Hopwood Hall - Most Improved Apprentice Award
Awards Ceremony at Hopwood Hall College, 03/12/2009. Report by Vocational Service Convenor Rtn John Cannell 1st Vice President
2nd VP Joan accompanied me to the awards ceremony held at the Town Hall, Rochdale. We arrived in good time and were shown into a back room where tables were set for a buffet. The buffet was very good, with spare ribs, sandwiches, spring rolls and a good selection of sweet & sticky things to follow.
Clive Reid, a governor here, joined us for a while and we also met the other sponsors for the evening, the Emerson Educational Trust. Ian Murray, President of Rochdale East was to join us later.
We were ushered into the Great Hall in good time for the start. There were many familiar faces present, including the Mayor Keith Swift and his Lady Mayoress, Robert Clegg, chair of Govenors, and MPs Jim Dobbin and Paul Rowan,.
The college principal, Derek O'Toole, made the welcoming address and introduced John Binns, the MC for the evening.
The presenter of most of the awards was Clint Boon, a previous student at Hopwood Hall, later to find success with a punk band and now a radio DJ. We were there to present a new award, for the Most Improved Apprentice, a joint award from ourselves and Rochdale East, which was the last award of the evening.
Ian and I were invited onto the stage to present the award to Renata Caso, a young lady who is training to be a hairdresser. She works with her mother in a salon in Chadderton and according to her tutor is 'very enthusiastic and self motivated'. We had the opportunity to talk to her before and after the presentation and she is certainly going places! There is little doubt in my mind that the award is justified and that she will soon be either taking over the place where she is working now, or setting up her own place in the next few years. We presented her with a small shield and a certificate there and then, and will invite her to attend our club night on the 7th of January for her cash award.
A good evening and we hope to repeat the exercise again next year.
Rtn John Cannell.