Exeter Hotel Achieves 4 Star Status

Posted on: Monday 29 September 2008

After 3 years under the new ownership of Folio Hotels, the 54-bedroomed Buckerell Lodge Hotel on Topsham Road has been awarded a 4 star quality level. This follows a covert visit last week by an inspector from the AA.

When grading for 4 star quality the inspector would have paid particular attention to the overall quality of the bedrooms and furnishings, the standard of the food and the hospitality of the staff in all departments. Once he was satisfied that all the above and more was in place, a conversation took place with the General Manager, when the hotel was formally offered the 4 Star status.

General Manager Tony Cannon said: "This 4 star achievement is the culmination of a 3 year programme of refurbishment costing £1.5M and a lot of hard work by an outstanding team of dedicated staff. The plan to take the Buckerell Lodge Hotel from 3 to 4 stars has required a massive culture change and lots of training to which the team has responded superbly. I am very proud of them all. We now intend to build on this by further improving our standards of hospitality so that the Buckerell Lodge becomes the first choice for people who live & work in Exeter as well as visitors to the area."

The Buckerell Lodge Hotel is on Topsham Road not far from Devon County Hall. It was originally a private dwelling, built in 1878 on a site once owned by the famous Veitch family of Exeter. Their legacy lives on in the many trees scattered throughout the 4 acres of landscaped gardens. More recently the hotel has become known locally for its business meetings, private dining facilities and as a superb wedding venue.

www.foliohotels.com/buckerelllodge

Employer Ambassadors for Diplomas in Bristol.

Posted on: Monday 29 September 2008

Employer ambassadors are representatives of the industry they work in and are people who have volunteered to become involved in the Diploma programme. Employer Ambassadors will bring real-life experience to young people in schools and colleges, to motivat

Why is employer support necessary?
The aim of developing a network of employer ambassadors is to have a member of staff designated, as part of their job role, to liaise with Local Area Partnerships/Diploma Champions and to host work placements. Employer support is needed because:

• 50% of Diploma delivery needs to be in, about, or for work
• Teachers need access to support and professional development opportunities from industry experts
• Employers have long argued that the current system is failing to meet many workplace needs – young people with employability skills
• The traditional work experience model is not sufficient

Why become an Employer Ambassador?
As well as being a rewarding experience, becoming an ambassador opens the door to numerous opportunities, for example:

• Personal and professional development
• The opportunity to strengthen communication, planning and presentation skills
• The chance to talk about and promote your profession
• Another dimension to your professional role
• Enjoyment
• A sense of achievement and satisfaction
• A fresh perspective on day-to-day work
• Knowledge and skills framework
• An opportunity to make a difference in the Bristol community

What qualities are needed to become an Employer Ambassador?
No formal qualifications are required but the ability and willingness to work with young people and teachers in a wide variety of settings and an understanding of the issues facing young people in today’s society is vital. The following qualities are also important:

• Enthusiasm - being enthusiastic about what you do and about working with young people is a must.
• Knowledge - however you will not be expected to know about all Diplomas or know the answer to every question.
• The ability and willingness to communicate – you will meet all sorts of people of all ages and all abilities. You will need to be able to talk to everyone at an appropriate level.
• The ability to represent your Industry in a positive way and to talk about the benefits of working towards a Diploma.

What would you be expected to do?
Possible activities might include:

• Work experience placements
• Careers advice and information
• Taster/enrichment days and workshops
• Mentoring, mock interviews
• Planning and evaluating activities
• Network building
• Tours, visits, talks
• Helping to assess students work
• Strengthen business/education partnerships
• Resource development – pod cast, Youtube, DVDs etc
• Ambassador support

A Child Protection and Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check will be required if you become involved in activities where you may be left with a young person alone.

Your time:
There will be a regular Employer Ambassador's network meeting for planning events and activities. Attendance is not obligatory as any information will be shared with the Employer Ambassador's network group via email. As well as planned activities it is envisaged that at least an hour a week would be spent assisting with planning or networking.

I hope that many of you will be interested in becoming an Employer Ambassador for Bristol. If you do please contact either Rhian Priest on the contact details below or the EBP@Connexions

Rhian Priest
Diploma Development Co-ordinator
Tel: 0117 9031 244
Fax: 0117 9031 260
Email: rhian.priest@bristol.gov.uk

Joe Constant
Regional Diploma Champion South West of England
Mobile: 07768 857803
Email: joe@kickstartenterprise.com

Talking Point Experiment

Posted on: Monday 29 September 2008

Talking vs Typing

The Exeter Business Network
SANDY PARK, 9 APRIL 2008

Introduction

A seminar was held by Voicescene Ltd prior to the monthly Exeter Business Network lunch. A controlled experiment was set up to measure the difference in performance between typing and dictating using speech recognition.

The Experiment

Text was presented to the participants totalling 121 words. The text was unseen by the participants prior to be experiment. A copy of the text is included at the end of this report.

The participants were requested to type the text at their normal typing speed whilst at the same time being as accurate as they reasonably could. Errors were checked by other participants and counted.

Sean and Jane Humby, directors of Business Network (SW) Ltd, divided their participation with Jane doing the typing.

The participants then were asked to dictate the text direct to screen using Dragon NaturallySpeaking software. One participant had been using the TalkingPoint software for approximately 2 weeks. The other participants had no training or previous experience.

The Results

The typing results showed a wide range in performance depending on the skill of the individual. The quickest being 150 seconds and on the longest 612 seconds. A variation in excess of 300% with the errors ranging from four to nine per typist.

The speech recognition test showed very little variation with everyone completing in approximately 1 minute with a range of 49 seconds to 72 seconds.

The full results are shown in the table below and from which two clear conclusions can be made.

• Transcribing text by speech recognition is approximately 3 times faster than typing for an average to good typist.
• Irrespective of typing ability transcription by speech recognition produces a significantly more consistent level of performance.

Addendum

Following this experiment the test was undertaken by a highly qualified touch typist who completed typing the text in 96 seconds making just two mistakes. The speed achieved was 76 wpm. The average user when dictating e-mails and correspondence etc will probably not exceed 55 words per minute.

This experiment is shown that people with no training are able to achieve consistently a dictation speed of 125 words per minute using TalkingPoint speech recognition systems.

Full details here

G. T. White
Director
Voicescene Ltd
09 April 2008

Test Text

The following is an extract from the DOGBERT'S TOP SECRET MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK, as told to Scott Adams, author of The Dilbert Principle.

DOGBERT'S TOP SECRET MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK. Copyright (c) 1996 by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

A manager is automatically endowed with powers to manipulate time. You can suspend the relationship between cause and effect and make time move at any rate you choose. This is handy more often than you might think.

These powers can be useful when your employees tell you that an important task will take six months to finish. Let's say you just told your boss that the task would take only two weeks. All you have to do is adjust the time line down to two weeks.

This change will cause a chain of events that will ripple through the fabric of space-time and result in the energy-free transfer of blame from you to your employees at approximately the speed of light.

121 words

Participants.

Jane Humby, Director. Business Network (SW) Ltd
Sean Humby, Director. Business Network (SW) Ltd
Chrissie Peel, Retail Manager. Devon Air Ambulance Trust
Julie Piper, Managing Director. Springboard Marketing Ltd