YHAgroup.org.uk

YHA have won the Best Travel Organisation category of The Independent‘s Green Awards.

As well as the obvious plaudits for Green Beacon hostels like Lockton, there’s more subtle factors – such as the Association’s recycling of old buildings into new youth hostels.

You’ll also learn why you can’t get a drink of orange juice at Earl’s Court YH.

Here’s a familiar experience*: you come back from a long day in the hills, everyone piles into the showers, and nobody can get them to the right temperature. Every time you fiddle with the taps to get it right, it affects the temperature your neighbours are getting, who fiddle with their taps, which affects your temperature, and so on ad infinitum.

Annoying, certainly, but have you ever tried to build a mathematical model of what’s going on? No? Well, now you don’t have to because two intrepid economists have done the work for you. Taking a shower in Youth Hostels: risks and delights of heterogeneity is a paper published by Christina Matzke and Damien Challet in 2008 (and brought to my attention by the people at Improbable Research). They describe their research thus:

Tuning one’s shower in some hotels may turn into a challenging co-ordination game with imperfect information. The temperature sensitivity increases with the number of agents, making the problem possibly unlearnable. Because there is in practice a finite number of possible tap positions, identical agents are unlikely to reach even approximately their favorite water temperature. Heterogeneity allows some agents to reach much better temperatures, at the cost of higher risk.

So now you know. What I think they conclude is that if everyone picks the same tap settings and sticks to them, that achieves a stable result that’s better than a wildly fluctuating temperature even if it isn’t your ideal choice, but really your guess is as good as mine.

* Note: Dodgy showers have become an increasingly unfamiliar problem in YHA hostels in recent years – I can’t remember the last time I had a bad one. Just one good result of the money spent on hostels recently.

Karl Sheperdson has posted a clarification on the YHA Forum following the recent press story about the possible introduction of mixed dorms:

You may have seen speculation in the media about about YHA and mixed sex rooms. The speculation was prompted by a discussion between an unknown member of staff and the Guardian journalist. Staff will be reminded not to talk publicly about any plans or thoughts until these have been agreed by the Board.

YHA recognises that the market is changing, particularly the backpacker market. Providing mixed sex rooms for guests is now a widespread and common practice in backpacker hostels around the world and we are keeping this under review.

YHA does already offer family rooms and self contained rooms for mixed sex groups of adults travelling together. Currently we have no mixed sex shared rooms where strangers are sharing.

We will always ensure we offer single sex shared rooms for those who want it. For many, and particularly for women travelling on their own, single sex rooms are a real virtue and strength of YHA.

The safety, security and comfort of our guests is paramount. They need to feel comfortable about where they stay and who they are staying with. We will want to be very sure that this is something our guests and members really want and the Board will need to approve any change like this.

So it sounds like the story came from some staff member speculating off their own bat, rather than a policy actively being considered by the Association.

According to an article in The Guardian this weekend, YHA are considering the introduction of mixed-sex dormitories in some of their properties. According to an unnamed “YHA spokeswoman”:

We are obviously aware that a lot of people come to us and do want to share with members of the opposite sex, whether friends or partners [...] At the moment we don’t offer it, but it’s something we are looking into. One of our corporate managers is going to put a proposal together to suggest trialling it at one or two of our inner-city hostels, most likely in London.

The move allegedly comes in response to practices in the independent sector and overseas, where mixed dorms are more common (though the reality is more complex than that, with at least one independent operator running a single sex hostel in the capital).

Personally, having stayed in mixed dorms on the Hebrides, I’m not bothered about them. From a local groups’ perspective it could be a good thing – a small mixed group might get into a popular hostel by filling one mixed dorm where single-sex spaces aren’t available. That said, I wouldn’t want it to become compulsory for groups to operate in that way: nobody should be forced to go mixed if they don’t want to.

What do you think?

PS. Thanks to jmann on the YHA Forum for spotting this story.

Today is the 80th anniversary of the founding of the YHA. An organisation formed by a few pioneers would go on to help millions “to a greater knowledge, use and love of the countryside”, as set out in its aims all those years ago.

Here’s wishing the association another 80 years!

2009 marks the twenty-fifth year of the President’s Awards which were introduced in 1985 to recognise the work that local groups, now affiliated groups, do for the YHA.

For 2009 the “Conservation” and “Work at a Hostel” categories were combined while a new ‘Best Display’ category was introduced.

Ten groups entered for 2009, two more than the previous year but two less than in 2007.

In 2008, unusually, just two groups dominated the awards but this time more groups have been successful again.

As usual each of the eight categories will be presented before moving on to the overall results.

First is the Best Conservation Project And / Or Work At A Hostel which was also entered by Croydon but was won by Epping Forest Outdoor Group. For their “Bramble Bash” about ten members of the Epping Forest Group spent a couple of days in January clearing brambles and other weeds from the grounds of the ROVSCO Hall in Snaresbook which is the Scout Hut used for their regular Thursday evening meetings.

Surprisingly just two groups, Barnet and Croydon, entered the Best Publicity Strategy category. Barnet YHA Group won with their efforts to publicise an active and vibrant club appealing to a range of ages. With personal contacts being an important source of recruitment they distributed many business cards as well as updating their website and producing new leaflets.

Seven groups entered the Best Programme category, and three groups shared second place, Barnet, Dunstable and Guildford. The category was won by COPSE, the Croydon YHA Group whose 75th anniversary year featured special events and many hostelling weekends as well as their usual varied Tuesday evening activities.

COPSE, the Croydon YHA Group won the Best Fundraising Initiative category with a mock auction of unwanted Christmas presents, the Weald Walkers Wander and the Gatliff Marathon. Some of the £990 proceeds from these events will be spent on a new internal partition ceiling at Puttenham Youth Hostel.

The new category this year of The Best Display About An Affiliated Group was surprisingly entered by only two groups, Croydon and Epping Forest. Epping Forest Outdoor Group won with their ten sheets featuring good clear photographs of the group’s varied activities.

Barnet, Croydon and Harrogate entered the Best Newsletter Or Magazine category. The clear winner again is Viewpoint from COPSE, the Croydon YHA Group which dates back to the 1930s and has about 32 pages with a variety of well written articles and many photographs.

The Best New Members Package category also had excellent entries from Croydon and Epping Forest groups but was won by Barnet YHA Group These three groups work hard to ensure that the potential new members they’ve attracted are integrated into the group.

Seven groups entered the Best Website category, with Barnet coming third and Dunstable Walking and Hostelling Group and Leicester YHA Group jointly winning with their websites, which are well worth seeking out.

With thanks to Jeff, Ivan and Kathy for judging the 2009 President’s Awards, we now move on to the overall results.

Guildford and Leicester Groups came joint fifth with Dunstable in fourth place.

In Third place are Epping Forest Outdoor Group.

Barnet YHA Group are the runners-up for 2009.

Winner of the President’s Trophy are the 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008 winners,

COPSE, the Croydon YHA Group