The Star Awards 2014

What a night! With well over 500 people in attendance this was going to be a night to remember for a long, long time. The Star Awards ceremony itself is held once a year and goes a long way in recognising the talent, dedication and loyalty of certain members of staff and teams across Sodexo.

Located at the Park Plaza Hotel, Westminster we were invited to a drinks reception where we were able to meet a lot of Sodexo colleagues who had been nominated for awards that night. It's not until you go to something like this you realise just how big the Sodexo family is.

So how did we do on the night? Rather well I must say.

First award of the evening was the Service Excellence Award in Catering for Education,collected by group manager Nick Hayter, An award we've won 3 times in the last 4 years. This award is presented to those who deliver an outstanding performance in catering. This includes showing excellence in areas such as customer service, catering service delivery and high administrative performance.

Nick wasn't the only star of the evening from Solent, Ross Waite from The Artisan Cafe collected Star Business Manager for Education. Ross has implemented considerable and effective changes at Artisan. He has devised and produced his own menu and built up an impressive and dedicated team. Artisan was also the first site to successfully trial the Aspretto food offer.

Dawn Gillespie collected The Better Tomorrow Plan which goes to an individual who shows outstanding dedication to making an impact on Diversity, Inclusion and the Environment within Sodexo, their organisation or the local community.

Mel Tolsen collected Unit Chef of the year for Education, this topped off an amazing year for Mel who has recently returned from a tour of America as our Global Chef. Bringing a taste of British cooking to our friends across the pond. A well deserved award.

Marc Jaytin collected the Innovation & Change National Award, as the pilot site for social media within education we successfully launched Twitter and Facebook pages. Over time we moved into using other channels of communication with students such as Snapchat, Instagram, Vine and just recently YouTube. Our blog has received well over 7000 page views in it's first fourteen months and is currently home to fifty eight posts ranging from menu information to events we run on campus with so much in-between. We've really embraced social media here at Solent and continue to lead the way we communicate with our customers. 

It was a great evening and we are all so proud to have won our awards. Let's raise a glass to the year ahead and Star Awards 2015. Thanks to everyone and congratulations to not only the winners from Solent but also to everyone from all areas of Sodexo who were nominated and winners on the night. To watch a video from the event click here.