This time we meet Paul Button

Operations Manager at Essex Outdoors Mersea

Tell us a little about you

Hi my name is Paul Button and I am reporting in from East Mersea on the beautiful Mersea Island.

My love of the outdoors and outdoor adventure grew out of trips to the mountains, boating on lakes and kayaking on rivers; all which gave me a feeling of confidence and freedom which was not available during my school life or place I lived.

What do you do at Essex Outdoors?

I now manage both the Essex Outdoors Mersea centre and Cudmore Grove Country Park.
I feel incredibly lucky at this difficult time to be able to escape to both sites for routine safety and security checks and at the same time enjoy all that both locations have to offer.

The Main focus of my role at Essex Outdoors Mersea is to Support a team of managers to enable them to deliver quality services to our customers, be it high impacting exciting activities or serving up 1000s of meals a day that are both tasty and healthy.
The other focus is most definitely our great customers who return year on year and who we really do care about; from their arrival to the sad departures at the end of the week.

At this time of the year we would all normally be working frantically for the thousands of visitors who would have already visited and getting poised for the arrival of thousands more.
The preparation for this includes staff training, site maintenance and replacing a lot of the resources so those taking part have the best we can offer.

What’s the most rewarding part of what you do?

My job gives me a great deal of satisfaction in that I get to see young people really grow while at the centre. I also get to see the staff team that we employ equally grow as adults and really bloom into great Instructors as well as people.

The other important thing about being a manager of two large centres is keeping myself and the business up to speed with current trends, keeping things fresh. I always try to look for new ideas and activities that we could incorporate into what we offer. I do this by reading industry articles, using the internet and its many industry forums and directly talking to others in the industry as well as my team.

When you’re not at work, what are you most likely to be doing?

During these difficult times, I have found myself using the time when not at the centres going for remote walks and cycle rides, cooking for my family and doing those home repairs that seem to have been on the list for ever! But even more importantly having quality time with my family which at this time of year is normally very rare indeed due to the seasonality of the job.

Stay safe

Paul Button
Operations Manager – Essex Outdoors Mersea and Cudmore Grove Country Park