West Wales Hospitality Panel Meeting
Wednesday the 12th of September 07 at the National Botanic Garden of Wales
Attendees:- Russell Thomas, Gary Davies, Catherine Lewis, Nia Ball, Lisa Johnston, Diana James, Lowri Edwards, Chris Osborne
Apologies:- Alan Dutton, Phil Drakeford
Action Points:-
CO explained that Gallu will be working with Careers Wales to produce a virtual tour CD at the St Brides Hotel. Careers Wales will fund the programme and they will also put it on their website to promote work in the tourism industry.
RT stated that he would send details to LJ of an IT person – RT
Gallu Update:-
LJ updated the group on the R&R group and also the Influencers Day and the Day in the life of.
LJ stated that LE and herself were applying to be HR Advisors. TTFW are putting a bid in, DJ explained the stages which they had to go through to be HR Advisors. DJ stated that they were concentrating on sector specific HR Advisors.
LE explained that the Mystery Shopper Scheme was going well and that they were going to run three more pilots and then have two launches in October.
LE also went through the list of training courses coming up over the next few weeks.
GD stated that LJ and LE had put KPI’s together as a way of measuring the work they were doing.
West Wales Hospitality Forum:-
LJ stated that the West Wales Hospitality Forum on the 27th of September at the Plas Hyfryd in Narberth had been arranged and the theme was local food. They had a good response from local producers to have stands at the event and a few people had booked to attend. E-mails are going out every week to promote the event and encourage people to attend.
DJ stated she will not be present at the event however two representatives from TTFW will be there.
GD suggested LJ including Slow Food.
LJ stated that a press release will be sent out a week before the event.
Panel Members:-
LJ stated that Lynne Jones had left and they needed another representative from DCELLS. LJ stated that she had spoken to Spencer Conner and he wasn’t sure if they could attend.
GD suggesting asking observers to meetings so that input could be given from different people, for example Tracey Kindred.
RT suggested Visit Wales, however GD and DJ would represent them but they could be asked to attend a meeting if needed.
AOB:-
GD explained about the 2 Spatial Plans that covered (1) Pembrokeshire Haven and (2) Swansea Bay consisted of 16 Action Points from each plan. The Spatial Plan leads into the possibility of Convergence Funding.
GD stated that a meeting with WEFO earlier that week had confirmed their intention to concentrate on less schemes of a bigger nature. 3,500 schemes were approved for Objective One however now there will be much fewer this time and (by definition) Convergence ‘bids’ would adopt a multi-agency and cross-boundary approach.
GD was concerned that regional bids would not be big enough and that the RTP would need to decide if they will use their money sub-regionally, regionally or nationally.
DJ stated that they (TTFW) were putting a project idea together and it would concentrate mostly on people currently in employment. They will also work in partnership with People First.