KOIL

2011: Our unique, not-for-profit oil buying group

KOIL was started ten years ago by Sarah Langeveld and Amanda Edge. These civic-minded village residents felt there must be a more economic way for South Kilworth, which has no gas, to organise its oil supply.

In2011, after meetings in the village hall, they formed a simple group buying scheme which had just a few dozen members to start. Each month, if members needed oil, they would email their order to Sarah & Amanda who would pool the orders and negotiate a better price with suppliers.  They work unselfishly without commission and have saved villagers thousands and thousands of pounds in lower prices and zero commission.

The scheme has proved very popular (obviously) and many hundreds of members have joined from local villages, which all adds to Koil’s negotiating muscle.   Below is part of a note sent around by Sarah  earlier this year which gives some indication of the savings that have been secured for us all by this dedicated duo.

To join contact : admin@koil-group.com

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2022: Amanda, KOIL legend, retires

After 11 fine years of service to KOIL, Amanda has decided to hang up her Watchman and spend more time with her grandchildren.

It was an oil crisis that brought Amanda & I together, with the key aim of making sure people paid a fair price for heating and hot water.  We're proud of what we've achieved in this time, having managed to secure great oil prices at the same time as building strong relationships with suppliers, so that when the going gets tough we get prioritised.  This has proven invaluable on at least 6 occasions, where others were struggling to get supplies.

Amanda has tirelessly logged on each day to check the emails, acknowledge orders and welcome new members, for which I'm hugely grateful and know you all are too.  We've amassed over 300 members to date and she's going to be sorely missed!

KOIL in the future - introducing a new Langeveld

Although Amanda can never be replaced, I have commandeered my husband, Mark, to help out - with my long working hours I know emails would be left unattended for far too long otherwise!  

Mark will be checking emails most days, but in the short term might need to refer stuff to me when I'm available.  Could you please therefore give us a couple of days to reply before getting concerned about emails having not arrived.  If there's anything super urgent and you don't get a swift reply from Mark, please feel free to contact Bartons directly on 0116 2609390.  Your account will be marked as 'KOIL', but hopefully you won't need to call them directly.

It's probably worth running over how we operate again, to ensure we keep KOIL going smoothly:

• The schedule is set for 12 months and a reminder's sent a few days before each order.  It's important that people place their orders by 5pm the day before the scheduled date, so I can pull it all together that evening, for placing the following morning
• When you email your order, please ensure you use the word 'fill' if that's what you require - we have had issues in the past where 'top up' has been used interchangeably and resulted in an unwanted fill!
• If you do want a fill, please also provide an estimate of how much you require - you only pay for what they fit in
• Payment is made direct to the supplier, within 10 days of delivery.  There is a facility to set up a monthly direct debit (you choose the amount), for those that prefer to spread the cost

I'm sure you'll join me in sending Amanda a HUGE thank you for all she's done over the last 11 years and wishing her well as a full time Granny 🙂 (I know, she doesn't look old enough!)

I hope the Langeveld's can continue to keep KOIL the great community service it's always been.

Thanks

Sarah

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HIGHLIGHTS of KOIL's successful negotiations during previous years:
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• Over 750,000 litres ordered in total
• ‍Boiler Juice & YOBCO swung between each other as our price benchmark over the period
• ‍YOBCO have come the closest in the last 18 months, but we’ve still averaged just under 0.5p cheaper than them and on four occasions beat them by 1.5p - 2p per litre
• The Boiler Juice average price was 1.95p more per litre than Koil
• It's not easy to get Watson's prices these days, but we have done so on 5 occasions and found they were just under 3p per litre dearer, on average.
• While we never commit to being the cheapest, we have managed to achieve that consistently since we started out – there’s four times though, when the market has been super competitive, where we’ve had to settle for a ‘price match’ instead of a ‘price beat’. 

There’s no predicting where you would have all ordered your oil from, if not through us, but we do know that if EVERYBODY had ordered from YOBCO instead of us in the last 18 months, you’d have paid over £3,500 more for your oil in that time.  If you’d have ALL bought through Certas (Total Butler, as was) you’d have paid over £46,000 more!  So a little bit of savings collectively go a long, long way…

This editorial prepared by admin@southkilworth.co.uk