One of the issues of buying as a group is the need to schedule a regular date in the month on which to buy, in order to achieve the economy of scale needed for a bulk order and to enable people to plan their orders. The result of this is that the buying window is restricted to just a couple of days, which means that to some extent we are rather at the mercy of the prevalent market trend over that short period. With the current schedule it is not possible to delay any further because customers are expecting to receive their oil within 10 working days from the buying date. To get over this issue and to maximise the potential for savings by enabling the negotiator to have a longer window within which to buy and ‘strike while the iron’s hot’, we will be changing the buying schedule from January.

What will change? From January we will continue to have a monthly buying schedule but, with the exception of 4th January, the deadline for placing your orders will move to a Wednesday at 4pm. We will then collate the orders and give them to the negotiating team on Friday. The negotiating team will then have an extended window of seven working days starting from the following Monday in which to buy, allowing them more flexibility to achieve a better price for members.

How does this impact on you? The increase in buying time will require all members to have enough OIL left from "Deadline" day for up to four weeks, which means that members are going to need to be vigilant on their oil levels and plan ahead, although there will be a mechanism for ‘urgents’ for those who really get caught short. We realise this will be more inconvenient, but on the plus side, the system will enable us to maximise savings for members.


ORDER SCHEDULE January – June 2013

Order deadline is Wednesday 4pm:

4th January 2013 (Friday*)

23rd January 2013

20th February 2013

20th March 2013

24th April 2013

22nd May 2013

26th June 2013

* Additional order date as no order placed in December

If you have any questions or need further clarification please contact us on 01376 574340 or email oil@essexrcc.org.uk or visit the oil section of the RCCE website

CO-ORDINATORS NEEDED! If you have a bit of spare time and could help us by co-ordinating orders in your village, please get in touch. It doesn’t require much time and you will get free membership of the scheme. Telephone for further details, or visit the website.