Varied Services For Members

Press, Volume C, Issue 29699, 18 December 1961, Page 13

Varied Services For Members

What does the Overseas Visitors’ Club offer its members? There is the founders’ first aim: guaranteed accommodation at all times. At first accommodation was in dormitories, but now attractive bed-sitting rooms are available. The prices range from 14s fid to 32s a night for temporary accommodation (this includes bed and breakfast) to permanent accommodation in bed-sit-ting rooms for three weeks or more ranging from 30s to 70s a week. There is also a flat-finding service available.

There is always something doing in the club. There are cocktail lounges and a danec floor where there is dancing every night except Sundays in a West End atmosphere, as well as regular cabaret shows. Films are shown on Sundays—and there are television rooms and reading rooms where the latest newspapers from the Commonwealth are displayed. Of course, there are snooker and table tennis tables and dart boards.

The club is proud of its mail service. The club post office is open seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and club members are always welcome to have all their mail addressed to the club. Move away from London, and the club will forward letters; give the club’s telephone number to contacts, and messages will be taken for you. Members are met on ships and aircraft by club representatives, who deliver mail on the spot. Is there an end to what the club does for members? Sometimes it does not seem so. The club arranges sightseeing tours, looks after members’ baggage, has a laundry where members can have clothes washed and ironed, runs a club magazine called “Globetrotter,” has a fully-equipped first-aid room where there are available the services of a resident nursing sister —and a doctor attends regularly. There is even a dental surgery on the premises. And there is a day nursery where children can be left while the parents go off for a day, perhaps in a car hired at a special discount available only to club members. The club caters specially in “things from home” to chase away the blues—New Zealand beer, for example, or perhaps some toheroa soup. It is hard, indeed, to find anything the club does not do for its members. For this, and the privileges of cheap travel, the club charges one guinea a year, plus an original entrance fee of seven guineas, or 10 guineas for a married couple.

An employment office is run by the club, to find members either temporary or permanent employment in England. The club’s employment officer has contacts with many large firms which give preference to club members. There is no charge for this service. The club claims that its restaurants—there are three of them—can provide one of the cheapest and best meals in London—a threecourse meal for as little as ss.