behind the counter x Maggie King
This week behind the counter, we have Maggie King, Director of Housing at The YMCA Bath Hostel, UK. The YMCA Bath Hostel has been upgraded to a 4 STAR guest accommodation by Visit England, an award well-deserved after all the tireless and dedicated work of the hostel staff, especially during the lockdown period.
The effort and good work of the housing staff of YMCA Bath continue post lockdown and have definitely not gone unnoticed. With Bath life Awards 2021 coming up this September, YMCA Bath hostel have scored themselves a spot as finalists for the awards!
Join us as we have a chat with Maggie about all the recent exciting activities and the heartwarming journey that can be spirit-lifting during the toughest times seen by the hospitality industry worldwide.
How did your journey begin with YMCA?
I started working for the YMCA 21 years ago, which has given me time to develop the YMCA Bath hostel to what we have today.
Over the lockdown period, we had to close the hostel to our guests, but ever since we have reopened, it has been exceptionally busy and with the launch of counter.app, it’s busier than ever!
How was it like at the hostel over the lockdown period?
Over the lockdown period, the majority of hostel staff remained working. We accommodated people who were stuck in the country and were unable to return home like our guests from Europe and the rest of the world.
We also accommodated people who had relationship breakdowns or found themselves with nowhere to live.
They have all moved on or returned home, over lockdown the people living in the hostel created a lovely community feel to the place.
How does YMCA Bath help and support the local community in terms of shelter and rehabilitation opportunities?
The hostel is a social enterprise, any profit made from the commercial hostel goes towards supporting vulnerable young people. We have 5 houses that are away from the YMCA where we accommodate young people between the ages of 18–25. The young people are usually referred to us, we reassess them and place them in houses which they share with 4 other young people. They usually stay there for up to 2 years, until they have regained their confidence of living on their own and go on to get their own place after 2 years.
We have a computer room within the hostel where the young people we are working with can use the computers if they need to or to search and apply for jobs, or just have a cup of tea and a chat. In addition to the support we offer, the young people can use our Health and Wellbeing Gym which offers great fitness programmes.
That’s amazing, also YMCA Bath has been recently awarded 4 stars by Visit England! How does that feel?
We were over the moon! We have been 3 stars for quite some time, to be awarded 4 stars just confirmed the work over lockdown was worth it. Over the last three months of the Lockdown, we started redecorating all our rooms. We have a hundred and twenty-nine rooms along with eighty beds in the dormitories. We looked at our smaller rooms and felt they needed an update. The singles, twins, doubles, ensuites, quads and triples have been redecorated with new furniture, beds, lamps and pictures.
We are trying to make the hostel experience a little more comfortable with kettles, cups, tea, coffee and sugar in all our doubles and ensuite rooms and hoping to gradually introduce this across all of the rooms eventually.
Our housekeeping team has been dedicated and busy cleaning. We met all the COVID cleaning standards and improved many of the areas during the lockdown, this definitely helped us getting the 4 stars from Visit England.
What is the driving force behind such devoted dedication? What keeps you and the staff motivated?
I think going through the lockdown gave us time to reflect on our business model and staff had to adapt to new working practices. After many months of being closed to the public, it was a relief to reopen and welcome back customers.
I believe that our staff love the busyness and life of the hostel, with meeting different people of all ages from all over the UK and the world (when we are able to).
Our staff will go above and beyond to make sure they can help our guests make their stay as comfortable as possible. At the end of the day, we are a hostel with a great community vibe.
Reflecting back on the previous year, what makes you the proudest?
I’m really proud of the staff team because they’ve been so adaptable and have been happy to work through the pandemic in a different way. Nobody could predict how it would affect the whole hospitality industry, but the staff adapted and continued to work through it differently.
During the lockdown, the staff cooked meals for the people living here, helping out the guests to keep them motivated. Of course, now we have reopened they have all gone back to their actual jobs in the hostel, but in the time of need they really stepped up and just embraced it which is great and that’s why I’m so proud of the staff team.
