Arley Hall opens its doors to the public

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Arley Hall, the grand Victorian Jacobian Hall owned by Lord and Lady Askbrook, situated in rural Cheshire opens its doors to the public for its Christmas Floral Extravanganza from the 30th November till the 6th December.

Floristry students prepare for arley hall

Level 3 Floristry students at Reaseheath have been given the opportunity to decorate ‘The Gallery’ as part of the event. The huge room with sky high windows, an enormous marble fireplace and wooden cladding will feature a 15ft Christmas Tree and an abundance of arrangements designed and put together by Level 3 students.

Students have been preparing their designs, collecting together sundries and accessories, visiting wholesalers and ordering flowers ready to decorate ‘The Gallery’ on Thursday 28th November.

Today we have been conditioning flowers, collecting foliage from the Reaseheath grounds and putting together the bases for the arrangement, ready for all our equipment to be transported to Arley Hall tomorrow, where students will work solidly for two days decorating in time for the Arley Hall opening on Saturday.

The other rooms within Arley Hall are to be decorated by florists at the forefront of the floristry industry within Cheshire, and Reaseheath students are privileged to have been given the chance to take part in such a fantastic event at one of England’s historic houses and gardens of distinction.

Reaseheath College to build cutting edge Food Futures Centre

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Reaseheath College has announced plans to add to its world class facilities by building an £8million industry-led Food Futures Centre.

The project will enable the Cheshire based college to support the government’s agri-tech strategy, which is designed to increase the competitiveness of the agriculture and food production industry and enable it to meet the challenge of world population growth and climate change.

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills, through the Skills Funding Agency, has allocated nearly £6m of capital grant for the project.

The building will provide a national centre for horticultural production, environmental management and conservation and renewable energy, and will be the leading one of its type in the country. It will include a visitor and interpretation centre and a schools unit.

In a second project, the college, in partnership with Cheshire East Council, is to develop a state-of-the-art centre for students with learning difficulties and disabilities. This £1.5m project, funded by the Education Funding Agency, will develop desperately needed specialist facilities for students from the Cheshire East area. Part of its remit is to help students achieve independent living skills.

Both developments are planned to be sited on a part of the college golf course which will close to the public next March. The buildings have been designed with considerable input from professional industry advisors. It is hoped that the planning applications will be submitted before the end of the year and that both buildings will be open for students and the public by September 2015.

The college also intends to use the opportunity to reconstruct its existing turf based sports pitches and build new 3G and multi-use artificial sports areas. A new sports centre for use by community and students will also be built. Significantly enhancing the sporting facilities and resources available to local people, the sports centre will cater for grass based team sports and sports requiring an artificial playing surface such as hockey, as well as a six court sports hall, team changing facilities and a fitness centre.

Space released by the relocation of the horticulture department has been earmarked for a further halls of residence on campus. Work on the design for these halls will begin shortly, with construction planned to start in summer 2014.

Announcing the approval of capital funding last week, Principal Meredydd David said that it had opened a huge and exciting opportunity for Reaseheath to be involved in the development of another world class educational facility.

He said: “I am thrilled that the government has identified Reaseheath as their preferred location for investing capital to develop this national Food Futures Centre. This will ensure that Reaseheath can continue to deliver specialist technical and educational training to next generation leaders.

“As a leading college, we are under constant pressure to invest into our facilities, but we also face campus restrictions. Following considerable discussion with master planners and local authority planning officers, it has become apparent that the only viable location for the new projects are on our golf course.

“The course is now used very little for training students and, regretfully, there is no other option than to close it. Reaseheath is continuing to work with the golf club to mitigate the impact of the closure, as far as is possible.”

Winter Ball planning and RAG

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Alright guys,

Second blog now, this week after our meeting on Monday, we have been organising the decorations for the Winter Ball. We have also been discussing possible menu options for the meal which is on Tuesday 17th December. Tickets will be on sale soon so keep asking us for more info…

This week we are hoping to announce our charity for this year’s RAG. After a couple of weeks of process elimination we have shortlisted three and are looking forward to their presentations. We have a couple of events organised to kickstart fundraising in December.  The fundraiser will involve a kayaking challenge over a fair distance in both Nantwich and Crewe on the 7th and 14th December 2013.

Another event that we have organised is to steward for the Xmas lights switch on in Nantwich on the 30th November 2013, this will be happening from 4.30pm till 7.30pm. About 8 members of our SA will be volunteering their own time to help raise a donation for RAG.

 

Sam Norfolk
SA President

Introducing your President…

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Alright guys, this is my first blog post for the Reaseheath Student Association! This blog is for keeping all Reaseheath students up to date with what’s going on at the college. Bit about me, my name is Sam Norfolk aged 20, I’m on the second year of the FdSc Adventure Sports course.

Over the last week or so, the Student Association have been collectively working on picking a charity for this year’s RAG, we’re hoping to announce this in the next couple of weeks. We have also started planning for the Winter Ball which includes decorations, menu and the DJ/band.

We have also got together to talk about some fundraising events for RAG and coming up with some challenges for us to complete throughout the year, I’ll keep you posted!

Last week we had our infamous Bavarian night which is a miniature German beer festival in the bar for over 18’s. This night was massively successful and the atmosphere was unbeatable. Check out some of the photos here, the rest can be found on Facebook.

I’ll be blogging every week so keep an eye out!

Sam Norfolk
SA President

 

Apprentice helps to grow dog grooming business

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A Cheshire dog grooming parlour is successfully using the government’s apprenticeship programme to develop its workforce.

Angela Mayers, owner  of The Groom Room in Saltney, has seen her  well established business thrive since employing 19 year-old  Bethan Roberts.  Bethan , a former Level 3 Diploma in Animal Management student at  Reaseheath College, Nantwich, joined The Groom Room for work experience and so impressed Angela that she was offered a permanent position.

The young animal lover, who has always wanted to work with dogs, now has a paid job grooming, bathing and drying canine clients.  As an advanced apprentice, she is continuing to gain specific dog grooming qualifications at her workplace and is regularly visited by work based assessors from Reaseheath.  She had been introduced to dog grooming previously during her college course.

Angela Mayers has been part of the thriving business community in Saltney for seven years. The Groom Room offers an individual service for all breeds of dog and clients travel in from as far as Cumbria to take advantage of specialised processes such as hand stripping.

Said Angela: “The training Bethan received from Reaseheath College was excellent but, by taking advantage of the apprenticeship programme, I’ve been able to offer her the opportunity to gain more qualifications and practical experience.

“The apprenticeship programme is a great scheme and has made a real difference to my business as well as to Bethan’s future career.  It’s developed to guidelines so the training is nationally recognised and well supported by workbased assessors.  I ‘d  urge all businesses to take advantage of it.”

“Bethan lives near Ellesmere Port and is a former pupil at the Catholic High School, Chester. She said: “This is a dream job for me because I’m earning a wage and doing something which I enjoy.”

For further details about the The Groom Room visit their website. 

For further details about apprenticeship opportunities at Reaseheath College visit the apprenticeships section on our website. 

Reaseheath students pay tribute to Britain’s war veterans

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Representatives from the Reaseheath College’s Students Association were among those to join representatives from the Royal British Legion at Crewe Station on Monday for a special platform service to mark Remembrance Day. The service was marked by the arrival of a sign written Virgin pendolino train which will bear the insignia of a poppy on its cab for the next year.

students join Remembrance Day service at Crewe station

Students from the Nantwich college had spent the previous week helping to raise funds for the Poppy appeal in the station alongside ex servicemen. The Crewe campaign raised more than £4,000.

Stuart Kay, Chairman of the Crewe branch of the Royal British Legion said: “Reaseheath students behaved in a very professional manner and helped us considerably in our fund raising efforts. These young people appreciate that many servicemen and women are the same age as themselves and are involved in current conflicts throughout the world.”

Virgin Hero Royal British Legion Standard BearerStudents and staff also turned out in force at a college service to commemorate Remembrance Day. Hundreds gathered around the flagpole to hear an address by Principal Meredydd David and observed two minutes’ silence at 11am on Monday.

 

 

Reaseheath funding bid will help farming businesses

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Reaseheath College, Nantwich, agricultural advisors are to help 50 farmers with challenged areas of their businesses following a successful bid for funding from The Prince’s Countryside Fund.

The project, which will run for 18 months, will help the businesses become more profitable and sustainable over the long term. Specialists from Reaseheath’s Agricultural Development Academy (RADA) aim to encourage efficient farm practices by providing a range of specific technical help, advice and planning.

The £48,250 funding will be spent on accessing farmers in most need and providing them with expert input, as well as managing the project from Reaseheath.  A steering group who share an interest in assisting farm businesses will be working in close partnership with the Cheshire Agricultural Chaplaincy.

The Prince’s Countryside Fund was set up by Prince Charles to tackle key issues which negatively impact on rural Britain and to secure a sustainable future for British agriculture and the rural economy. Since its launch in 2010 the fund has handed out £3.3million to projects nationwide. Reaseheath’s bid was one of just 16 selected out of the latest 290 applications.

The project is to be managed by Lesley Innes, RADA Knowledge Transfer Facilitator, who successfully handled Reaseheath’s RDPE Livestock Northwest Cheshire programme over the past four years.

RADA Manager George Fisher said: We are delighted to receive this funding.  The project will open up new doors for us to work with farmers that do not usually interact with Reaseheath and the knowledge transfer work that we do.  Most importantly, it will enable us to help farmers that are in urgent need of support and business improvement.”

For further details contact:  Lesley Innes 01270 625131  Lesleyi@reaseheath.ac.uk