It’s hard to believe that it’s been a month since our last update and this year’s Creating Savoury Flavours course had just completed. November seems to have flown by. In fact we’ve been so busy at Verner Wheelock that we haven’t even begun to think about Christmas shopping…
It’s a dog’s life
Britain is known as a nation of dog lovers and here at Verner Wheelock we’re no exception. Many visitors will already be familiar with our MD, Alison’s loveable terriers Tetley and Mabel, but the latest addition comes in the form of trainer Peter Clarke’s new puppy, Sparkie the poodle, who is a real bundle of fun. We’ve also enjoyed looking after two Great Danes, belonging to delegates!
Auditing and other courses
Peter has been kept extremely busy during November training delegates on our FDQ Auditing courses, which are proving extremely popular. We suspect that the release of BRC Issue 7 in January has everyone focused on improving their internal and supplier audits in preparation for the new standard.
With this in mind, we will be running BRC 7 update courses from February 2015, which will advise of the latest changes and how to ensure you’re ready. If you’re interested, check out the course dates on our website as they’re filling up quickly and some are already fully booked. If you’d prefer an in-house course, please get in touch as these are available for groups of 5 or more
The Lead Auditor course was fully subscribed and comprised a wide range of delegates with different backgrounds. The practical live audit secton of the course involved auditing the systems and procedures in the Verner Wheelock office. And we’ve also welcomed delegates to our Auditing Skills and Supplier Auditing courses this month.
Our first Root Cause Analysis course took place this month as well, under the expert leadership of well-respected Verner Wheelock tutor, Ruth Bell, who managed to spare the time in between finishing a dissertation for her PhD. The next course will run on Monday 18th May 2015.
Finally the last week of November saw Peter Clarke return to run a Level 4 HACCP course. Additionally tutor Judith Sunderland led the CIEH Trainer Skills and Practice training, which provides people with the knowledge and skills to become a trainer in their chosen subject, whether that be food safety or Health & Safety etc.
New food choices in Skipton
We love trying new food and we can highly recommend Cobble Kitchen – a new lunch option at Broughton Hall. The food is catered from a vintage Citroen van, which parks up in Stable Courtyard every morning and lunchtime for tasty sandwiches and soups and delicious cakes and coffee. You can find out more on their website cobblekitchen.com/
We’re also delighted to see that a new branch of Filmore and Union www.filmoreandunion.com has opened in Skipton – we trained several of the Filmore and Union staff on our HACCP courses last year. They have a varied menu of healthy snacks, meals and drinks which seems to be a winning formula for this rapidly expanding venture.
Latest round of Women in Work funding
In the past few years around 100 of our female candidates have benefitted from Women in Work funding. Thanks to our membership of the National Skills Academy for Food & Drink we have been able to offer funding towards training to around 30 ladies employed in the food industry this year. We are still waiting for the final confirmation of places for 2015 courses, but over £9k has been ring fenced for Verner Wheelock clients to put towards Lead Auditor, HACCP, Food Safety and Training the Trainer courses. We’ll keep you posted.
To find out more about Women in Work funding, speak to one of our friendly office staff on 01756 700802.
Food Safety Training at Yorkshire Premier Meat
Verner Wheelock has been appointed to train 100 staff in basic food safety at leading meat processor, Yorkshire Premier Meat. Training has already begun with Verner Wheelock tutor and meat industry expert Paul Bache MBE. He has done an excellent job, despite many candidates speaking English as a second language. They have been able to benefit from RSPH exams which are now available translated into Polish, and the pass rate has been excellent. Several more courses are planned for December and will continue into the new year. We will also be providing two courses of Level 3 Food Safety.
Stop Press!
Our Creating Savoury Flavours course was featured in local newspapers the Craven Herald and the Telegraph & Argus. You can see the full story here.
Happy Birthday, Verner!
Our chairman and founder Dr Verner Wheelock is 76 years young tomorrow. I’m sure you all join us in wishing him many happy returns. Let’s hope that he manages to eat some birthday cake (and those Jelly Babies) before Tetley and Mabel get their paws on them!