40 years and never a dull moment!!

Pictured here, my last “Dining with the Stars” before my retirement at the beginning of this year. Our “stars” here are alumni (spot the one who is now a teacher at school) who give up their time to talk about their internship experiences to our students. ?

As a young girl I often passed the Royal Garden Hotel in London and wished I could go in. Years later I got my wish when attending a job interview and on that day fell in love with hotels.?Little did I know that was the start of a career in hospitality spanning more than 40 years!

After17 years working in hotels I made the move into education as part of the team which established the International Stream at the International Hotel and Management School, part of ROC Mondriaan. Over the years and due to the dedication of all the staff the school has gone from strength to strength and I feel proud to have been part of it. It was great to have been involved with many international projects/exchanges in China, Poland, Slovenia and Finland. 25% of our programme is the mandatory international internship. It has been truly rewarding to see students develop not only professional skills but also independence, resilience and confidence and then to see where this all took them in their future.40?

All this was made possible due to the hard work of our own Internship Committee and the support of our industry partners all over world.?Thank you to the hotels I worked with in Ireland and Australia and a special shout out to the Internship Team at ICHM Adelaide for their superb work. It was with pain in my heart we had to say farewell to placing students in the UK due to Brexit. Unfortunately Covid prevented a personal thanks, but we thank you and will always miss you!

I do feel blessed to have been involved with such a great industry and to experience what an important profession teaching is. Thank you, thanks you ?to all the people I met along the way: colleagues, students and industry partners, I learned much from you all and it was never a dull moment!! I will continue to volunteer at school and of course carry on being a hotel guest??!!

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