Not your Toronto Maple Leafs

The Windermere Manor sponsored girls hockey team won it all this year, including the peewee girls version of the Stanley Cup !



The girls and their parents, friends and family will be coming to the Manor soon for a celebration year end dinner, great job girls.

Well Done Christina !

Good job on your recent 5km run Christina, be doing a marathon any day now !

Meet Kris

Meet the newest addition to our Windermere's Café culinary team, Kris joins us from The Stratford Chef's School.

Weekly Team Meeting 8

Wedding show this Sunday, have 72 guests at 1pm session, 53 guests for 2.30pm session.
Engineers Without Borders numbers have dropped to around 60 instead of 100 for this Friday.
Wedding this Saturday, ceremony on site.
We have a 101st birthday event on Sunday !!
Wedding next Saturday, off site ceremony.
Tango group in on April 6th - can get in a quick tango lesson before Game of Thrones starts !
Easter Brunch at 103 reservations, Good Friday dinner in Cafe at 41.
Banquet log book up and running in banquet servery area, continue to check and contribute to log book.
Robert attended and enjoyed South West Ontario Tourism Conference at Sheraton 4 Points last week.
New employee handbook close to completion.
Weekly Cafe specials are now being shared on Google Docs. great for sharing.
Janette from housekeeping's last day is on April 11th, her first baby is due on May 10th !
Water will be off at 3pm this Monday in Grand Hall for 1 hour.
Rooms at 938 for March, down 146 rooms from last year.
Five Star credit card vault now up and running. Still a few small issues to be resolved this week.
Biz after 5 tomorrow night at the Lamplighter Inn from 5pm to 7pm.
Nick Hall is the motivational speaker for April, this is one not to be missed.
Friday night Jazz nights in Cafe start on April 4th.
We will be sponsoring our very own special olympic athlete - Chris the dishwasher will be competing in Vancouver in July, more details to follow.
Brenda working on Spring Rooms Package to replace Winter Wonderland Special.
Kitchen floor tiles to be repaired this week.
Dry food storage area to be re-organized this week.
Sign up sheet for garden boxes to be posted next week.
Crazy cardinal bird is back !!
New Spring Cafe menus are underway, to be revealed soon.
Hand held portable interac and credit card devices coming soon for the Cafe.

Wedding Show or Run

A reminder that if you don't want to work the Wedding show this weekend you can join me for a run around the Bay !

 

 

Or, you can just forget the run, work the show and enjoy the great food !

 



Health & Safety Team Meeting

Our Joint Health & Safety Team met yesterday, please do check the health & safety board in the staff room for the minutes of yesterdays meeting and what your H & S representatives are working on.

Friday Jazz Nights

Here's the line up for April Jazz night's in the Café, this has already generated a ton of interest and I believe Friday nights are going to be full up real quickly. Also note the later opening times for the Café on these nights.

Clair the Locksmith

A great friend of Windermere Manor passed away this week, Clair Lashley, or "Clair the locksmith" as he was affectionately known as, passed away on March 20th at age 50.

 

Although, due to illness, Clair hasn't been around Windermere recently, I know that those of us lucky enough to have known and worked with Clair will agree, you couldn't meet a nicer person, his huge smile and personality will be sadly missed.

 

 



Who is this person ?

 

Clue #1 - she does still work at Windermere...

 

 

Email me or use the comment section to answer, all correct answers received by 9am, Monday, March 24th will be entered in a prize draw for a lunch for 2 in Windermere's Café.



 

It is of course



 

Hannah

First day of Spring at Last

First day of Spring today, bumped into these guys on my way to the CVG..................

Weekly Team Meeting 7

Wedding this Saturday, ceremony on site.
Breakfast this Sunday will be served in The Grand Hall, 7am to 10am.
SPIN group in for dinner event this Monday
Engineers without Border art auction on Friday, March 28th.
Wedding next Saturday, ceremony on site.
Bridal open house on Sunday, March 30th, see earlier blog for details. Unless you are running at least a half marathon that day you will likely be working.
Toasted Teresa's 40th birthday with Cupcakes !
Dell is on vacation next week, returns on March 31st, Josh will be covering shifts.
WHIMIS training date will be organized for the next 2 weeks.
Health & Safety meeting on Tuesday March 25th at 2pm.
Room numbers - at 818 this year, last year was 1015, mainly due to Skate Canada last year.
Teresa on vacation next week, back on March 31st.
Kitchen organizing sign up sheet for community gardens, look for it in staff room next week, big question is how do we stop our deer eating everything ??
Easter brunch is starting to pick up, we're at around 70 reservations so far, we do anticipate selling out. Picked up a group of 30 already for Good Friday dinner special in the Cafe.
Tripadvisor - Cafe has moved up to number 6.
Cafe speakers have been fixed and improved.
Welcomed Andrea back from her Blue Jays trip.
We will be setting up a wedding booth at the pride festival downtown this year.
Everyone that took the recent food safety course has passed, will have the certificates soon.

Glad to say the next 2 weeks are a lot busier than the last 2, and it's warming up at last, life's good.

How's our Bees doing this long Winter ?

It's been a long tough Winter for our bees but we are looking at some warmer temps the next few days.
Despite how cold some days have been this Winter, the temperature in each hive remains around 34 Celsius, the bees maintain this temperature by constantly moving around and eating lots of high energy honey.
Each of our hives will actually eat their way through roughly 30 to 40 jars of honey just to get through the Winter, in fact, to help ensure there's enough honey to last the Winter they kick all the drones (male bees) out the hive to die, the girls are too mean to share during the Winter !

Guest Feedback

My wife and I celebrated our 60th anniversary last Friday at the Cafe. We were 13. We were given outstanding service and attention by your server, shown on the bill as Melissa. In addition the food was excellent and enjoyed by everybody. We had unanimous very complimentary comments later about both food and service. Please pass these comments on to Melissa and whoever assisted her. Praise is well deserved.

Thank you for helping us have a memorable celebration!

Inge and Svend Williamsen

Great job Mel and Kitchen crew, Awesome, just Awesome

Spring Training

Andrea and Erin have been down South this past week at the One Direction camp, a few pics from the trip....

Looks like they stole the shirts from the boy band's back.....

Some sort of strange Toy Story party...

The girls with what might be a famous baseball player, Kelly Gruber maybe ?

This little girl just turned 40 !

 

Yep, the young lady in this picture turned 40 this past Sunday..........

 

Any idea who she might be ??????

 

 

As a bit of a clue, here's what her birthday cake might have looked like if the petty cash Queen had given us funds to buy a birthday cake !

 

Last hint, she's worked in accounting for a while......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Teresa

 

 



 

 



Windermere's Cafe Jazz Nights

Starting on Friday, April 4th - Friday Night Jazz in Windermere's Café, we have a terrific line up of talented musicians rotating through Friday nights in the Café between now and July. Brenda and Janet are working right now on posters and social media marketing for these great Friday nights.

We are also fortunate enough in having the amazing Sonja Gustafson (above pic) performing one Friday a month in the Café, look out for details coming soon.

First Aid Kits & Zombies

Izabela has re-stocked and updated all the First Aid Kits throughout the operation. A reminder that should you ever use any supplies from a First Aid Kit, please let us know and help in ensuring they are always kept fully stocked.

 

This includes all the various types of First Aid Kits.

 

Our Bridal Open House

We will be hosting our Bridal Open House on Sunday, March 30th, at this open house we invite in all the couples who have booked their wedding with us this year to come in and sample the food, meet our wedding vendors and partners and check out the ambiance of our Grand Hall.

Meeting and greeting our guests this year will be Hannah, Brenda, Christina, Andrea, Robert, Gwen and of course our amazing culinary team, me, I'm running far away that day !

Diet Advice



Weekly Team Meeting 6

Wedding for 62 this Saturday, ceremony on site.
Church breakfast is this Saturday.
Hotel breakfast will be served in the Grand Hall this Sunday.
Power of Networking lunch this Wednesday.
This week last year was Skate Canada week, big difference in revenues for rooms and food & beverage.
Couple of new banquet service staff next week.
Easter menus on line now, brochures out there, Brenda will do email blast next week.
WIMMIS training will be this month, Izabela organizing for all departments.
Rooms are at 719, last year was 919,
Tripadvisor, hotel #13, Cafe # 7
Will sell honey at Launch Pad.
Steritech inspection last week, Chef has dealt with all infractions, will post on H&S board.
Looking at community gardens, will be a sign up sheet for any staff interested.
Launch Pad menu being revised, suggestion box for tenants is in place for the next week.
Chris Innes won 2 gold at Special Olympics provincial trials this past weekend. Go Chris.
New cook starting next week, Kristopher is a graduate of Stratford Chef school.
Teresa on vacation last week of March.
Employee recognition team, Brenda shared some ideas.
Have matched last year's wedding numbers already...
Bridal open house on March 30th, details to follow...
Friday night Jazz nights in the Cafe, starting April 4th... details to follow...

Frank Miller, Director Hospitality Services, joined us for today's meeting, Frank provided an update as to what was happening across Hospitality Services on campus.

Our Regulars, The Williams Group

^{Between 25-35 retired academics from Western gather in our Grand Hall for the lunch buffet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, they take a break after convocation in June, and come back in the fall.}

 

^{Since one of the members, Alan Philbrick passed away, Lemon Meringue has always been on the menu.  It’s a special little tribute to him, and his wife is still a member.}

 

^{I have grown up with this group, and it’s always nice to see their smiling faces each month.   Below is the origination of the Williams Group.}

^{Two men were responsible for initiating what is now known as The Williams’ Group.  Dr. D. Carlton Williams was Western’s President and Vice Chancellor from July 1967 to June 1977. Dr. Robert N. Shervill, Professor and Chair of the Department of Spanish and Italian but also the holder of several senior administrative responsibilities, one of which was Executive Assistant to the President.  I am not sure of the date, following Dr. Williams’ cessation of the presidency, when they decided to attempt to arrange for a monthly luncheon to enable retired professors and senior academic to get together to share their memories of their time at the University and, of course, any matters or issues in which they were interested. I should think this would be in 1978 or 1979. The group had no name. It had no officers, no constitution, no rules, no membership fee and no speeches!  That format exists to this day.}
 

 ^{Dr. Williams died in April 1994. In 1995, I proposed to our group, during one of our luncheons, that in honour of our deceased and highly- regarded founder, we give ourselves the name, The Williams Group. There was enthusiastic and unanimous approval.}

 ^{The Williams Group, without a name and with a name has been around for many years. And we hope it will be around for a long time to come.}

Easter Brunch 2014

Check out Chef Kristian's great Easter Brunch menu for this year, we do anticipate a sell out on Easter Sunday Brunch so if you have any family or friends looking to join us let them know to book early.

The Launch Pad

 

 

Now that the warmer weather has finally arrived, why not take a walk down to the Convergence Centre - CVG and pay a visit to Elaine.
Elaine is there Monday to Friday, 9am to 2pm looking after our Research Park tenants and serving up a variety of sandwiches, soup, chili, snack foods etc...
Chef Kristian is currently working with Elaine on changing up the menu, I'll post the new menu here when it's good to go.

Clocks go Forward this Weekend

Sadly we'll lose an hour of sleep this weekend as the clocks go forward...

 

However, it is a good reminder to change the battery in all your smoke detectors.



Deb & Family

 

It's always great when Manor alumni pop in for a visit, today we have Deb (Café Deb) with Jeremy and Rebecca enjoying lunch in the Café and visiting their Auntie Andrea !

JAM & Family

I missed Julie-Ann yesterday when she popped in with the kids, Audrey & Corbin. Hannah did snap a couple of pics for our blog though, all looking great and look forward to welcoming them back for a visit soon.

Not sure what's going on here with Audrey, I'm guessing Hannah and Andrea are scaring her !

Congratulations Chris

Congratulations to our kitchen steward, Chris Innes. Chris won FIVE first place ribbons at this past weekends Special Olympics Ontario swim meet in Kitchener - Waterloo.

Chris won first place in the following events:

• 200 m free stroke
• 200 m backstroke
• 200 m individual medley
• 100 m individual medley
• 400 m free stroke

Chris will be representing Ontario at The National Summer Games, which take place in Vancouver from July 8th to 13th.

Way to go Chris.................

Happy 25th Anniversary

Check out this lovely bride of a mere 25 years ago today ! Congratulations to Brenda and her hubbie Bryan on their 25th wedding anniversary.

One Month In, 1000 views

Our Windermere Manor Blog is one month old today !

In that month we've hit the thousand views marker, had some fun with some folks, shared what's happening now and what's coming down the road.

Thanks for the thoughts and feedback emailed to me so far, keep the ideas flowing, and don't forget, anyone can be a guest blogger at anytime, just let me know.

Cheers, Neil nkelloc2@uwo.ca

 

A special shout out to Christina who helped in getting this blog started and continues to make the odd contribution as well as keeping the techie side of blogging in good running order.

 



Our New Tv Ad (filming today)

This morning around the hotel you'll likely bump into a camera, sound, lights, & action crew. We're filming a TV ad for Rogers TV. This 30 second ad, in partnership with Tourism London will be featured frequently on Rogers TV over the next few months.
I'll let you know when I get some specific dates and times so you can check it out for people you know and work with.

 

Here's sneak preview some of us filmed earlier this morning !