Well House Consultants - course prices for 2014
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-12-26 15:05:30 - Graham EllisGreat news - we are holding almost all of our IT training course prices at the same level into 2014. Public courses at our Well House Manor training centre in Melksham, Wiltshire, will remain at £350.00 for the first day, and then £250.00 for each subsequent day of the course. Private courses cost £900.00 for the first day and the £800.00 for the second and subsequent days, plus £80.00 per delegate per day. For courses at Well House Manor, we have overnight accommodation available at £60.00 per room per night (rooms can be double as single, or twin - that's a per room price). We have also held our mileage and overnight accommodation rates for when we stay away at the same rate. Sometimes we loose out on this - we're happy to runs a private Ruby course in Edinburgh during the fringe, or a PHP course in Manchester or Salford during a party conference, and we'll meet the difference in hotel costs, and our mileage rate is calculated simply as the crow flies (in other words rounded down).
So - some examples...
• A place on a 4 day course at Well House Manor - £1100.00, plus £240.00 if you want to arrive the night before and stay with us. We provide lunch on the courses, and breakfast is in the accommodation price - so the only extra you need to buy once you get to Melksham is your evening meal.
• Second place on the same course - £1000.00 (there's still a £100.00 discount for second and subsequent delegates)
• A private course for 10 delegates in Coventry, for 3 days - £5372.00; that's just under £180.00 per delegate per day, and compares favourably to the cost of places on public courses where you're likely to spend around twice that by the time you add in the travel and accommodation costs of the delegates.
All prices quoted for delivery in the UK are subject to VAT. For courses elsewhere in the European Union, please let us know your local VAT number and we can report that rather than charging VAT. Outside the European Union (Switzerland, Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man and intercontinental) courses are not subject to tax.
But I did use that worrying word "almost" in my initial sentence - so where HAVE prices changed?
The bad news:
1. International travel costs - especially air travel - have risen, and it's many years since we reviewed these prices. With higher parking fees at the airports, and with a dramatic rise in air travel taxes, all on site courses which involve flying (that's typically distant courses such as the USA) have risen by £280.00 . This does not effect UK or European prices, which are based on overland travel. But see "good news 2" ... you may save much more than the £280!
2. Within the UK, the roads get steadily busier, and more prone to congestion. And it's no good if your tutor arrives tired or late, or has to dash off early on the final day. So it's now policy to travel out to near your location for all private courses the night before (exception being Bath, Swindon and Salibsury postcode areas which are really close to base), and to travel back the day after the course has concluded for journeys of over about 90 miles. This results in a rise of £120.00 for courses in St Albans, Sutton, Dudley, Watford, Harrow, Luton, Hemel Hemstead, Stevenage, Milton Keynes, Torquay, Northampton, Walsall, Hereford and Wolverhampton. All other postcode areas unchanged!
The good news:
1. Our prices include provision of our own laptop computers for delegates to use during the courses. Historically that has been much more straightforward that using the customer's own machines. However, times have changed and for programming language courses (Perl, Ruby, Python, Lua, Tcl, C and C++) delegates can often use their own systems these days - it saves us carrying equipment (though we always have one or two machines in case) and it means we can deduct £20.00 per delegate per day from private course fees. For Linux, Tomcat, other Web Server and PHP course, which rely heavily on networking and involve system reconfiguring as part of the training, it's not normally a good idea to use your own systems, and we insist on bringing our systems for each delegate. For my example course above (Coventry, 10 delegates, 3 days) that's a saving of £600.00 , bringing the price down to £4772.00, or under £160.00 per delegate per day.
2. We have removed the minimum number of delegate for onsite courses. We have always been prepared to travel to train just 2 or 3 delegates, but we've charged for a minimum of 4 (UK and Europe) 6 (Intercontinental). Travel has always been charged at an approximation to cost, and in our own time. However, with improved network connectivity and with us able to use public transport much more now that our systems are smaller, it's no longer "wasted time" and that allows us to meet your other requirements. It will still be better value for you to send one or two delegates on a public course, but there are times that having me come to you for a tailored group makes sense. For a course of 4 days for 2 people in the USA, (as an example) this is a saving of £1280!
3. We have also removed the minimum private course length - again that's because our travel time is no longer wasted. We will however schedule one and two day course at the beginning or end of the week so that we can fit in multiple courses in a week. I can't really provide a price comparison here - we've simply not been able to offer short courses outside the UK at a sensible price until now.
4a. If you're coming on a public course to our Melksham, Wiltshire training centre and will be arriving the evening before the course starts, we will pick you up Melksham Station free of charge (or if we can't, we'll arrange for a taxi and pay for it). And we'll drop you off at the station to catch the return train too (leaves at 16:31 / into London for 18:15). Arrival pickups need to be booked with us 24 hours in advance, for a specific train. Savings of up to £40 in taxi fares!
4b. If you're coming by train the first morning of the course, a new train arrives in Melksham at 09:15 (connection from London / Paddington at 07:45). We can arrange a taxi for you - pay the taxi driver direct, about £6. Arrival taxis need to be booked with us 24 hours in advance. Savings of up to £90 pounds in taxi fares and one night's accommodation.
Prices are now fixed for bookings made by 31st March 2014, whenever you are attending the course. We anticipate holding most of the prices for the rest of the year, but our delegate accommodation rate at Well House Manor has been unchanged since 2008 and is likely to rise (at less than the rate of inflation over the past five years!) in April.
This posting is very much the "fine print". Please enter your postcode (UK, Canada, Australians) / zip code (USA) / county (Ireland) or country (elsewhere in Europe) for a quotation - or email me - graham@wellho.net . I am happy to talk about course tailoring (there's an element of that included in the cost of private courses) and other requirements - in fact I want to do so before you book to ensure that we offer you the right product.