Heather Hartwell awarded Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Cooks

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Professor in Food Service and Applied Nutrition at BU, Heather Hartwell, was recently awarded Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Cooks, as one of the first women to do so from a professional perspective which is called by redemption.

Heather Hartwell

When collecting her award last week, Heather said “It’s a great privilege to be recognised as influential within the field of food and food service.  I look forward to being able to drive my sheep across London Bridge, which is one of the perks of being a Freeman of the City of London!”

The smallest of London’s Livery Companies by Liverymen, the Worshipful Company of Cooks can trace its origins back to the 12th Century. Thirty-fifth in order of seniority in the City Livery Companies, it was founded from two guilds of cooks in medieval London – the Cooks of Eastcheap and the Cooks of Bread Street. Its membership today still includes craft tradesmen, and its activities engage with a broad range of organisations associated with cooking.

The Company’s purpose in recent years is to contribute as effectively as it can to the pursuit of a good society – to be socially useful. The Cooks’ Company is as vital today – actively supporting the modern day craft and catering industry, as well as funding a range of charitable activities.

By: Professor Vanora Hundley

School of Tourism’s Masters students pitch mobile marketing strategies to Pebble Beach restaurant

Posted . Filed under News, Student Experience.

Working in pairs, students pitched their mobile marketing strategy to the proprietor Mike Caddy. Before starting their work, students visited the premises where they were briefed about Pebble Beach’s history, current initiatives and vision for the future. They were also treated with coffee and pasties in the terrace overlooking the Needles.Pebble Beach 1

After three weeks of intense work, students presented a variety of strategies aimed at attracting new customers and increasing the loyalty of existing ones. The presentations covered a wide range of issues associated to a mobile marketing strategy, including current trends, technological solutions, resources, the production of content and Return on Investment. Themes covered included search engine optimisation, booking system, QR codes, rewards program, gaming, customisation and social media. While students were only expected to design a strategy, one group went further and prepared a fully working app for the restaurant.

Commenting on the presentations, Mike Caddy said that he was impressed with the variety and detail of the strategies: “Students understood well the challenges faced by a small business like Pebble Beach when it comes to using mobile marketing. Students carried out a lot of research on current trends in mobile marketing and came up with many interesting solutions that could help Pebble Beach improve the mobile experience we provide to our customers. I have learned immensely from this experience, which helped me to expand and consolidate my views on what the priorities in this area should be”.

To Alessandro Inversini, leader of the Mobile Communication & Mobile Marketing uni, the presentations “were extremely interesting and well conceived; in 4 weeks (i.e. the duration of the unit) students gained lots of theoretical and practical knowledge about mobile marketing and mobile communication. The overall quality of the designed interventions for Pebble Beach was extremely good. Furthermore, having a real client to work with has been an additional motivation for students that have been confronted with a real situation and real comments from a professional in the field.”

Pebble Beach 2

Pebble Beach is a ward winning restaurant in Barton on Sea, New Milton, Hampshire. Besides the restaurant featuring outstanding views over the Isle of Wight, Pebble Beach offers accommodation and the opportunity to host small scale, boutique business events and personal celebrations. It is also about to open a delicatessen Petit Pebbles next door, which will offer hot and cold drinks and a selection of wines from Pebble Beach’s restaurant.

By: Miguel Moital

Pedal2Medal with sports students

Posted . Filed under News, Student Experience.

On Sunday 25th May, a team of sports management students hosted the event Pedal2Medal at Ensbury Velodrome.

Pedal2Medal

Students explained that the aim of the event was to create more awareness for the track and raise funds for ‘Wessex Accessible Cycling Club’, a local charity for disabled riders.

Spectators were able to enjoy refreshments, and experience a fun relaxed day of sporting, whilst they watched friends and family partake in a series of competitive races. The students were ecstatic to announce the presence of a Paralympion cyclist, Darren Kenny, at the event to hand out the trophies and flowers to the winners of each event; as well as world record holder Lauren Booth who unofficially broke her own record for the standing 200m sprint at the event on Sunday!

The team was extremely happy with the turnout, and to top it off, received a high 1st by their assessors! We spoke to Event Manager, Charlotte Leary who said that over 50 riders turned up on the day from over 20 teams across the South of England!

Charlotte added that “overall we felt the day was a huge success, despite getting a little sun burnt, it was a very enjoyable day for all!”

By: Divya Satwani

Sport Management students bring the Handball Games to SportBU

Posted . Filed under News, Student Experience.

Setting up for an afternoon of mayhem at SportBU, a team of sport management students await the onslaught of excited students. Leaving the door open to experienced and novice handball players, this event allowed for some great team building, skill learning and a lot of laughs.

Handball games

The second years conducted a series of events as part of their course requirement. Events such as the “Handball Games” allowed for a great opportunity for students to do something very different to our usual nights out of drinking and madness. Students from all different varsity teams came together to form amazing teams for one day only.

After a brief introduction and professional coaching session, the students were let loose to try out their techniques. A series of high energy matches took place. Students were really immersed in the experience and a lot of healthy competition took place.

The day ended in an awards ceremony for the winning team and some sore losers from others. All in all, the event was a success and students, managers and all the sponsors were very happy (and exhausted!).

Handball games 2

This event was supported by Free your Fitness and SportBU. Refreshments and information brochures were provided as well as high quality equipment and professional coaching. The management team would like to thank them for making the event such a success.

By: Kirsty Simms

Sports Management students smash it with BU Showdown: Dodgeball

Posted . Filed under News, Student Experience.

“Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge!” Most of us are aware of the fast-paced game from the infamous Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller movie, but how many of us have had the chance to be on the front line, hurling the next ball?

BU Showdown1A team of sport management students created a full afternoon event for students to release some steam and experience the intense game of dodgeball first hand. The students said that the aim for their event was to provide “BU students the opportunity to participate in non-traditional sports”. The event certainly managed that! Students from all courses, all types of sporting experience and all levels of fitness grouped together and let loose in a style similar to that of wild animals!

Teams such as “The Oi Ois” and “Balls of Steel” took part in quick-fire five minute games in a knockout fashion. Those who did not make it to the semi-finals stayed on to cheer on a tense finale. Spirits were high and there was a great atmosphere and sense of comraderie in the sport hall.

Not only did this event provide students with a great game, there was also some great music from a full DJ set up in the centre of the hall. This helped to get the students pumped when the games kicked off. Some sponsorship from Red Bull also gave the competitors a helpful boost.

 

BU Showdown 2Overall, the event was a roaring success and for a good cause too! All proceeds from £1 entry to the event went to raising money for RAG, Bournemouth Uni’s registered charity.

By: Kirsty Simms

Final year Retail Management students reveal their plans for rejuvenating Poole

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Real life consultancy projects for final year students provide a fantastic opportunity to showcase their ideas, and this year an opportunity emerged a little closer to home.

Retail students in PooleThe Dolphin Shopping Centre in Poole has been a major talking point in recent years. Consumers feel that Poole (as a destination) is let down by its shopping experience, and competition from West Quay (Southampton) and Gunwharf Quays (Portsmouth) is in a different class. However, BU Retail Management students took on the challenge of how to rejuvenate the shopping experience in Poole.

Following a brief set out by Poole’s economic development manager, Adrian Trevett, and BU lecturer, David Kilburn, a group of students presented three concepts to John Grinnell, the centre manager of the Dolphin Shopping Centre and the current owners Legal and General Property (L&G). These concepts included a restaurant parade located in the Falkland Square walkway, a shipping container market situated on Poole Quay and an omni-channel retailing platform.

The omni-channel retailing concept was designed to bring all retailers at both ends of the high street together on one multi-channel platform. The service would provide a ‘click and collect’ hub and a home delivery service, where orders could be placed online by phone or at ‘interactive hubs’ proposed by the students.

Adrian Trevett said: ” I am keen to try and push some of their ideas and I particularly liked the logo and slogan the students created for the project.”

John Grinnell added: “It was fantastic to see the students’ enthusiasm for the project, some of the ideas they put forward were really well thought out and very creative. They had a great understanding of the Poole community and had carried out extensive research for their project.”

Commenting on the group’s presentation was BU student, Nicola Beattie: “Everyone seemed to be impressed with our suggestions and we had fantastic feedback.”

By: Paul Fripp

Dragons Den experience at School of Tourism

Posted . Filed under Featured, News, Student Experience.

The Innovation unit this year involved working with 9 local organisations across the Events Management and Events & Leisure Marketing programmes.

This year the organisations included: The Print Room, Aruba, Bournemouth International Conference Centre, The Langtry Manor Hotel, Haskins Garden Centre, The Captains Club, The Green House Hotel, Chapel Gate and QE Leisure Centre.  The students had site visits to the organisations in February and then had to develop a new event or leisure product to suit their specific organisation’s needs.  The organisations were invited to the School of Tourism in May for their students to present their new ideas in a Dragons Den format.

Dragons Den 1

Gail Collins, Events Sales & Marketing Manager, BH Live said: “I am always pleased to see the talent and passion from the Bournemouth University students during their annual presentations to BH Live.  It is reassuring to know that our industries will in the future benefit from the skills they are now perfecting.” Matthew Piovan, Operations Manager of the Print Room said “I always enjoy working with the first year Events students at Bournemouth University, it is great to see their fresh ideas and approaches to event concepts that can be placed into a trading business to help increase revenue and awareness. Having partaken in the Dragon Den’s presentation element of their course for a number of years, it is always fascinating to see the new ideas that the students develop that we as the business managers may not have considered hosting, but now with different angles and target markets in mind, we do look at considering one or two in the future.

Dragons Den 2

Simon Morris, General Manager at the Haskins Garden Centre, said that he was impressed by the students approach during their fact finding visit to the centre and many of the ideas from the resulting presentations would be practical and viable to pursue: “We were impressed with their clear thinking and grasp of the realities of operating in a specialist retail environment.”

Learning to work together and building a relationship with a group and have an ownership for your work, is the greatest feeling

 Dragons Den 6

“In 10 weeks only, first year students had to understand and apply several new product development tools and processes, including PEST, SWOT, product portfolio analysis, Ansoff matrix, target market selection, idea generation and screening, creativity techniques and financial analysis”, said Dr. Miguel Moital, leader of the Event & Leisure Innovation unit. The teaching team, which also comprises Ms Pearl Morrison, Ms Kate Jones and Ms. Liz Gordon, agreed that once again students pitched some great new ideas underpinned in solid business cases.

Dragons Den 5

“This experience was an extremely useful insight into industry and the demands that would have to be met when performing a pitch to a business. I’ve learnt the importance of knowing the different processes of an events structure. The pressure of the pitch and the significance of time management when insuring the main points of the event have been portrayed in an exciting, innovative manner. I am very thankful for this opportunity and will definitely benefit from the experience in the future.” Alice Matthews (student)

Dragons Den 4

“Throughout the process of my Innovation, Dragons Den experience, I discovered that just coming up with a realistic idea is not so simple and fast as it first may seem. Especially working in a team, having a group with personality and opinion can be both beneficial and problematic and very challenging at times. However being able to delve into the background of a company and relating an event to their values can be very rewarding. Particularly creating something new to a real life company can be very daunting, but after learning to work together and building a relationship with a group and have an ownership for your work, is the greatest feeling. Although some areas could be tweaked, it is just a small look into the events industry and how it works, and the experience has only strengthened my determination to become a successful events manager in the future.” Verity Odukogbe​ (student)

Dragons Den 3

“Personally I found the experience exciting as well as challenge, allowing me to work with individuals I hadn’t before and learning my own strengths and weaknesses. Having a ‘real life’ business case made the process more challenging however more motivational as we had something to deliver, I loved the experience and would recommend to use in the future!” Abigail Mackenzie (student)

By: Pearl Morisson and Dr. Miguel Moital

School of Tourism student wins TMI David Hughes Memorial Award 2014

Posted . Filed under Featured, News, Student Experience.

This year’s winner of the Tourism Management Institute David Hughes Memorial Award for outstanding student placement is Claire Rosslee, a student on the BA (Hons) Tourism Management course at Bournemouth University.

Claire was presented with her award at the TMI Digital Destinations Hot Topic event at Cheltenham Racecourse by TMI President, Neil McCollum MTMI MTS and TMI Head of CPD, Paul Williams MTMI FTS.  Claire receives one year’s complimentary Associate membership of TMI as well as the chance to attend the Hot Topic event, hear the latest developments in destination management and network with destination management professionals from across the UK.

The award, in memory of late TMI President David Hughes FTMI, is designed to encourage students on TMI Recognised courses to reflect on their placement experience, how it enables them to see concepts and theories in practice and acquire valuable workplace skills for their future career.  Students have to write a reflective report on their placement and submit it together with references from their placement host and their tutor.  The reports are assessed by the TMI Continuing Professional  Development Group and the TMI Executive.

Assessors particularly liked the way Claire had “reflected on her own strengths and weaknesses and demonstrated how her role had positively helped address these” and felt that she showed “a thorough understanding of destination management and how this is evolving.”  She had “given a good deal of consideration to her role and … taken on additional responsibilities, recognising that she is working for a small team”. Overall it was seen as a “very competent, mature and thoughtful piece of work”.

TMI Head of CPD, Paul Williams, said: “Claire’s placement with the official DMO for the English Riviera provided her with an excellent opportunity to gain valuable destination management and marketing insights to enhance her knowledge and understanding of the tourism industry gained as part of her sandwich degree course. The benefits of this practical industry experience were clearly evident throughout her reflective account and panel members were unanimous in judging her to be the overall winner of the David Hughes Memorial Award. In the light of the overall quality of the submission it is felt that this should be used as an example of good practice and guidance for other students in future. Well done Claire.”

By : TMI

TMI is the professional destination management section of the Tourism Society. For more information about TMI and the award please visit the TMI web site: http://www.tmi.org.uk