Before they arrive

The one email in here that carries something only you know: the gate code, which track to take, that the water is off on the top field. Write it once under Welcome and it goes out on its own a few days before each group arrives.

Writing something switches it on. Clearing it switches it off. There is no separate toggle, because a toggle and a message can disagree — on with nothing written sends an empty email, off with something written leaves you wondering why nothing happens. The page says which state you are in as you type, and how many groups are in the window right now.

It goes to confirmed bookings only, never provisional ones. That is deliberate rather than tidy: this email usually carries your gate code, and a gate code is how somebody gets in. A provisional hold blocks the dates as firmly as a confirmed booking, but it is not one anybody has committed to.

One per booking, ever. Nothing is sent to a group already on site, or to a booking with no email address, or to your own use. Seven days is the default — long enough for a group to act on what you have told them, close enough that the gate code is still the current one.

Their booking details are added underneath automatically, so there is no need to repeat the dates. If they accepted your terms, the email links to the version they agreed to; it does not repeat the whole thing, because the confirmation already carried a copy and the gate code is what they opened this one for.

The gate code can fill itself in. Underneath the message is a list of codes by the dates each one works — 1 to 6 January is 1234, 7 to 13 January is 5678. Both days count: that code works on the 1st and on the 6th, and the next one starts on the 7th. Two codes cannot cover the same day; you will be told which one is in the way rather than ending up with two answers to the same question.

Press Put it in the email and each group gets the code covering their stay. It starts off, because writing the codes down is worth doing on its own — the page shows today’s code at the top, which is the reason most people will open it — and that should not start sending them to customers by itself.

A group whose stay crosses a change gets both codes, dated. Sending only the one for their arrival day is how somebody ends up locked out on the Wednesday holding an email from you with the wrong number in it. The departure day counts too: they need the gate to get out on the last morning.

If no code covers their dates, the email doesn’t mention the gate at all. It never sends a label with nothing after it, and it never reaches for the nearest code instead. So the panel tells you how far your codes run and how many groups are booked past the end of them — that number is the one worth looking at.

Saturday-to-Saturday weeks. Under Changeover days you can add a season — “the summer holidays”, say — between two dates, and force arrivals, departures or both onto one day of the week. The rest of the year is untouched.

The name you give it is what a group is told, so write it the way you would say it: “in the summer holidays we take arrivals on Saturdays”. Each end is judged on its own — a booking arriving before a season starts and leaving inside it is only asked about the leaving.

Seasons don’t repeat next year, on purpose. A rule that silently went on applying in 2031 because you set it up in 2026 would be worse than one you renew — you would have to go and find a rule nobody remembered setting, and the only sign of it would be a booking turned away. The panel says how far your seasons reach so renewing is something you are reminded of.

Two seasons can’t overlap: two would give two answers about which day to arrive on. And if a season would force arrivals onto a day you don’t take arrivals on, it is refused with the reason — that combination would leave nothing bookable for those weeks, and neither rule looks wrong on its own.

How many people can sleep here at once. The last box under Rules about a booking is the only one about the whole site rather than one booking: the toilets-and-water question, counted per night across every provisional and confirmed booking. Per-field capacity already handles pitch space.

Day visitors and evening visits count as nought, because they have gone home. An evening visit holds its field for the night so nobody else is given it, but nobody sleeps there, and counting a Cub pack who left at nine would make the limit fire on an empty site. Enquiries count as nought too — two groups can have an enquiry in for the same weekend, and neither one holds a field or a headcount.

The booking screen names the worst night and both numbers — “that would be 118 sleeping here on Saturday 3 October, and you take 100” — because that is the number worth arguing with. The enquiry form turns a stranger away with your limit but never tells them how full you are, which is nobody’s business outside the campsite.