Thank you NHS Heroes from us here at Woodfarm
Hi. My name is Carl. On the morning of March 23rd 2020 I closed the doors on my Holiday Cottage and Holiday Barge business for the foreseeable future. I contacted all iminent arrivals to cancel their breaks. I felt I had no choice. Later that evening the PM announced we were going into ‘Lockdown’.
It absolutely crushed me to have to do that to my business that I have worked on for 11 years.
As I had no holiday guests, I extended an offer to the emergency services, and since then we have been accommodating some incredible people from the NHS. We have had Ambulance drivers, Paramedics and a Radiographer, all self-isolating away from vulnerable, or potentially vulnerable family members.
As I write this, we are three weeks into the UK ‘Lockdown’ and what I want to do now is to offer an actual proper holiday to an NHS front line Hero or Heroine, for when this is all over. Completely free.
We don’t yet know when that can be, but once we can move freely again, I want to give away a free break to an NHS front liner and his or her partner. And their Doggos if they have any.
If you are reading this and you do not work for the NHS, can I please ask you to send a link to this page to anyone and everyone you know within the NHS, so we can reach as many of these superstars as possible for the chance to take this.
If you work for the NHS on the front line, first of all, thank you. Those two inadequate words are all I can say to you right now, but please, if you would like a well-earned break after all this, just let me have your name, number and email address so I can put you in my virtual hat. Once we all start to rebuild our lives I will pick one of you out at random and give you a free break.
Hopefully then I will be rebuilding my business. If you haven’t heard of us before, that’s fine. We were doing very well, with hundreds of Five Star reviews, Gold Awards and all that. That will be important to us again one day, but for now all that matters is getting through this, and supporting you. Just have a look around the websites for our Barges & Barns when you have some downtime, as there’s plenty to see.
(GDPR stuff: I will not share your information with anyone, ever. I don’t do that. That is naughty. I will write to you all once we have picked one of you, and if you never want to hear from me again, that’s cool. You’re still amazing!)
This is not a competition. You don’t have to do anything. I just want to offer someone on the front line within the NHS a free break to say thank you.
The ‘offer’ is for a four-night midweek break either in The Granary Barn in Stonham Aspal, or aboard our romantic Barge Twee Gebroeders, in Woodbridge. It is for NHS front line staff only and proof will be required. I really hope that nobody outside the NHS tries it on, and please don’t have a pop at me if you think I should extend this to X, Y, or Z professions too. There are so many amazing people, doing so many amazing front-line jobs, but I want to thank the NHS specifically with this, and that is up to me, it’s my business.
As a small business owner, I can only afford to give one break away but it’s the least I can do to say thank you. Again, I’m really sorry I can’t extend it to all those considered ‘front-line’. I just own a small business and am trying to do my little bit to say thank you to our amazing NHS staff. If you want to give something to another group of people, feel free. This is just what I’m doing.
The boring bit;
This offer is for a four-night midweek break, either in The Granary Barn in Stonham Aspal, or aboard Twee Gebroeders in Woodbridge. You’ll be able to take it, subject to availability, freedom of movement and our business being open again. All being well I am hoping to be able to offer this to you between 1st October 2020 and 31st March 2021, excluding Christmas, New Year, Valentine’s, School and Bank Holidays etc. Sorry, but I am also going to have to do my best to try and rebuild my business again too, so have to put some restrictions in place. In the event of us still being locked down, or you simply not having free time because you guys are still flat out, we will shift things to ensure you get this break, I promise.
