Communication on livery yards

Greylegs

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I used to be on a yard with terrific facilities, good off road hacking, nice stables and a generally nice crowd of people. (I left for other reasons, but that's a whole different thread!) ....... but the downside - well, one of them - was the extremely poor communication between to YO and the 28 or so liveries on the yard. YO would mention something quite important to one livery and assume she'd told everyone, or entirely omit to mention at all that, for example, an event was happening, the yard had run out of bedding, the yard across the road has a case of strangles or a new person was arriving at the yard. This resulted in all manner of confusion and upset such as double booking facilities, new arrivals wandering about with no idea which stable to put their horse in, cancelled lessons, horses missing important appointments etc etc.

Talking to friends on other yards it seems that this lack of information is pretty standard. I've moved yards now,and so far so good at the new place, but do livery yard generally suffer from a lack of client communication?
 

pippixox

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When I was on a livery yard, which had about 15 owners, with varied schedules, there was a notice board, all important things went on, also a diary you could write in and the YM would text important info to everyone as well and always printed off invoices and important details.

It can be hard with many people but it is doable
 

milliepops

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I've been on a similarly non-communicative yard and it was sooo irritating.

Currently yard has a WhatsApp group for non-critical stuff but the YO will either text or see you in person if there's something important. In addition each barn has a whiteboard for messages. There's a paper diary for school bookings. it works well.
 

Magnetic Sparrow

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My yard has many good points, but sometimes it does seem like the owners assume we liveries are fully equipped with crystal balls and mind reading capacity.
 

Dave's Mam

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I've been on a similarly non-communicative yard and it was sooo irritating.

Currently yard has a WhatsApp group for non-critical stuff but the YO will either text or see you in person if there's something important. In addition each barn has a whiteboard for messages. There's a paper diary for school bookings. it works well.

This is what we have. There are only 4 owners in one barn, but we have a WhatsApp group & a whiteboard. Works perfectly. Mind you, we all see each other most evenings, but the WhatsApp group is great.
 

Shay

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Having just done a quick count I think we have 14 liveries - most with multiple horses and 4 with sharers as well. We have a white board for yard wide notices and the YO will text everyone about important stuff. We do have a closed facebook group - but not everyone is on facebook so I'm not sure how often that is used. Communication works absolutely fine most of the time - leaving aside normal human frailty!
 

LeannePip

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we have a private yard Facebook group, pretty much everything gets posted on it, from change in T/O routines, to school bookings (also put on wipe board in tack room) to vets coming out, anyone hacking etc etc It works really well, we have about 30 liveries on the yard and there aren't any issues!
 

wills_91

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I have been on 3 yards in 16 years now and also worked on a large yard with 50+ liveries. I must be really lucky as I have never not had anything important communicated to me..... then again I wouldn't call a yard wonderful if it was run like that either.
 

huskydamage

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of all the yards I've been on only one had good YO communication and that's because I worked for them! Most other places I've been coming up the yard to building works or something blocking my route to stable/field is pretty standard. No one has a clue why,when or how long its there. Just left to work it out for yourself. Don't mind got used to it. I still like to check in with YOs though
 

MuddyMonster

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I'm on anights approximately 40 horse yard. We have a diary for school booking (but there limitations when you can book the school, so it doesn't bother me usually) a private FB page & a main notice board, a combination of the 3 seems to work well as I can go weeks without seeing the YM or YO!
 

Leo Walker

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We have a whole yard facebook chat, then another one for horses who have ridden schooling. We also have notebooks on our bins which we write anything important in, and the yard staff do the same
 

Kaylum

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White board and white board next to every stable for livery to say if they need anything extra doing or if they are away at the weekend/week as many work shifts
 

Cinnamontoast

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We get group texts re worming. I've been told by my sharer that all my stuff has been moved today due a new girl arriving. I am extremely peed off. This is the second time it's happened and last time I spoke to the yo and asked that I be told so I can rearrange stuff myself and make room for others. She couldn't see why I cared. Duh. Rumour/important information is passed round if we're lucky. Communication is very poor. Given it's their living, I'm surprised at the lack.
 

Bernster

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Fairly common in my experience, but to different degrees. I've been on 5 yards and all 4 previous ones had some issues but often not the yard manager, more the yard owners/landowners. Current yard make a real effort to communicate and have Facebook, email, text or call for emergencies, and a whiteboard up. I think it's tricky with big busy yards and it does require thinking about and some just don't see it's as part of the service.
 

SO1

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This is not a problem I have ever had.

The three yards I have been on in the last ten years all had noticeboards and if anything was very important yard owner will do a group text. At my previous YO would also email too.

Also all the liveries numbers are in the tea rooms so if there is an emergency with a horse on the yard and YO is out we can each other.

Communication should be easy but it can be challenging especially as the same message can be interpreted in different ways.
 
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