The late Vanessa Cotton, who the scholarship is named after

Dominique Dashwood-Evans, a final year Hospitality student, has won the Vanessa Cotton Scholarship to attend the European Meetings & Events Conference 2012 in Budapest, Hungary from the 29-31 January.

She has had a beamingly successful past year, having just completed a highly desirable placement year with catering company CH&Co which led her fortunately to be paired with mentor Peter Haigh who suggested she applied for the scholarship.

“Finding out I had won was a huge surprise, I was not expecting it at all but it was fantastic news and I will now make sure I make the most of this amazing opportunity. I would like to thank my three referees who helped me to win this award, Simon Thomas, Natalie Mainwaring (CH&Co) and of course, my mentor Peter Haigh.”

Dominique is grateful not only for the bursary which will fund her travel to the conference in Budapest, but being given the opportunity to hone her public speaking skills,

“Attending this conference will provide me with the opportunity to develop a more professional presentation building my confidence for future occasions. It will also prove invaluable for my dissertation which looks into ‘how social media can influence the decision making of events bookers’ as social media is a topic which will be covered in the specific interest sessions at the conference.”