A racing cert for success
STUDENTS have been enjoying a different kind of course work after swapping the classroom for the race track.
Events and tourism students from University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) hosted a race day at Ffos Las Racecourse in an exciting initiative linked to their degree programme.
Supporting the future talent of the hospitality industry, this unique collaboration between UWTSD and Ffos Las gave the students the opportunity to put their learning into practice by hosting and managing all aspects of the race day.
Acting general manager for the day was Summer Cavanagh, a final year events and international festival management student, who said: “I am honoured to have been given the responsibility to plan a real-life event of this stature and have the opportunity as a management team to showcase our professional skills.”
The event, which was televised by Sky Sports Racing and S4C, was designed to provide them with reallife hospitality and management experience.
Jacqui Jones, programme manager, said: “This event was just one of many aimed at giving our students the skills to become future leaders in their chosen fields.
“I cannot thank Ffos Las and our supporting industry partners enough for giving our students such an excellent opportunity and our pride in such a successful event is enormous. The students were fantastic from start to finish and delivered an event that was professional at all times and watching them grow and develop in confidence as they did so was so rewarding.”
Andrea Murdock, the assistant chair of the Institute of Hospitality Cymru, described the event as “seamless, from Tarmac to table!”, while the general manager of Ffos Las, Kevin Hire said “the university students were absolutely superb”.
In addition, the students worked closely with the industry to raise money for Wales Air Ambulance charity through an auction run by tourism graduate Mark Gallagher from the Events Room, and found industry sponsors for their event.
Amanda Lewis, a second-year events and international management student who hosted sponsors and VIP guests on the day, said: “Running an entire race day at Ffos Las has enabled us to gain real-life, hands-on experience in the industry; unique opportunities like this help develop our skills towards a career path, because here you can see how the operational side of things work. It’s also given us the chance to build stronger relationships with each other while working as a team on this event.”
Elenor Haskins, a first-year international events and festival management student, said: “I wasn’t expecting so many opportunities like this to come around so quickly in my degree course. This industry has practical as well as academic learning, so you’ve got to know how to deal with people as well as what needs to go down on paper planning for an event. Also, events like this really bridge the gap to help build relationships with fellow students from different year groups as we become a team and are able to learn from each other too.”
Ffos Las Racecourse hosts an afternoon of jump racing on Thursday, coinciding with Day One of the Grand National meeting at Aintree.