Campsite Wardens - So what does the work entail?

I imagine a warden's role may vary between different sites and the facilities they offer.

In our case this holiday park is quite spread out (36 acres) and caters for lots of tourers with a choice of grass and hardstanding pitches. There are also static holiday homes and a few luxury lodges. There is a shop/cafe and an outdoor swimming pool. The site has quite a few awards to its credit so its very important to keep standards high.

Our own roles centre on cleaning and maintenance of the facilities and the regular shift hours concentrate on the toilet and shower blocks which are in 2 separate areas of the site plus a motorhome service point, chemical disposal points, laundry room and kitchen.

There are 4 shifts in a day with one of them being the main cleaning session. First shift is an early walk around checking that all is tidy from the night before, anything that needs putting right is done so. Late morning is the main cleanup when the whole facilities are worked through in systematic order. Late afternoon sees another walk around tidying anything as necessary and the late shift is a mini cleanup depending on how it all looks.

We share these shifts so only do two of these shifts each day except when the other couple are on their days off when we do the lot.

When on the late shift our duties finish at around 10.30/11pm with a walk around the entire site checking that all bbqs and any fires are put out and that there's no excess noise.

With a small team (2 warden couples, groundsman, maintenance man and a housekeeper together with a couple of weekend cleaners) there's often extra work to be done to cover other's duties due to days off, sickness or sheer volume of visitors. In our first 2 weeks we have been litter picking, pressure washing, grass strimming, lodge cleaning, helping with some machinery, moving a diesel tank and more.... It's possible that we may have to provide cover occasionally in the office and shop. All extra work outside our normal duties is added to our timesheets as we are paid hourly and any such work is entirely optional (although I couldn't imagine leaving anyone in a muddle if they needed help!).

There is often an electric buggy available to move around the site with but so far we have mostly walked between the facilities. Out of curiosity I did use the GPS tracker on my phone the other day when doing a late shift and we clocked up one and a half miles!

So, all in all we should keep fit as a bonus too :).