The intermediate group were also holding a Christmas party a week after ours. They went around various supermarkets, such as ASDA and Safeway, to find out the prices of the food that we needed as we wanted to buy it as cheap as possible. We ended up buying the food from Morrison’s and ASDA.
Because our budget was quite low (only £80) we had to buy the prizes ourselves. I brought in a box of biscuits and others brought in alike or gift sets such as bath salts and soaps.
We had to store the food at school, as we had brought it 2 days before. We decided on which alcohol to buy but because none of the group was old enough to purchase it we asked Miss Robson, our teacher, if she could buy it for us out of our budget. For the Christmas pudding we decided to ask the school’s caters if we could purchase this off them seeing as they did this last year for another group and also it was too expensive to buy from the supermarket.
Moxhull Hall Hotel
I think that our visit to Moxhull Hall Hotel went extremely well. We learnt a lot off the manager, Andreas, than if we had of learnt the silver service set up ourselves. We had to dress smart and professionally as we wanted to make a good impression on Andreas.
< entrance to the Moxhull Hall Hotel
On 19th November at 10:00am went travelled to Moxhull Hall Hotel. This visit was to help us learn how to set up the covers and to learn how to serve our guests properly. We were split into our two groups. This was the front of house team and the kitchen team. My team (the front of house team) were taken into one of the restaurants and the kitchen team were taken into the kitchen.
First we got acquainted with the members of staff who would be helping us. These were Andreas, the manager, and Phillip, a waiter. They gave us glasses, crockery, cutlery and napkins. This was to see if we had any idea of how to lay a cover properly.
‘SEE VIDEO OF MOXHULL HALL HOTEL’
Once we had finished doing that they gave us marks out of 10 on how well we had done. They then showed us how to set up a cover properly. They showed us how to fold a napkin into a fan and also told us how far away the chair had to go from the table (arms just touching the table cloth). They then cleared it away.
Folding the napkins into fans
Andreas told us how to serve the guests when we are giving them their lunch. We had to slide the plate onto the table from the left hand side of the guest. When we are clearing away we had to take the plate away from the right hand side of the guest. He showed us how to crumb down to get rid of any crumbs or mess that was on the tables and also how to give the guests their drinks. He told us that when we were taking the drinks over to the guests that if we looked at the drink we were more likely to spill it than if we didn’t look at the drink.
After all of this had been told to us Andreas got us to set up a cover just as he and Phillip had done.
Me with the cover I had set up
The decorations at Darlaston Community Association (The Rec)
On Wednesday 1st December at 1:00pm a small group of our form had to go to the Darlaston Community Association (The Rec) to put the Christmas decorations up ready for our Christmas party on 3rd December. There were 2 rooms that needed to be decorated and also the kitchen to be cleaned, as the mess was horrendous.
We were split into 3 groups. The people who were to be working and cooking in the kitchen went and cleaned the kitchen. As there were more intermediate students than advanced students the intermediates decorated the larger room.
There were only 4 advanced students to decorate the smaller room. The group included me, Matthew, Sam and Reechma. After we had finished decorating our room we went into the larger room to help the intermediates finish decorating. We finished at around 3:00pm.
Senior Citizens Christmas Party
Setting Up
Before we got to The Rec we had decided for each person to make sure something was packed and not left behind. This included things like the table decorations, the menus, food, napkins etc.
On Friday 1st December we held a Christmas party for some senior citizens. We arrived at The Rec at 9:00am. The senior citizens were due to arrive at 11:45am. This gave us less than 2 hours to get everything set up and ready.
We started off by laying the tables out and covering them with banqueting roll.
‘SEE THE SENIOR CITIZENS CHRISTMAS PARTY VIDEO’
We then had to set each cover just like we had at the Moxhull Hall Hotel. We folded the napkins as we had been shown and set out the glasses and the cutlery.
The table decorations than had to be put out along with the crackers, menus and name cards. Afterwards, we got changed and waited for the guests to arrive.
The Arrival
When the guests started to arrive we had 3 people to greet them. Matthew was Santa and the other two people who were to show the guests to their seats.
Guests arriving
I had to take the guests coats and jackets and take them through to the smaller room for safe keeping. We had a few hitches, as guests wanted to sit with their friends and not where we had put them. There was one woman who was in a wheelchair who stayed where we put her. It was at the end of the table closet to the door and was easily accessible for her to move around.
Lunch time
Once all of the guests had arrived and had a talk we served dinner.
‘SEE MENU FOR DINNER ARRANGEMENTS’
We had to bring out 2 plates each at a time and serve from the left of the guests as we had been shown at Moxhull Hall Hotel. Once all of the dinners had been given out we had to sit down away from the guests as we didn’t want them to feel intimidated by us. I went round and lit all of the table decorations for the guests to enjoy their dinners with a little candle light.
Clearing Away
Once all of the guests had finished their lunch we had to clear away the plates and crumb down. Myself and Matthew crumbed down whilst Krystle, Mat, Sam and Reechma cleared away the plates. We then brought out the dessert. Dessert consisted of Christmas pudding and custard. We then learnt that one of our guests couldn’t have any Christmas pudding as he was diabetic. He didn’t put down that information on the back of his invitation reply slip even though we had asked the guests to specify if they had any medical conditions such as allergies. We had to get him some fruit for dessert instead of him having Christmas pudding and because I lived the closest to the venue I had to run home and get some apples for the man.
Shani and Pam dishing up dessert
Coffee and mince pies
After the dessert dishes had been cleared away we served the guests coffee and mince pies. If the guests didn’t want a cup of coffee we also had cups of tea. Once all of that was cleared away we started with the entertainment.
Entertainment
For the entertainment we had 4 games of bingo and 4 quizzes. Each of the quizzes had 10 questions. There was music, picture, soap and a general knowledge quizzes.
Ben and Leigh, who were the bingo callers and also the creators of the music quiz, had to learn the proper calling for the bingo. The people who created the other quizzes had to make up the questions and also find out the answers to the questions. I think that we all did quite well entertainment wise. We could have improved upon the quizzes by writing at the top for the guests not to call out the answers as that was what they was doing. They were actually supposed to be writing down the answers down on the quiz answer sheets. This ruined the quizzes a little bit.
The first bit of entertainment that we did was the 4 games of bingo. These went down really well as the senior citizens love bingo.
We let the winners of the bingo chose their own prizes, which were situated at the front of the hall. Afterwards we had the 4 quizzes. Once the first quiz was finished the answer sheets were collected in and myself and another student added up the scores whilst the second quiz was taking place and so on.
Once all of the entertainment was finished one of the guests stood up to make a speech. She said that she and the other guests had had a wonderful time and she even told us that some of the guests had been to a hotel for a Christmas lunch and they said that ours was better.
Leaving Time
When all of the guests were leaving Amandeep and Pam gave out the leaving presents whilst I, Ben, Leigh, Mat and Matthew sang ‘we wish you a merry Christmas.’
All of the guests applauded us.
After the guests had left we had to tidy up the room and put it how we came across it. The tables had to go back properly and also the kitchen had to be tided. We all left The Rec at around 2:30pm.