In partnership with Warwick Conferences, Woodland Grange Conference Centre hosted the 15th annual Conference Centres of Excellence Chefs’ Challenge Competition on Saturday 9th November 2013.  The event invites chefs who work in any of the nationwide CCE centres to take part in a cook-off competition at nearby Stratford Upon Avon College, where their skills are put to the test with specific criteria for their menu.  This year, the chefs had to prepare a 3 course meal suitable for a banquet, using beef for their main course.  

The competition again included a Food Service Skills award, to encourage food service staff to take part and support their chef colleague.

The competition has proved to be a stepping stone for young chefs to go on to higher profile competitions nationwide and is endorsed by the British Culinary Federation.  Each Chef receives a certificate and one year’s free membership of the BCF.

The Judges for the cook-off competition were:

• Christopher Basten Craft Guild of Chefs

• Graham Crump (Chair) Executive Chef, University of Warwick

• Graham Day Food H&S Manager, Warwick University

• Jim Eaves Chairman, British Culinary Federation

• Peter Griffiths MBE Director, Le Salon Culinaire International 

• Stephen Lambert University of Brighton and TUCO Food Service Skills

The 11 Finalists were:

• Scott Cawse, Barnett Hill

• Jennifer Chaudhuri-Goff, Maple House

• Ryan Dare supported by Natalja Saveljeva for Food Service, Warwick Conferences

• Robert Gossage, Imago @ Burleigh Court

• Bartosz Kowalczyk, Missenden Abbey

• Ross McMillan, Stirling Management Centre

• Iain Miller, Woodside

• Daniel Park, Kents Hill Park

• Josh Sewell, The Manor House

• Claire Willett supported by Megan Horne for Food Service, Wyboston Lakes

• Matthew Wiltshire, Ashorne Hill

The Awards Dinner was this year held at Woodland Grange Conference Centre in Leamington Spa.  However the Competition was still Chaired by Andrew Taylor, Food & Beverage Manager from Warwick Conferences Scarman.  The dinner was attended by 110 guests from CCE member centres, including a number of the conference industry’s leading figures.  The event was supported and sponsored by:

• 3663 First for Food Service

• Althams Meats

• British Premium Meats

• Kent Frozen Foods

• Knight Catering

• Nisbets plc

• Savilles Audio Visual

• E Sidwells

• Stratford Upon Avon College

• Tchibo Coffee International

• Wilson Vale Catering Management

Plus the following CCE Centres:

• Ashorne Hill

• The Beardmore, Scotland

• Burleigh Court

• Kents Hill Park

• The Moller Centre,

• The Sundial Group

• Warwick Conferences

• Woodland Grange

• Wyboston Lakes

A raffle took place during the Awards Dinner, raising £822 for the “Meeting Industry Meeting Needs” charity.

The winners of each Award category were:

• Best Hygiene:   Daniel Park, Kents Hill Park

• Best Starter:                 Matthew Wiltshire, Ashorne Hill

• Best Main Course:   Daniel Park, Kents Hill Park

• Best Dessert: Scott Cawse, Barnett Hill

• Best Food Service Skills: Natalja Saveljeva, Warwick Conferences, Scarman

• Chairman’s Award for Best Team Work: Claire Willett and Megan Horne, Wyboston Lakes

• Joint Bronze:   Ryan Dare, Warwick Conference Scarman

Claire Willett, Wyboston Lakes

• Silver: Matthew Wiltshire, Ashorne Hill

• Gold: Daniel Park, Kents Hill Park

After much deliberation, the Judges could not differentiate between two chefs for the Bronze Award, so made the decision to award two Bronze medals.

The Gold award winner, Daniel Park from Kents Hill Park presented a menu of :

Starter 

Scottish hand dived scallops, charred corn, pancetta, pumpkin

~~~

Main 

Smoked fillet of beef, braised shin, horseradish pomme puree, 

autumn vegetables, truffle and Madeira jus

~~~

Dessert 

Egremont Russet Apple Fritters, blackberry gel, crumble Anglaise

Blind athlete raises over £1,000 for charity

Chris Marshall, a 21 year old blind athlete from Parkhall, Clydebank, has successfully completed a charity triathlon at the Beardmore Health Club, raising over £1,000 for Guide Dogs for the Blind. 

Chris has been blind since suffering a blood clot at age 15. After spending six weeks in a coma, he awoke to discover he could no longer see: having to learn how to walk, talk and even eat again. 

A member of the Beardmore Health Club since then, Chris has been training for just over two months to complete the sprint-led triathlon; replacing the traditional swim, bike ride and run with 20 kilometres on a static exercise bike, 750 metres on a rowing machine and 5 kilometres on a cross-trainer. 

Fitness instructor Chris McGoogan and Health Club Manager Craig McKinnon, were delighted to see the hard work and dedication had paid off, when Chris completed the circuit in one hour, eight minutes and 54 seconds: beating his target time of one hour 15 minutes.

Commenting on the success of the triathlon, Craig McKinnon said: “We’re very proud of Chris; we knew he would do well, but he has surpassed every target we set for him. He’s been training with us for about 6 years now and is truly an inspiration to everyone here, he has an incredible attitude. 

“It was really important for him to do this triathlon and raise money for Guide Dogs for the Blind to show that you shouldn’t let anything stand in your way: you can accomplish whatever you set your mind to.”

With the initial target of raising £250, Chris has now raised £580 through his JustGiving page (www.justgiving.com/chris-marshal12) and taken this total to well over £1,000 thanks to the support and sponsorship of local shops and businesses.  

Chris, who carried on exercising after completing the triathlon, said: “raising money for Guide Dogs for the Blind means a lot to me; outside of the gym, guide dogs are probably my main interest. A lot of people don’t realise it takes £50,000 to raise and train a guide dog and that this is generated through a charity. Guide dogs can make such a positive difference to so many people, so I want to raise as much money and awareness as possible to let them carry on the amazing work.

“I’m keen to get on the waiting list to get a guide dog of my own. I don’t know what the plan is for the next fundraiser, but I’m definitely going to stay involved with the charity.”

Weetwood Hall strengthens membership with Conference Centres of Excellence

Weetwood Hall, one of the finest conference centres in the North of England, has developed their relationship with Conference Centres of Excellence, by becoming the latest full member of the UK’s only sales and marketing consortium of dedicated meeting providers.

Set within 9 acres of woodland and gardens, the award winning Weetwood Hall is one of the finest Conference centres in the North of England which has been awarded with AIM gold accreditation for its facilities, services and customer care, as well as the highest Green status, for meetings & events within the healthcare sector awarded by Compliant Venues.

The dedicated centre along with the Manor House has a total of 36 conference and seminar rooms; the largest seating up to 200 (theatre style) / 120 (cabaret) with an audio visual link to an adjacent room seating further 160 (theatre style).

There are 106 en-suite bedrooms, offering six different styles of accommodation from junior double to luxury bedrooms. Recently refurbished bedrooms allow guests to enjoy a stylish and modern interior that provides a relaxing area as well as spacious work environment.

Weetwood Hall has been working with Conference Centres of Excellence for some time, and has now decided to join as full member which enables the venue to benefit from the group’s marketing activities, providing customers with a single route to booking one of our nationwide venues, with consistent quality standards.

Anthony Lishman, Executive Director of Conference Centres of Excellence said “Leeds has been identified as one of the truly up and coming areas for the conference industry, and we are delighted to welcome Weetwood Hall to full membership in order to continue growing our Nationwide presence.  Weetwood Hall is an exceptional venue delivering everything we look for as part of our quality promise to customers.” 

Conference Centres of Excellence has been working with specialist venues in the meetings, training and events industry for 21 years, and its 32 members include many of the country’s best known specialist venues, covering a geographical area extending from the South East of England to Scotland.  Before joining venues have to meet stringent criteria in terms of facilities, accommodation and customer care. 

Michael Longstaff, General Manager at Weetwood Hall stated “We are pleased to continue and strengthen our partnership with Conference Centres of Excellence.  This affiliation delivers excellent representation in the corporate marketplace which we require as an independent conference centre & hotel”.

Corporate Training - Get the base right and see it pan out perfectly...

It should be easy to make a pizza. After all, the dough is just a handful of simple ingredients - flour, water, yeast – and then there is just the oven time.  If you apply the standard approach, you’ll probably achieve a base that’s OK... But nothing better.

Pizza bases vary enormously, in texture, presentation, taste and quality. The pizza is now effectively a world commodity, but the range, variety and quality is breathtaking – from breathtakingly delicious to gasp-inducingly bland. This spectrum of quality is a major concern to those who guard the origins of the iconic food and genuinely care for its heritage, the Neapolitans:  so much so that in 1984 they formed the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana -  the True Neapolitan Pizza Association – to protect and preserve the taste and texture of the authentic pizza. The AVPN lists all those standard ingredients: but the secrets of perfection are in the preparation techniques and the baking. 

What has the humble pizza to do with organising training events? 

Well, similar attitudes exist. Those that commission training events believe that Standardisation and Commoditisation are good things. After all, you know what you’re going to get and what price you are going to pay, you can budget better and model your costs more effectively so that you know what profit or R.o.I you are going to make. The approach also represents the easy option and usually the most straightforward. In other words, you get by with something that’s OK.  

But more often than not, as with the pizza, the standard approach usually means blandness – uninspiring events that may achieve the turnover but fail to excite the customer, or in our terms, the delegate. Because the approach excludes the key techniques that make for truly effective events - creativity, inspiration, innovation, anticipation, exceptional support and service. I’d argue that ignoring any or all of these factors actually threatens what you’re really trying to achieve:  inspired, motivated and well trained people.

More than ever, corporate training has to be optimised if it is to reinforce an organisation’s competitive advantage. But why go to great lengths selecting the right courses for your people to attend, the best trainer possible to deliver and inspire them, then care so little for the environment in which it is delivered? It puts the whole end product at risk. As with the pizza, it’s the base that counts most of all, and the best base for your event is an environment in which your people won’t be distracted by poor or unwilling service, facilities that don’t meet the needs of the trainers, extraneous noise or lack of responsiveness from those who staff the venue. 

In a Conference Centre of Excellence, the base combines the best ingredients and advanced techniques - conditions that not only optimise the education process, but also give you those vital by-products of getting people together: effective and spontaneous networking and the ready sharing of best practice. We believe that those results, together with service that is intuitively supportive and rates that are truly all-inclusive, give the organiser real value for money. 

  

To get all your ingredients right for a successful training event, call us on 0845 230 1414 or visit our website - or next time, ask your agent to book a Conference Centre of Excellence, for the very best results.  

CEME Conference Centre welcome their new Events Manager

CEME Conference Centre is delighted to announce that Ranjith Kumar has joined the venue team as Events Manager.

Ranjith has worked in the hospitality industry for over 6 years having joined from the Warldorf Hilton where he spent 3 years.  He has particular expertise in hospitality and events and in his new role he will ensure that each event is organized meticulously.

Ranjith joins a busy team in the Conference Centre and looks forward to bringing his expertise to the events team at this award winning Conference Centre.

Speaking of his new role Ranjith said “I am delighted to be joining CEME Conference Centre and I am looking forward to contributing to the CEME’s growth and reputation for great meetings and hospitality”

CEME Conference Centre is an award-winning meetings venue offering innovative and flexible solutions for all your meeting requirements from our ‘high-tech’ POD Theatre to small meeting rooms, conference, exhibition and outdoor space.  CEME can host product launches, presentations, awards, training seminars, conferences, film shoots and exhibitions for up to 600 with the latest AV technology, natural day-light and special inclusive rates and is ideally located for London Docklands, City, East London and Essex with excellent underground, train and road links and free parking for 500 cars.

Ranjith is looking forward to welcoming you and ensuring your event at CEME Conference runs smoothly from conception to finish.

EEF Venues takes prospective clients on a virtual tour

EEF Venues has produced three individual videos to provide a ‘virtual tour’ of its three distinctive venues: Woodland Grange, Broadway House and Engineers’ House. 

Martyn Bowen, Venue Manager at Engineers House

John Turpin, group operations manager for EEF Venues, said: ” The power of visual imagery to sell a venue cannot be underestimated. Video, in particular, can give potential bookers a real insight into a venue’s facilities, ethos and ambience. 

“Prospective clients can’t always find the time to visit a venue but the beauty of these short videos is that they showcase everything we have to offer throughout the group.”

Each of the three minute videos highlights the versatility of meeting rooms available at each venue, and covers everything from the food offer and audio visual facilities to local amenities and attractions.

“Our goal is to give a flavour of each venue,” said John Turpin. “All of the voiceovers and presenters seen on the three videos are EEF Venues’ staff, who were only too delighted to showcase their superb facilities.” 

Films of each venue can be seen on our venue pages here>

Warwick Conferences awarded Investors in People accreditation

Coventry- and Warwickshire-based Warwick Conferences is celebrating after once again being awarded the prestigious Investors in People accreditation. The achievement places The University of Warwick business amongst an elite group of employers – just a quarter of firms achieve the standard.

The areas in which Warwick’s collection of conferencing venues was recently found to particularly excel are: the apprenticeships programme; staff inductions; the learning and development programme for staff; and the staff Reward and Recognition scheme.

Alan Robinson, Director of Warwick Conferences, comments: “We’re delighted that our efforts continue to be recognised by the Investors in People standard. 

“We believe that it’s our people that really set us apart in the industry, so we’re dedicated to providing a framework of opportunities to progress.

“The fact that we’ve retained the award provides clear evidence of our investment in training and development initiatives for our people, and shows that we are dedicated to continually improving standards.”

Investors in People (IIP) is the UK’s leading business improvement standard, channelling the power of people to transform performance across a whole range of industries. It provides advice and support to organisations nationwide with a view to helping them achieve their goals.

Businesses applying for accreditation are assessed by an independent panel, which not only evaluates existing training and development programmes and other people-related initiatives, but also conducts interviews with staff and management in confidence in order to build a true picture.

Following a two-day assessment, cross sections of staff from the sales department and the Radcliffe, Arden, and Scarman venues at Warwick Conferences were interviewed. 

Warwick Conferences, part of the University of Warwick, is one of the leading collections of dedicated conferencing space in the UK.