The Catering and Maintenance Unit provides members of Flourish House with opportunities to become involved in a wide range of activities. We are situated on the Ground Floor and have a small industrial kitchen where we prepare all the meals and snacks for the Clubhouse. Our dining room has a café style layout and is called “Café Belize” (after the motto of the Belize Olympic Team 2002 as related to us by a Flourish House member, “even in the shadow I will flourish”). We feel it has a very warm and welcoming atmosphere through our attention to detail and décor.  At the beginning of February 2004 we re-floored the dining area along with the rest of the ground floor. We also have a Utility Room, a Unit office and storage areas.

Our compliment of staff has been increased to 3 with the re-deployment of a member of staff from the Education and Employment Unit.

Our work-ordered day focuses on providing catering/meals to staff, members and visitors to Flourish House. Light breakfast is available in the morning, snacks throughout the day and a 3 course meal at lunchtime. We also provide food for social events, monthly Education and Employment Unit dinners, meetings of the Management Committee, Open Days etc. We have a strong commitment towards offering food that is healthy and nutritional where possible.

Other areas of work within the unit include tasks that support food services,shopping,planning meetings,

maintaining high standards of Food Hygiene

Health and Safety and Stocktaking.

• Maintenance of the building and its exterior to provide members, staff and visitors to Flourish House with a clean and pleasant environment.
• Maintenance of the Courtyard area, a small paved garden area with seasonal plants and herbs.
• Maintenance of the mini bus. 
• A continuing programme of minor repairs, painting and decorating.
• Financial management of the budget relating to the Catering and Maintenance functions, petty cash and banking.

At last we have a launch date for the"Cafe Belize Cookery Book" On Thursday 24th March 2005.We will be posting news about Launch Event very soon.

Members and staff work alongside each other participating in all areas of the work of the Unit. We aim to give everyone a chance to learn new or develop existing skills such as maintaining a clean kitchen, safe food handling, preparation and service.

We aim to give members the opportunity to enhance their self-esteem, self-confidence and motivation in a friendly and supportive environment.

In this way we hope that members might be able to consider a Transitional Employment Placement, Supported Employment or educational and training courses such as Food Hygiene, Cookery etc.

In 2003 we were grateful to Cardonald College for allowing 2 members of staff and approximately 16 members to achieve their Elementary Food Hygiene Certificate (REHIS). We hope that more members and staff will have the same opportunity this year - we will be contacting colleges soon.

Throughout Spring 2004 we have had another addition to the Unit - a third year Community Education student from the University of Strathclyde.  Altogether we are very much achieving a lot more participation and involvement in all aspects of the Unit.  Some of the main areas the placement student has been looking at are -

• "Cafe Belize Cookery Book" - We have been compiling a collection of recipes for this and they include many of our delicious recipes which we prepare in the Cafe.  We are also collecting tried and tested recipes from our members archives, which can go back generations in some cases.  Another aspect of this has been photographing food and making drawings to intersperse in the cookery book.  We hope to be able to sell and distribute the cookery book to other Clubhouses and community groups, and a wider audience, if possible, for a small fee.  We are currently looking at funding options to cover costs.

• Procedures Manual - The placement student is working with staff and members to write up a procedures manual for the Catering and Maintenance Unit.  When it is completed we plan to have a procedure for almost all the tasks of the Unit, including Finance, Computer tasks and Health and Safety.  We hope that this will enable members to have even more access to all the work in the Unit, through easy step-by-step approaches laid out in the manual.  In this way members independence within the Unit will have increased.

As part of Flourish House’s commitment to cultural awareness, the Unit incorporates a wide range of religious and ethnic festivals in the planning of our menu. In aiming to expand our awareness further we hope to be able to contribute to a Clubhouse which includes all communities.

There has also been a lot of interest within the Unit towards the research and findings of the ‘Food and Mood Project’ based in the South of England. This Project, through self-help is working to enable individuals to examine the relationships between diet, nutrition, emotional and mental health and to share this information with others. We hope to explore these links further ourselves.

As a result of all the work and initiatives carried out in the Catering and Maintenance Unit, we hope that everyone enjoys good quality, reasonably priced meals in a welcoming environment

 

 

.