pm, then sat and updated all of that weeks race results and went to bed at gone 1am. Friday, normal day, started at 10am (ish, I was a bit late in myself TBH) and left at a reasonably early 8:30pm (as Matt Owen will vouch since I was still talking to him on the phone from the shop at that time).

Now today is my ONE day off in the week (and when there are Nationals etc to attend, I dont even get the saturday) I spent the morning doing chores around the house, popped into town to get some things, then went to the shop at 4:30pm to load the van as mentioned above, just got in (and now on Oople replying to "work related" threads whilst dinner gets cold)...... Off to Stotfold at 6:30am in the morning, will get home at approx 5/6pm tommorow night, then the week starts all over again, please forgive me for not working on a Saturday any longer, we opened for 17 years on a saturday and watched the days takings steadily decline to the point it was the quietest day of the week, so we changed the hours around in the week (we actually are open for 2 hours MORE now weekly, but just over 5 days and not 6) and as of the end of Jan 2009 we stopped opening on saturdays. We have signs up, on the front door, inside the shop, on our website, on our answerphone message and at the time we changed they were posted all over the forums too, if you have supported us as you say for "many years" how have you never seen these signs or messages before???

My next point is that EVERYTHING on your list we have in stock and on OUR website too, so why did you not just mail order from us instead of having to surf the THREE different sites that you did to get all your requirements.

Next up, you mention, even with our late night you still cannot get to us, then why not pick your stuff up form our club on a Thursday, or even from any of the regions clubs we visit on sundays, where many other people do, we are there until 11pm every week on a thursday.....

You mention the "good ones are closed down" just think for one minute that there may well be a reason why they have closed rather than knock the ones who are still here.....

As also mentioned, you didnt buy from either our site or Marc's site (MK) yet then go home and buy from JE, who also dont open on a saturday!! (which I find odd). It is no coincedence that when you look through thread after thread on here, three of the most popular shops who are reccomended more than almost all others by the users of this site are us (DMS, MK and JE) but all of us do not open on a saturday. I cannot speak for Marc and Josh's "exact" reasons but I know for us we "needed" a day off somewhere in the week, we are not robots and do have to rest see our families at some time, for us the best day for that was a saturday, mail order is a HUGE part of our buisness and a saturday is the ONLY day where the sorting office is shut as are the couriers, no orders left us to go anywhere and hence it was our quietest day. I spoke with Marc (MK) just a few weeks ago about this when he asked me about it and mentioned he was thinking about it himself (I now see he has) and we agreed on the reasons as above.....

Just like Matty (Telstar) many customers who are in the local area to us (Watford) know to juts call if they are running late any day and since we are often there WAY past closing, we are there still for them out of hours.

Si Coe, thanks for your answer and for your custom and supoort too.....