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LINDLEY CATERING SCORES FIRST DIVISION WIN AT FOOTBALL HOSPITALITY AWARDS
Lindley Heathcotes' Bristol City catering team has scooped the Directors Choice in Coca-Cola Division 1 trophy at the prestigious Stadium Experience - Official Football Hospitality Awards 2007, with their colleagues based at Stoke City picking up the runner-up Award for the Directors Choice in the Championship league.
The two Lindley catering teams each received their accolades in recognition of the quality of their executive catering and high standards of efficiency and customer service they provide at the Bristol and Stoke City Football Clubs.
The highly coveted Directors Choice Awards pitch football clubs in each division against each other to compete for providing the best hospitality experience with votes being cast and judging being made by the boards of directors of in each respective division when they visit an away match with their team.
Jo Neville, Group Sales Manager of Lindley Catering - the UK's leading sports stadia caterer, says: "We're thrilled to bits that our Bristol and Stoke City teams have been so highly commended. It really is a tribute to their dedication to providing a truly memorable hospitality experience, particularly as the recognition comes from the top people in our industry who are in an ideal position to benchmark standards as they travel the country from club to club."
Commenting on this year's Awards, Stadium Experience Chairman Daren O'Dea, says: "The recognition given to those nominated and winning awards is vital to the moral and continued dedication of the catering and events departments at our football clubs, they work tirelessly behind the scenes on matchdays and non-matchdays, to ensure that in some instances up to 90,000 visitors are catered for."
Now in their fourth year, the annual Football Hospitality Awards are organised by Stadium Experience - a collaboration of 50 football clubs with event facilities in the UK. The organisation aims to raise awareness of and improve the conference and event profile of each stadia for both matchday and non-matchday events. The Football Hospitality Awards were established in 2004 to recognise and reward clubs delivering the best matchday experience based on a number of criteria including food quality, service efficiency venue standards through to presentation of matchday marketing sales literature.
This year's glittering Awards event was held at St James Park, home to Newcastle United Football Club, and was attended by guests from all walks of the football hospitality business including chefs, waiting staff, kitchen porters, catering directors and catering teams from the Barclays Premiership to Coca-Cola Division 2. Newcastle United legend, Peter Beardsley was on hand to present some of the awards.
Photo captions:
1) Jo Neville, Lindley Catering's Group Sales Manager, collecting the Championship League runner-up award on behalf of the Stoke City team, from Darren O'Dea, Chairman of Stadium Experience.
2) Lindley Catering's Bristol City team celebrating being voted the top caterers in Division 1. From the left: Carole Lawrenson, member of the Lindley food service team; Kellie Noel, Head Chef; Chris Mariette, Executive Catering Manager, Lindley Catering at Bristol City; Rita Murgatroyd Booking Co-ordinator from Bristol City Football Club and Colin Sexstone, Chief Executive of Bristol City Football Club.
Weston Homes Community Stadium provides a limited number of Community Events and activities on an at-cost
basis to not-for-profit groups in the Colchester community. These events number a minimum of 24 in a calendar year.
Room hire is provided free of charge and Lindley provide all catering at cost price.
In addition to Community Events Lindley provide a reduced priced event for local pensioners at Christmas time
attracting 250-300 local elderly people for a get together for a celebratory Christmas lunch.
Lindley is working in partnership with Bristol City Community Trust at BCFC on their Healthy Schools Project. This project involves teaching school children about healthy lifestyles; the importance of linking food and being active through sports. Lindley has developed a cook book for kids that focus on healthy, affordable recipes that taste great. Lindley will demonstrate recipes to the school children when they visit the stadium and they can take away the cook books to continue the cooking experience at home with their families. This type of initiative brings to life what the children have been learning in their healthy eating sessions and will hopefully give them a taste for freshly prepared and healthy food.
During summer 2012 Lindley hosted a cook and eat session with young cricketers where the Head Chef bought 6 ingredients and showed different ways with pasta, noodles and rice and spoke about food hygiene. This was met with great enthusiasm and will be continued into next year.
Lindley is involved in HM Prison Thorn Cross young offenders work experience scheme. This is where young
offenders get let out on day release to complete some work experience to increase confidence, skills and
help with future job prospects. Lindley has had people working in kitchens, front of house and The
Warrington Wolves Club are also involved.
In October, Lindley became a Business Patron of Warrington Wolves Community Foundation. Recently established
to engage local businesses with a passion for making a difference in the Warrington Community, The Warrington
Wolves Charitable Foundation aims to help young people of Warrington reach and fulfil their potential through a
wide variety of initiatives. As part of Lindley’s contribution to the Foundation we will cover the room hire
costs and provide first class catering for all of the Patron Club’s events held at the Stadium throughout the year,
including an annual celebration held to recognise Patrons’ support and provide an opportunity for young people to
showcase their talents.
The Droglites Bar that Lindley runs in the Stadium uses four trained volunteer staff each game. The equivalent cost of the wages gets donated to two of the Clubs chosen charities.
Lindley is investing in a project with Tottenham Hotspur Foundation that will teach children in local schools how to make raised vegetable beds and grow seasonal produce. The schools will also receive healthy lifestyle classes and coaching sessions from the Foundation. The school children will visit our kitchens in the stadium and be shown how to prepare great healthy, seasonal meals from their produce. The end of term will finish with a farmers style market with the schools shoeing off their produce and our chefs getting involved in some theatre cooking. Teaching children about fresh produce; what it is, where it comes from, how to grow and cook it are all valuable lessons that will help improve their welfare long term and of course we will have some fun on the way!
Lindley is working together with Kirklees College on a local education and training programme. The provides students in Kirklees College’s Catering, Travel and Tourism departments with an opportunity to gain hands-on experience working as part of the Lindley Catering team in match-day, conference, banqueting and event hospitality environments at Stadium. The scheme envisages both work experience placements and paid temporary employment. Selected students are offered personal development training programmes leading to potential offers of full-time permanent employment with Lindley. Kirklees College provide Lindley employees working at the Stadium the opportunity to study for formal qualifications and also develop apprenticeship schemes.
In early November Lindley held an event in conjunction with Huddersfield Police and Kirklees neighbourhood council. The general manager Anthony Hegney conducted a full stadium tour for Kirklees council residents based on talking about employment in the catering industry and the benefits of healthy eating. Martin the head chef did a short cookery demo in the kitchen he made a very basic pea & mint soup to show people how simple and cost effective it was to feed a family on a budget and they all got the opportunity to watch and taste at the end. The event was really well received and the Police have asked Lindley to host another one in April 2013.
As sole caterers at the community centre to be built in 2013, Lindley will be using this as a showcase of our CSR initiatives. Lindley will integrate with the other partners at the community centre, such as the GP surgery and sports coaches to provide community workshops like teaching families how to cook affordable and healthy meals. Links between the Centre, Club and Lindley will be supported through the use of charity kiosks.
Lindley work with the local Bath University to employ staff for the catering operations at the racecourse. Lindley has developed an excellent relationship with the career advisor and throughout the last 3 years over 60 students has worked for Lindley at Bath Racecourse. This creates a sustainable workforce where students come back year after year and supports the local economy.
Lindley and Notts County Football Club are proud to say that they are sponsoring the RSPCA with a summer ball hosted at Meadow Lane. The Ball's fundraising will go towards animals at RSPCA Nottingham and the Notts Branch.
Lindley have worked alongside Sheffield Young Carers, a registered charity that supports young carers between the ages of 8 and 21, who provide a substantial amount of unpaid care to someone at home with a physical illness and disabilities. By supplying branded aprons for a Young Carers Eat & Greet Event, Lindley aims to help provide young carers with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn valuable cooking skills.
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The Lindley Group believes that our people are precious. You are the most valued part of our business and you
will help ‘Challenge the staus quo of hospitality and retail concession catering at your venue’ through the
Hallmark of People Excellence.
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- Enjoying Work
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