Major gain for Wilson Vale

Independent catering company, Wilson Vale, has gained the single largest contract in its fourteen year history to date – a full service contract with Conference Aston in Birmingham. 

Worth £1.75 million in annual turnover, the three-year contract is due to start on 1st August when Wilson Vale will take over from the incumbents, Sodexo, at the 163 bedroom AIM accredited residential conference centre, which is part of Aston University.

As well as managing catering and hospitality services under a seven-day operation, Wilson Vale will manage housekeeping and bar services.  A team of 46 Wilson Vale staff will be involved in running the contract at the venue which attracts up to 55,000 hotel guests and conference delegates each year. 

Andrew Wilson, co-founder of Wilson Vale, said: “This is a seriously special milestone for us. Over the last three years we have steadily developed our conference and venues portfolio so to have gained this flagship venue shows our understanding of the specific needs of this niche market.  

“We were up against some industry heavyweights, and it is wonderful that Conference Aston has bought into our food and our culture to drive their business forward.”

Samantha Brown, head of Conference Aston, said: “As a venue, we are always seeking new ways to drive innovation into our guests’ experience, and food plays a crucial role within this, often creating the lasting impression for our conference and hotel guests. 

“The business tourism sector in Birmingham is increasingly competitive, so it was vital that our contract partner for catering and housekeeping could provide the energy and creativity for us to stand out from the increasing number of conference hotels and continue to develop our first class service offer. Wilson Vale stood out during the tender process with their passion for fresh, local, homemade food and we are looking forward to taking our food offer across our restaurants and bar to exciting new places as we progress the partnership.”

The value of Wilson Vale’s conference portfolio has doubled over the last twelve months, representing 15% of the business, with the remainder of the portfolio within business and industry and private education.

The company now employs 600 people and projected annual turnover is £23 million for 2016.

Since it was established in 2002, Wilson Vale has seen an average 15 cent compounded growth rate year-on-year, showing consistency of standards and growth over its entire history to date.

Wilson Vale became preferred suppliers to Venues of Excellence in 2012 and are in partnership with two member venues.

CEME strikes gold

Not only has CEME Conference Centre retained its Aim Gold status for ‘Accredited In Meetings’ with the MIA, but Events Manager, Ranjith Kumar has been shortlisted in the Conference and Events People category at this year’s miaList awards.

The CEME Conference Centre continues to be the only venue in East London and Essex to achieve AIM Gold status. AIM is the industry recognised mark of distinction, with Gold showing a venue is at the peak of service excellence.

But it’s not just the venue which is celebrating, the announcement that Events Manager, Ranjith Kumar was nominated for an award at the MiaList Awards has also got the conference centre a buzz. The ‘miaList’ recognises and rewards those hardworking, enthusiastic, inspiring individuals that have such a positive effect on everything they do. As a proud sponsor of this year’s ‘miaList’, taking place on Friday 16th September 2016 at the Park Plaza Victoria, London, CEME Conference Centre was always going to be a big part of this year’s event. To have Ranjith as an award finalist is the icing on the cake of what has already been an exciting year for CEME. 

Find out more about the ‘miaList’ awards.

Wyboston Lakes Hotel completes “deluxe” bedroom refurbishment

 The final phase of the £1million bedroom refurbishment project at Wyboston Lakes hotel is now complete and guests will now be occupying the brand new Deluxe Oceania bedrooms.

“The final phase of bedroom refurbishment has been especially exciting as the Deluxe Oceania rooms offer an added level of luxury with the new amenities and mini bars. It was important to us that these rooms continued to compliment the overall leisure and spa experiences available to guests whilst delivering an indulgent and unique feel. We have continued to work with the best designers and contractors on this project and feel the results we’ve achieved will continue to improve the guest experience” - Mark Haynes, Director of Property.

Continuing the already successful partnership with Butterscotch Designs, the new Oceania rooms offer a luxurious and stylish space for guests to relax. These include super king size beds with Hungarian down-topped mattresses, a new pillow menu, 50inch smart flat screen televisions, Espresso coffee machine and Canton tea stations and in-room mini bars with fresh milk and various alcoholic and soft drinks. The en-suite shower rooms feature LED rainfall showers, luxury toiletries and illuminated make-up stations.

Guests staying in the new Deluxe Oceania rooms will also benefit from evening turn down service and complimentary hire of GHD hair straighteners, Xbox game stations and DVD players on request.

The new bedroom designs stem from 138 guest reviews on a number of sample bedrooms created in 2015. From this essential feedback, Wyboston Lakes has once again worked to ensure guests will continue to receive the best experience when staying at the hotel.

Wyboston Lakes takes pride in being an independent eco-friendly company, donating much of the existing soft furnishings and loose furniture to the Emmaus Cambridge Charity as part of the refurbishment programme. 

The exceptionally popular in-room technology and guest services platform, Crave, will continue to be available in all hotel rooms via tablets with software created exclusively for Wyboston Lakes. Guests can view menus, order room service, book spa treatments and access local information from the comfort of their own rooms. 

This has been an incredibly exciting project for Wyboston Lakes and the team looks forward to guests enjoying the new Deluxe Oceania rooms.

imago marks 25th anniversary

imago, the conference and events arm of Loughborough University, is marking its 25th anniversary. 

Since the organisation came into operation with the opening of its four star conference centre and hotel at Burleigh Court, imago has grown and has now become one of the leading academic venues for meetings and events in the UK. 

Emma Boynton, imago’s head of sales and marketing comments on the occasion: “During the last 25 years, imago has gone from strength to strength. We are delighted to be marking our 25th anniversary and everything we have achieved during the last quarter of a century.” 

Kay England, imago’s CEO, has been with the company during the last 25 years and says the business has come a long way since 1991. She comments: “I couldn’t be more proud of what imago has achieved over the past 25 years. Burleigh Court was established on a green field site on Loughborough University campus in 1991. Since then with the help of some fantastic staff we have gone from strength to strength adding Holywell Park, Campus Conferences, The Link Hotel and Event Management to our award winning portfolio. We now have a successful, progressive and vibrant conference, hospitality and meeting group that puts our customers and staff at the heart of everything we do.”

To mark the occasion, imago will be holding a celebratory event on 28th October in support of imago’s partner charities Minnie’s Friends and Twenty Twenty. The event is an opportunity for imago to thank clients for their support over the years and to establish new connections for the future, as well as building on its support of vital local community projects. 

For those unable to attend, visitors to The Meetings Show are also invited to celebrate imago’s 25 years of conferencing excellence at a drinks reception being held on Wednesday June 15 (4-5pm, Stand L600) to raise a glass and capture the moment in their photo booth. 

imago unifies Loughborough University’s conference and events venues under one brand which offers high quality meeting spaces, venues and accommodation along with excellent sports and leisure facilities. imago manages Burleigh Court, Holywell Park, Loughborough University’s conference and events facilities and The Link Hotel. 

Venues of Excellence announces four new members

As Venues of Excellence, formerly known as Conference Centres of Excellence, launched at The Meetings Show at Olympia yesterday (14th June 2016) on Stand No H700, the consortium announces that it has gained four new members in recent weeks.

Venues of Excellence Board Members at The Meetings Show 2016

The four new venues are The Lensbury four star hotel in Middlesex; Manchester Conference Centre in Manchester; Yarnfield Park in Staffordshire and Jurys Inn Hinckley Island in Leicestershire.

Before joining the consortium, venues have to meet stringent criteria in terms of quality, facilities, accommodation and customer care.

A previous member of the consortium, The Lensbury four star hotel and awarding winning conference centre at Teddington Lock, has made the strategic decision to re-join Venues of Excellence in recent weeks.

Ivor Turner, general manager of The Lensbury, explained: “Following a £14.5million investment in upgrading our facilities and training our staff to the highest standards, we feel the timing is right to re-join the consortium.We are delighted to be back in the Venues of Excellence family and look forward to participating in educational exchange, networking and sharing of good practice with other quality-driven venues to deliver exceptional conference services to our clients.”

Stuart Websdale, chairman of Venues of Excellence, said: “The rebranding to Venues of Excellence has been a strategic step to broaden our footprint within the wider hospitality and events sector.

“The quality and calibre of our new members is testament to our reputation and to the work we have done over the past 24 years in providing marketing support, networking and impressive lead generation to our members.”

The consortium’s goal is to grow membership to 50 members by 2020.

With the journey towards having broader representation and increasing value to members already underway, Stuart Websdale is confident that other quality-driven venues from within the wider industry will want to endorse their venue with a badge of excellence synonymous with the Venues of Excellence brand.

He said: “Many of our members are independent players with a shared quality ethos and vision. What we offer is sharing of good practice, idea exchange and benchmarking to drive quality and to deliver excellence to our end users. The strengths of the consortium are many, not the least of which are our emphasis on transparency of relationships and understanding of buyers’ needs."

Venues of Excellence is currently exhibiting at The Meetings Show with six partners: Cranfield Management Development Centre, Bedfordshire; Golden Jubilee Conference Hotel, Glasgow; CIM | Moor Hall, Berkshire; Henley Conferences, Oxfordshire; Missenden Abbey, Buckinghamshire, and one of its newest members, Jurys Inn Hinckley Island, Leicestershire.

Ashorne Hill in the community

One of the core values at Ashorne Hill is to have a positive impact upon the local community and support worthwhile causes. 2015-16 was no exception to this and the venue team are proud to have been involved in a number of activities to benefit others:

We kicked-off the year in supporting Breast Cancer awareness with a number of staff wearing pink for a day and enjoying a range of games and quizzes, together with hosting a cake sale for delegates and staff.

In November 2015, Ashorne Hill responded to calls for volunteers from DIY SOS, one of the nation's best-loved television shows. DIY SOS were planning a BIG Build in Bidford-on-Avon, just a few miles away from us for 20 year old Chloe Print-Lambert who suffers from Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.
We saw this as a fantastic opportunity to put ourselves forward to support this project in the only way we knew possible…. delivering a fantastic range of refreshments prepared by our award winning chefs. Our selection of refreshments included sandwiches, chocolate brownies, doughnuts and hot drinks all of which really helped to rally the volunteers on a cold December afternoon.
It was a huge privilege for us to be selected to support the volunteers at the BIG build, as they created Chloe’s dream family home. The show is due to air in September 2016.

Christmas is a time for giving and with this in mind Ashorne Hill decided to support our local Salvation Army with their Christmas present appeal in 2015. The Christmas present appeal was formed to help make Christmas special for those less fortunate by taking donations of unwrapped toys and gifts. These were then distributed within the local area to children, families, the elderly and the homeless.
The support from the staff at Ashorne Hill with this initiative was huge, and donations for this important appeal came flooding in. Toys, puzzles, books, toiletries, DVDs and chocolate were some of the items that were distributed in and around Leamington Spa making a difference to a number of families and people over the festive period.

For a number of years we have supported Myton Hospice as our chosen charity. In 2015-16 we set a target to raise £2,000. Throughout the past year staff have taken part in a number of fundraising activities and in addition; a tuck shop was provided by our fantastic accounts team, staff got into the festive feeling and wore Christmas jumpers, and a Christmas raffle featured at our staff Christmas lunch with a number of prizes donated by our suppliers. We are delighted to have exceed our target and raised a total of £2,362.50.

Our Managing Director, John Carson, fully supported each of the events and stated, ‘For me, supporting local causes is ingrained in our values and I am extremely proud that each fundraiser is always met with enthusiasm from across the whole business. We make it fun, although I am not sure I will wear a pink shirt again! But seriously, the funds we raise do make a difference and we will continue to support local causes and charities throughout this and future years’.
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Gin Corner at Kents Hill Park

Since 2010 Gin has had a massive revival. In particular the British Gin industry which had a record breaking year in 2015 with sales nearing £1bn. The value of gin sold in supermarkets reached £400 million while on- trade sales also did particularly well according to a report from the Wine and Spirit Trade Association WSTA. 

“There is definitely a Gin boom at the moment” Sarah Glossop, Head of Sales and Marketing Kents Hill Park Training and Conference Centre, “This is being led by the popularity of the drink within the 18-34 age bracket and the diverse abundance of quality products in the marketplace. They have become so popular we have created a ‘Gin Corner’ in our ‘Lounge Bar’. We are extremely lucky to have Paul Mott on our team who has a wealth of experience in the bar industry. In October last year Paul competed in the Conference Centres of Excellence –Chef’s Challenge  where he won the award for ‘Best Cocktails’ as well as ‘Service Champion’ and along with Chef Nic Harry, ‘Best Team’. We gave Paul the challenge of selecting a range of outstanding Gins and he really has come up trumps”

Even though there are hundreds of Gins on the market at the moment not a lot of people realise that Gin comes in 7 different styles. You have the more common London Dry’s such as Gordons and Bombay Sapphire. Then there’s the  New Western styles such as Martin Millers and Hoxton. The older more traditional style is called Old Tom with brands such as Haymans or Jensen’s.  Navy Strength has an abv of 55%! It had to be this potent because Naval Officers would drink it on old warships; if they spilt this Gin on the gunpowder, they would still be able to get it to light! Sloe Gin is more of a liqueur and is made using sloe berries and sugar and has a low abv of around 20%. You also have your Gins such as Plymouth and Xoriguer from Menorca which like Champagne and Tequila are protected by laws governing the region they are produced in. Finally the grandfather of Gin is Genever. This is a Dutch spirit and is made with varying amounts of malt wine and was given to soldiers before heading into battle giving them what we know today as Dutch Courage. 

Gin Corner at Kents Hill Park offers 8 different gins taken from the different styles available as well as a premium tonic in Fever Tree. We serve our G&T’s  with lots of ice in a tall glass with varying garnishes from berries, citrus, mint and even cucumber!

Coming into what we hope will be a hot summer, guests will want a long refreshing drink to cool down and slowly sip in the sun and nothing beats a G&T!!