Congratulations to Rachel, who completed her final exam of her apprenticeship at the tail end of last week. She's passed the course with flying colours and, I understand, in something of a record time.
A year ago, I wouldn't have considered that we're big enough to employ apprentices, nor that we could provide an environment conducive to someone learning the "tools of the Trade" for the hotel and catering business with us. However, Swindon College's workplace based courses, and a candidate who's very much self-motivated and able to concentrate on the studies made a big difference, and we found ourselves involved in the scheme. Ian and Sam have popped in as mentor and college tutor from time to time, but beyond that it's been down to Rachel who deserves the credit at "our end" for making this work.
Rachel's now with us full time, permanently, and filling a vital role far beyond that implied by an apprenticeship. She has been for quite a while - a key member of our full time hotel team. As I write this article, from the village of Snailwell in Cambridgeshire, I'm secure in the knowledge that the breakfast shift at Well Hosue Manor in Melksham, Wiltshire is running to plan and in capable hands. And I owe the most enormous "Thank You" to our team - all of our team - for making that possible. The customer comes first, our team not far behind - and it's great to have customers like we do and a team that takes things on in such a way that it gives Lisa and myself a breathing space to do our work, our works (such as the Chamber of Commerce stuff last night) and get the occasional break too.
(written 2011-09-28)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
G207 - Well House Consultants - Staff [10] What do you look for in your IT trainer? - (2004-08-10)
[41] A Thousand and four words - (2004-09-07)
[88] Getting the right level of trainer - (2004-10-14)
[168] Welcoming Leah Davies to our team - (2005-01-04)
[185] Who am I? - (2005-01-21)
[371] The training team that's looking out for you - (2005-07-07)
[393] Trainer answers phone - (2005-07-28)
[578] Woman screaming at me - (2006-01-26)
[862] 4 weeks to go - (2006-09-11)
[895] Welcome, Martin - (2006-10-16)
[972] Both one team and two - (2006-12-08)
[1002] Meet the neighbours - (2006-12-20)
[1065] Graham Ellis - an Introduction - (2007-02-05)
[1083] Behind the scenes - (2007-02-17)
[1141] A strong team broadens the professional coverage - (2007-04-10)
[1324] Well House Manor appoints a General Manager - (2007-08-28)
[2009] The Royal Mail Receipt - (2009-01-26)
[2044] Please Trouble me - (2009-02-16)
[2050] Why the Pony Tail? - (2009-02-21)
[2164] Updating my public profile - Graham Ellis - (2009-05-09)
[2566] Excellent staff make for excellent hotel - (2010-01-07)
[2772] Graham Ellis - Summary of Training Record - (2010-05-21)
[2775] Declarations of interest - knowing where you stand with people - (2010-05-22)
[2934] Not so much software training - more hotel keeping! - (2010-08-25)
[2960] The Well House team - September 2010 - (2010-09-19)
[3051] Positively reforming the system - could it be done? - (2010-11-14)
[3103] Thank you - and Happy Christmas - (2010-12-24)
[3201] A change to the Well House team - thank you and good luck, Chris - (2011-03-14)
[3212] Well House Manor - a home from home for the business and leisure guest in Melksham - (2011-03-26)
[3311] Exhilarating day! - (2011-05-30)
[3425] Our National Autograss Champion, from Melksham - (2011-09-08)
[3490] How not to call when job seeking ... - (2011-10-20)
[3586] Emergency First Aid Provision at Well House Manor - part of the service - (2012-01-19)
[3961] Well House Staff Party - (2012-12-22)
[4189] Who are we - Lisa, Graham, Gypsy and Billy - (2013-10-07)
[4227] Happy Christmas from the Well House Manor team - (2013-12-25)
Some other Articles
Passing optional and named parameters to python methodsBusy weekend of contrasts.Hangers, luggage and possessionsFrom flowchart to program - code design for the newcomerFlying Colours!Catching the fishes first?On this day ... one PHP script with three usesAway to train - but still around by video for Melksham meetingsStepping stones - early coding, and writing re-usable code quicklyMySQL, MySQLi, PDO or something else - how best to talk to databases from PHP