Hi from Steve at Brit Stops

Hi everyone

For those of you who haven't yet seen us online, or bumped into us at the Peterborough or Newbury shows, Brit Stops is the British version of France Passion. We offer a fast-growing number of host sites (farm shops, pubs, vineyards, breweries, etc.) who all offer a one night stopover completely free of charge to motorhome owners. The hosts are not camp sites, so no facilities should be expected, but having said that, many of them offer fresh water, quite a few allow you to dump grey water, and a few offer electricity, free WiFi and black water disposal.

All of them have local produce for sale, and hope you will buy some from them. Of course you've just saved your camp site fees for the night, and you have to eat - so it's likely you will! Please note that purchase is not a condition of the stopover though.

We're at Stratford this weekend, and will be offering our usual show discount so membership drops from £25 to £20 (and you save P&P costs). We're on stand 120, opposite the food court.

Happy to be here, and happy to answer any questions anyone might have about our new venture!

Steve

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum. We haven't took the plunge yet but I'm sure we will in time. Good luck with the venture, have followed the development through other forums, sure it will catch on .

Hello Steve




Hope you find being a member of the forum, will help give "Brit Stops" a little more publicity

We are one of the smaller communities but as they say "every little helps!"

Hi Steve,

Welcome to the forum.

I have just looked at your website and I am impressed. How many locations do you currently have on your books?

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the welcome and glad to hear you were impressed! Brit Stops launched in April this year when we published our first guide with 75 hosts spread all over Britain, and we now have 85 with more pending. Details of all new hosts are sent out to members regularly.

We're growing faster now than in the set-up period, as now our members are also suggesting sites for us - helped by the fact that they'll win free membership for 2012 if the site signs up! As well as the farms, pubs, vineyards and breweries we now also have more unusual sites such as a smoke house in Scotland, an antiques centre, an ice-cream factory in the countryside, a motorhome accessories store and even a skydiving centre (skydiving not compulsory)!

As for our website, we're actually about a week away from re-launching it! Along with a bit of a spruce-up and replacing our old logo with the new one, it'll also include sections in five other languages. Then we'll launch in Europe too in the hope of bringing interested motorhome tourists to our hosts for "an authentic taste of Britain".

We don't expect to set the world alight in our first year, but hope to grow steadily over the next few years (Rome wasn't built, etc.) and not having a marketing budget, places like the Auto-Sleeper Owners Forum are great to help us spread the word. As Admin so rightly points out - "every little helps".

Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the reply and best of luck with this new venture. Given we do not have Aires in this country I think this would be a good compromise and also assist local business.

Hi Steve,

Welcome to ASOF (from the Emerald Isle for the next couple of weeks)

We joined up at Peterborough and quickly got an update email, a few weeks later followed by another which is great that
you are keeping growing.
One suggestion - when you print the updates out they are just slightly larger than the directory, any chance you could reduce the size to the same size as the directory pages

Hi Steve
A very warm welcome
Rob

Hello Steve

Welcome to the forum.
VRH

roli wrote:One suggestion - when you print the updates out they are just slightly larger than the directory, any chance you could reduce the size to the same size as the directory pages

Hi roli,

That's a question that has been asked before. In actual fact the updates are the same size as the directory as I'm trying to get ahead ready for the 2012 edition. However as I produce them in exactly the same way as I produce the directory, they have a 3mm "bleed" all the way round. If you trim the pages within the colour blocks they will be the same size as the pages in the book (and you won't lose any of the information).

Alternatively, you can set Adobe Acrobat to print two to an A4 page.

Hope that helps,

Steve

Cheers on the response Steve,

Im a bit slow at answering at the moment but we are home with luck on Tues night

It was through this forum we discovered Brit Stops and as we've only had our camper a couple of months, have only tried one Brit Stop.  It was brilliant! We live in Cornwall and chose to start with No 1 - Roskillys (a local producer of delicious ice cream).  It's in a  quiet location on The Lizard Peninsula.  We had a nice meal there and a couple of ice creams each (of course!).  There's a grassed area off their car park with picnic tables and it's lovely for kiddies as they have quail, banties, chickens, ducks, geese, a turkey (we could only see one!), pigs and goats all penned off but for all to see and feed.  It's also not far from the pretty harbour of Coverack.  If you're stopping the night then park at the bottom of the car park where it's more level and slightly 'out of the way'.  My husband did say that he heard the cockerel crow early in the morning but I didn't hear it (a bit of role reversal there)!   We'll definitely be returning to this one!  A brilliant start to 'Brit Stopping'!

Hi from Anglesey.
 

Hi Steve
We heard about your wonderful book on this forum and joined immediately.
There are many really great-sounding venues in it, and we are looking forward to exploring some of them, as soon as essential building work is finished at home
We very nearly celebrated my birthday at Number 310, but a medical emergency meant we had to postpone the trip.
BTW.....I think it is worth mentioning that members only refer to numbers, not the names of venues!
Good luck for the future...It is a wonderful venture!
 

That's better, no site name, don't want non-members like me knowing where the sites are. Actually I agree with that. I'll get round to joining when I retire and got more time to travel. Good to hear that it works.

Stable door and bolting horse springs to mind!

;-)

Apologies, realised after I posted it but couldn't edit it! Grr

Have been a BritStop member since Steve & Mandy set up. For all of you who aren't aware, the Hosts are getting more & more every year and offer a wide range of different stopovers, to suit all tastes.

They are not all just Pubs.

We have spent quite a few nights at many of them from Sussex, Kent, Norfolk, & Hampshire. 

£25 per year for membership is not a lot to pay to experience the UK's best version of France Passion. 

You are not forced to spend any money at any of the venues, but we always like to show our appreciation of the services, where we can.  

I have nothing but praise for Steve & Mandy's efforts in developing this brand of Stopover & long may they continue to do so.

The type of locations might not be to everyone's taste, but if you enjoy your get away motorhoming, then I can assure you that you will not be disappointed.  Just give it a try.