Stone Street Club, founded in 1887, a Maidstone landmark, is a private members club, and a Grade II listed building.
Nearly 600 members enjoy snooker, entertainment, food, and a relaxing atmosphere in good company. Its previous security system was antiquated and was no longer supported by its supplier. It had a problem with the data input terminal making it impossible to add, remove or edit cards without the (charged) attendance of an engineer to carry out programming works.
As the club relied on the subscriptions from its 600 members, it was imperative that subs came in on time. Previously subs were managed by a manual card index with member sub details recorded on the index card and a receipt being issued to the member, by admin staff. That gave 12 months’ access to the club. Each member was also given a two-month grace period thus if a subscription had not been renewed. The previous system, even when working, could not automatically revoke access rights based on this 14 month criterion.
This gave the club problems. As the integrity of the previous system was compromised it was assumed that everyone in the club was a bona fide fee paying member. As some members were not issued with cards they would depress a buzzer at the entrance door and bar staff, in periods of high activity, would remotely unlock the door and automatically let people in without checking their credentials.
Once inside, people were rarely challenged; if a person was known to club staff, other than admin staff, it was assumed that they were paid-up members even though they could have let their subscription lapse for months. Any eviction could cause resentment towards the club staff.
There was no way of automatically knowing whose subscription was due for renewal. This meant that on a weekly basis, someone would need to go through 600 paper records to see who had and had not renewed their subscription. Having done this the club would then have to write to the relapsed member requesting their dues. This took much admin time and effort and meant that as there was no real incentive to renew subscriptions some renewals slipped through the net, meaning loss of revenue. The club was looking for a system to close this loophole and protect its income. The club’s committee decided to tender. Also required was use of the door furniture, CCTV cameras, intruder alarm detectors and wiring.
The solution
Seven companies were invited to tender for the required works and Security Technologies Groups Systems installer, Vision Security Services, was selected as, in the words of Mike Loft, club secretary, ‘the quality of their bid submission was significantly better than the other six responders. They outlined the problems together with their proposed solutions and provided a detailed offer which also included schematic floor plans. To cap it off they formally offered to work in partnership with the club to resolve the outlined issues. When all of the quotes were put to committee all members chose the Vision bid due to its quality, detailed content and thorough appraisal of the issues to be resolved. Vision Security Services had the foresight to incorporate membership management into their offer which no other tender invitees had considered. Merging the functions of the subscription management operation with an access control system would reduce administrative overhead, improve efficiency, and reduce the overall costs to the club.’
Vision offered to source and deploy a system including:
• Automatic expiration of member access rights after 14 months of payment if not renewed.
• Customisable database with multiple, user defined, search fields which would assist managers to run reports based on multiple criterions.
• The ability to import over 600 members details into the new system without manual entry.
• Assistance with the deployment of the system with a high degree of hand holding during the ‘going live’ period.
Security Technologies Group, the EMEA distributor of access control systems and peripherals, worked with Vision. For the access control the Keyscan System VII was selected due the firms say to its flexibility, ease of use and cost effectiveness. “With over 40,000 systems installed worldwide it was a tried and tested solution, which was an important consideration for us”, said Chris Bedding, General Manager for Vision. Proximity readers were from Farpointe Data. These readers, when used in MAXSecure mode, mean that each card is unique and cannot be duplicated.
Result
Now the decision to allow or deny access is carried out at the entrance doors automatically and without human intervention and so this solved this issue of staff having to challenge the credentials of a person. A user can search the system via any number of fields to find a member’s details. Once these details are displayed on the system screen it is possible to view all other information held on that member, so admin is much streamlined. “Vision Security Services Ltd. and Security Technologies Group worked very closely with us to develop and define these custom fields so that we could make maximum benefit of the system,” added Mike Loft. Due to its location in the centre of Maidstone some people would become members and use the club’s parking without entering the club thus depriving attending members of parking. It is now possible to search via the car number plate to ascertain the owner’s name. From the search screen it is possible to see if that person has used the access control system that day and is therefore in the club. If that person is not in the club or the car number plate is not registered, the club can ask their parking contractors to act.
Loft said: “The system is highly graphical, so an added bonus that we were not expecting was the ability to lock and unlock doors from a graphical representation of our building on the PC monitor. There are occasions, such as family days, where we would like to open the doors for several hours to allow family member to enter the building. This can be easily achieved via two clicks of a mouse button. We find the system very intuitive and easy to use. This was an essential requirement for us as we have multiple part time operators of the system and so each had to learn very quickly. The main screen is arranged with the most frequently used areas of the system set as icons around a ‘dial’. Rather than navigating through a hierarchical series of menus to get to screen, it is merely a case of clicking a mouse button on an icon. I was impressed with the speed of the installation of the system. In just one day the system was commissioned and operational. STG sent a person to site to manipulate member records to produce a file which could be imported into the new system. They also designed and loaded a floor plan which could be imported into the system and used as a ‘map’, detailing the location and status of doors within the building. To date the system has not only met but exceeded all of the objectives we set out for it.”
Denis Kane, Director of Security Technologies Group, said: “It is our philosophy to assist our installers and end-users alike with this type of high end support. This is what really differentiates us from the regular security distributors they encounter in this marketplace.”
