charge to outside instructors by d.i.y. yard owner

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triequi

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I own a small diy livery yard. At present outside instructors come here to teach my liveries and they pocket their money and drive off out of my gate without paying me a hire fee of my arena. Do you think it fair if I'm thinking of imposing a £2 charge to the instructor (not the livery).
 
hmm, i dont see why not. I mean, it is reasonable, only £2? And to be honest, the instructor will probably just charge the client more so it wont bother them.
Its your yard and they are using your school so why not?
 
Your liveries have use of this school yes, is it part of their livery package ?

So what is the difference of them riding in their on their own or under instruction ?

Money for old rope ???? Is it not your livery using the school, and they are paying someone to assist them in their riding?

If the cost of my lessons went up due to my YO charging my instructor, I'd be asking YO for discount in livery as I object to paying twice for the same facility ! x
 
I would presume that the liveries use of the arena is included in there rent, then in which case no I don't think you should as they are the ones riding in there and why should they pay twice. I've never been on a yard where the instructor has had to pay to teach current liveries. Tbh o wouldn't go somewhere if they had that kind if rule.
 
When they have a lesson, are other liveries allowed to use the arena? I think this is the main difference. Perhaps if the livery wants sole use of arena for their lesson, then charge them £5 etc?
 
when we were on a DIY livery yard we had to pay to hire school if getting a lesson from outside instructor, think it was £5 or £10. I think it seems fair tbh especially if other liveries cant use the school at the same time
 
A different angle on this!

We hire an arena at a yard in the village from time to time. We don't pay extra if we bring our instructor. However we do tend to only use it straight after school, we agreed with the YO we'd avoid their busy times.

If your arena sits empty much of the day, maybe you could offer the arena to the instructors who come and teach the liveries for them to teach their own outside pupils for an hourly fee? Or to local people like us who only have a muddy field to ride in? (advert in tack shop perhaps?) Can you find a riding club or pony club who will want to hire it for training? Could you run eg a clear round showjumping to maximise income from your arena? Do you ensure your premises are well looked after and that the visiting instuctors are well treated when they come (cups of coffee and use of loo optional?) and go away with your business card? They are the people who will get asked 'do you know of a nice yard we could move to?' by their other pupils, networking and personal recommendation is the best way to ensure you have a waiting list rather than empty stables.
 
I am on DIY at a yard which does full/part/diy. If I want to hire one of the arenas for a lesson so I have sole use of it then it costs £5 and the instructors charge the client for it. If I didnt mind sharing the arena with others when having my lesson there would be no charge.

I suggest as long as the outside instructors have the appropriate insurance then your liveries are paying you for use of the school so why charge them extra? The instructor WILL pass the charge onto them afterall. Perhaps a small charge could be made if the livery wants to hire the school for sole use?
 
If the school is included in the cost of livery and it is one of your liveries using the school to have a lesson then I feel a charge is possibly unfair and a little bit grasping. The livery is not making money from it and the instructor is only there to teach the livery from whom you are already collecting money which covers the use of the school.

If an instructor is using your school to teach paying customers who are not liveries then a charge would be reasonable even if the instructor were one of your liveries. They're making money off your facilities in that case.

If you hire out any of your facilities to the general public and Joe Bloggs comes to your yard on an ad hoc basis and rents your school for an hour and brings his instructor I do not feel you should charge extra for that, you have rented the school to Joe Bloggs whether or not he wants to have a lesson or a tea party in it for his hour.
 
I can definitely see both sides of the coin on this one.

At the livery yard I'm on just now, there is no charge for liveries to bring their own instructor. To be honest, if I had to pay extra (as trickled down to me by my RI, as it sure would be-- and surely depending on the amount) then I would possibly hire a different venue entirely.

And as much as I wouldn't mind sharing the school with another rider/horse during a lesson, it's a very small, rather square shaped arena. Its very difficult to ride in there with other people - if you're all doing the same thing, going the same direction, it's okay. But if you're trying to do 5m loops with transitions and then in to a 10m circle off the wall and someone is cutting you up, it's impossible and not worth the money for the lesson!

However, lucky for me on my yard we have two schools so it's not usually a big issue. There are sometimes entire days or evenings where the indoor arena is booked solid and this time of year can be a nightmare because it's not really light enough after work to hack out, and the outdoor school can be pretty boggy. But in a few months, that will be a non issue.
 
Our yard charges only when the school is being used privately so no other livery can use the school at that time. Almost like an arena hire charge.

If you have a lesson and don't mind anyone else joining you then there is no charge...however to be honest most people who have lessons don't book their lesson during busy times so i don't think it's ever been an issue.

If there isn't usually a charge for the school and included in the liveries rent then i think your being a but tight charging to use it just because your liveries choose to have a lesson...if you were my YO i would see you being a bit of a money grabber.

I'm not sure why it's any skin off your nose if someone has a lesson from an outside instructor, i would be more concerned they have the correct qualifications and insurance so you can't be held liable if there are any accidents?
 
We have to pay £5 for outside instructors and that doesnt mean we get the private use of the school - I think its a bit off but in that grand scheme of things not really that important - The yard has alot more positives than negatives.
 
Do you teach your liveries ?. In think if you do and they are bringing in outside instructors then yes you could charge as in efect they are taking money away from you. Otherwise agree with what most people have said, if they want sole use then yes make a charge for private hire but include this in the livery, and if they want sole use regardless of whether anyone is teaching them then make the charge.

One other point, ensure that the outside Instructors are adequatly insured, and if an accident happens they are not going to try to claim off your insurance.
 
Seems a bit of a cheek to me if the use of the school is already in with the rent.
Would you the then charge the visiting farriers, vets, back people, saddle fitters who come on your yard and charge for their services? :eek:
 
Yards that I have been on in past have if they offer a instructor and you choose your own you have to hire the school. On yards that don't have any instructor then to have sole use you again hire the school if you want sole use or if happy for others to come in then no charge.
This schoolhire fee would come to livery not instructor.
I know my old instructor would not be happy with having to add a third person into it, which would be if they then had to go to yard owner to pay a fee for school use
 
The cost of livery surely covers the use of the school? What does it matter to you what they do in the school?!

If you also teach and you feel that £ are being taken from you I would suggest looking at what the outside instructors offer that you don't so you can understand why they are being booked in preference to yourself. Then improve so that you are the instructor chosen. Just charging people isn't really on I think and rather looks past the actual issue.

Re Dubsie's suggestion - that's all very well using the school to the max, but again your liveries are paying to use it, not just look at it! Ours rents the school out, but it is often booked for whole days during the week and at the weekend which is a proper pain as you can't get in the school!

Perhaps ask your liveries what sort of thing they would like? Perhaps there are times in the day no-one uses it so you can rent it out and not inconvenience anyone while increasing your income. Perhaps they would love a dressage comp sometimes or maybe you can run a jump or dressage session once a week for those on the yard - even a token £5 each would add up to join in with these sessions, and it all adds to the good feel of the yard too I think if you get people enjoying doing things together.
 
Of course that's not fair. As people have said already. The liveries pay for the use of the school as part of their livery money, if they choose to have someone come and teach them in it then that is just them using the facility.
I don't even agree that yards that have a resident instructor should penalise a livery who wants to use someone else. Why should liveries be forced to have lessons with someone that they may not like, or who may not teach in the way they need? It penalises the liveries, it doesn't hit the visiting instructor in the pocket.
 
If you run a DIY yard and don't make an income from teaching yourself (an assumption on my part) then although I can completely see where you are coming from, I think you should think long and hard before introducing this rule. A yard I was on once did just this, and I have to say it created a lot of bad feeling among the DIY liveries.

If your DIY people get exclusive use of the school for their lesson then I think it perfectly fair for a hire charge for the school to be made.

On the other side of the argument, if a large proportion of your income is teaching, then I know plenty of yards that do not allow external instructors on at all!!! The yard I am on has a riding school section, they have many instructors on site and liveries get really discounted lesson prices. However they still allow external instructors on to teach but the livery does need to hire one of the arenas for £10 to be able to do this. As far as I am concerned, this was explained up front and I am perfectly happy with this arrangement (it costs me £10 to box to instructor anyway!)
 
For liveries there is no additional charge to bring in an instructor - use of the arena is part of their 'package'.

I do charge for non-liveries who want to hire the arena, but the rate stays the same if they are using it on their own, or bringing in an instructor.

If an instructor approached me to hire the arena to teach their own clients in I would charge a fee to the instructor, which I assume would then be paid for in part by the clients.

Hope that makes sense!
 
Seems ok, but what I object to is when lessons are booked in the evening when everyone else wants to use the school, at least if it was on a weekend you'd have the option of hacking out, with the dark nights there is no option so can't ride at all when there's lessons
 
No, I don't think this is fair, I don't really think it is fair if you teach and your livery has a different instructor either. I have lessons every 3 weeks and take a 1/2 day off work. My instructor takes a 3 hour round trip to teach me, and 2 friends (1 friend has her own school up the road). I pay for my lessons and his travel, I would not want to pay for use of the school as well, I would just go up the road to my friends house and have it there.

There is nothing in this world bar death that would part me from my instructor, I just would not want anyone else and would rather not have lessons at all.
 
As an instructor if that charge was applied I would have to tell the client they would have to pay it. I really don't make enough profit out of a lesson once you take into account my deisel and travel time to make it worthwhile going otherwise.

There is 1 yard I go to that charges. The horse belong to a regular client of mine, who does not pay for the school when she has her weekly lesson. But they offered a couple of friends to have lessons on their horse with me during the week rather than them go to a riding school, and the YO wanted to charge for their use of the school. It is different, as the people do not have the horse on loan or anything and it is a regular thing. It's still cheaper for them to pay me and the YO than it would be to have a private lesson at a RS so they're still quids in!!
 
triequi said:
I own a small diy livery yard. At present outside instructors come here to teach my liveries and they pocket their money and drive off out of my gate without paying me a hire fee of my arena. Do you think it fair if I'm thinking of imposing a £2 charge to the instructor (not the livery).
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If you are qualified and can teach the liveries, then I can see why you would have a problem with other instructors coming and taking your business.

However if you are not a qualified instructor and the liveries are paying for the use of the school as part of their livery package, then I can't see how or why you would want to charge them extra for having lessons. I think it would cause a huge amount of ill feeling, and is an unusual practice. If you need more money, put their livery up by £2 a week.
 
sorry but if the use of school is included in livery cost i would be quite unhappy to have to pay again to use it, extra foro sole use not a problem but flat extra charge no.
its different if you have an instructor on site as thats imbroaching onto your potential profit but if no instructor on site then no way.
 
Where i keep my horse on livery if you bring outside instructors the livery having the lesson has to hire the school at a rate of £10 per hour. this is because our YM is also an instructor, so it encourages us to have lessons with her rather than someone else. I completely understand her viewpoint. On occasion, she organises outside instructors herself, in which situation we don't have to pay the extra charge as its someone she's chosen, she usually has a lesson with them too. But if we liveries go off and find our own instructor and need exclusive use of the school for an hour, we have to pay the school hire fee (just like an outsider or non-livery would have to). Its been in our contract from day one, which is why i have no problem with it.

I think the main reason for having a charge is practicality - by hiring an instructor, to get full use of their skills you'd need exclusive use of the school for an hour or so, so you dont have to worry about other liveries schooling around you. Similarly, at my yard, if you want to have the school for an hour completely on your own you can book it (again, for the same £10 charge). After all, by booking the school you are effectively taking use away from the other liveries temporarily. so by imposing a charge you encourage people to school together, keeping everyone happy.

If you are not a qualified instructor yourself, i dont understand why you would want to charge extra to your liveries, as how are you loosing out? Your livery package should already include use of the school, to cover the cost of lighting, harrowing, poopicking ect. If that is indeed the situation, and i was being charged twice, then yes as a livery i would be pretty annoyed.
 
I had mine of part livery and they charged me a fiver for having an outsider instructor which was a must because she was rubbish!

I have since moved and I don't have to pay for this - mind you I am at my instructors yard but she wouldn't charge. I don't know many places that do.

To be fair if someone wants sole use then perhaps a small charge but if they are paying livery and the school is included its up to them who teaches them so why add a charge and £2 isn't going to make you mega bucks but it may make them resent you.

Like some else said - maybe think about making money from your school during quiet times. Offer it to pony clubs for rallies during the school holidays for example?
 
To the OP,

If its your property in my view (and I think probably legally) its your choice and decision really. The yard I am on doesnt charge visiting instructors and I have not been on any that do. I however feel that it could be a good thing as I was on a yard where a 'clique' used to block book the school two x evenings a week for their lessons so the rest of us all of whom worked 9 to 5 + couldnt use it and ride 2 x days per week in winter. If the clique (none of whom worked) had been charged for evening use I am certain they would have used it during the day when it stood empty and they stood around yapping!
 
OP does your insurance premiums go up if you have an outside trainer come in to teach? On my yard I make sure any outside trainers have their own insurance however my insurance company deems that I must also have insurance for having them on the premises as they are here in a teaching capacity. So if your insurance company is similar to mine then I think it is understandable that you could charge a fee to cover this added expense but if not then I can't see the need for any change to your present situation.
 
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