The role
Are you an organised, conscientious, and dedicated administration professional looking for a new adventure?
Do you have experience in an office-based role within a busy commercial, customer-facing business?
Whether you are already an established reservations or admin manager, or strive to become one, we’d love to hear from you!
Porthpean Outdoor Education Centre is Cornwall’s leading provider of school camps and outdoor adventure. Our Bookings & Finance Manager will hold the key responsibility of managing our companies’ booking processes and administration activities, acting as the genuine backbone of the centre. As the go-to point of contact and resource for all schools and, by default, the fountain of all knowledge, you will play an integral role in ensuring a fantastically smooth, safe, and fun guest experience.
As the Bookings & Finance Manager, you’ll need to:
Do the administrative stuff!
- Hold excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to troubleshoot and problem solve
- Manage customer telephone calls and emails, including arranging cover for customer contact, to ensure we offer superior customer service throughout the week
- Effectively allocate and organise bookings across two centres
- Work with schools to process their individual needs and requirements
- Train and monitor new starters as they assist our office-based functions
- Assume PA duties for the Managing Director
- Analyse associated data analytics to present in our weekly management meetings
Do the sales stuff! - Be proactive and contact schools/other groups to convert enquiries
- Manage customer invoicing and be accountable for chasing payment
Do the financial stuff!
- Use our accounts programme and payments software for daily reconciliation
- Work closely with the Centre Manager to evaluate the success of the centre and help to come up with new ideas to meet changing demands
Do the operational stuff!
- Be part of the guest experience with reception duties and in-house customer service
- Manage centre cash
- Act as our Accessibility and Inclusivity Lead
- Be a team player, assisting with admin tasks outside your normal scope of works
About you
To succeed in this role, you will first and foremost be a genuine and personable person. You will offer excellent organisational skills and be reliable, ensuring customer bookings are in order, relaying all information to the relevant department. Although self-driven, you like to be part of a team and will want to help others to support the running and operation of the centre. You are proactive, you think quickly on your feet and show integrity, imagination, and energy in everything that you do. You thrive in a fast-paced, varied role and use your initiative with a ‘can-do’ working style to help achieve great things.
Personal attributes aside, as the Bookings & Finance Manager, it is expected that you are:
- Commercially aware with experience of delivering financial targets/budgets
- Literate in MS Office and confident with general software programmes and IT
- Experienced, or hold a basic understanding, of accounting programmes. Specific experience of Xero would be an advantage
- Passionate about outdoor education and the benefits our centre offers to children and young people
- Local to the Cornish south coast and are passionate about Cornwall and all it has to offer!
Why join us?
We know how special Porthpean Outdoor Education Centre is and what a truly inspiring place it is to call work. In advertising this post, we offer a unique location and workplace, we will provide a broad range of responsibilities and challenges in a rewarding and satisfying fun, upbeat environment.
We are a team, and as such, everyone is highly valued and treated as an equal, with our ethos built around the knowledge that without every single person’s hard work and positivity, we cannot offer the complete service our customers deserve. We work hard to ensure our strong culture is cohesive with a shared sense of purpose. As a small, yet ambitious Cornish-owned company, we want you to share our vision and strategy to achieve long-term goals in an honest, respectful, and meaningful workplace.
With industry-leading pay rates and a commitment to support your learning and development, we put your career path and needs at the core of our business. We offer a health and wellbeing package which includes health insurance and free meals on duty (when kitchen open).
What you need to apply?
Whilst you will need a certain level of experience, glowing references, and evidenced skill sets on your CV to make the next step in our recruitment process, personality, and a desire to get the job is key. Whilst specific experience within a similar successful leisure, sport, or tourism business would be preferable, we welcome applications from anyone from backgrounds in administration and finance within any sector.
Don’t think what could be, apply today and change tomorrow.
The detail
Start date: Monday 8 January 2024
Reports to: Centre Manager
Salary: Up to £30,000, depending on experience
Hours: 40 hours per week. Holiday 28 days
Location: Porthpean Outdoor Education Centre, Porthpean, St. Austell, Cornwall PL26 6AZ
Contract: Full time, permanent, after a probationary period of 12 months
