Corporate Clients

*Cambridge Cookery School Case Study: Masterchef for a Day –
Co-operative Bank Gets Clients Cooking*

How do you entertain and engage a senior group of professionals, who have experienced just about every type of corporate entertainment around? This was the tough question facing the Senior Business Development Manager of the Co-operative Bank in Cambridge.

“I wanted to create a day that my clients and prospective clients would remember, that would be really good fun and actually enable people on the day to get to know each other and interact. Something that doesn’t always happen on run-of-the-mill golf days, lunches or sporting functions,” said Tim Jones of the Co-operative Bank.

The Co-operative Bank provided a brief to Cambridge Cookery School that simply requested a day that would be exciting yet with a relaxed atmosphere and with a definite, but light hearted, competitive edge to it. The event would be for 12 people, a mix of clients and prospects, and all senior management.

Cambridge Cookery School operates out of a number of venues in Cambridge, but for this particular event chose to the elegant Bonhunt Lodge, near Audley End, as the venue. The day got off to a great start at 10.30 am with a glass of pink Prosecco in line with the Italian theme, coffee, tea and freshly baked pastries. Participants were then given chef’s jackets and aprons, and divided into 3 teams – the Dumplings, the Donuts and the Big Macs.

“Tim was keen for the day to have a definite competitive edge, which always ups the ante a bit!” said Tine Roche, Proprietor of Cambridge Cookery School. “They were raring to go and loved the fact that they would really be assessed!
We handed out detailed recipes and a time plan for the day and explained that they would be competing for both group and individual prizes, based on organisational skills, team work, attention to detail, presentation, and flavour – all the key attributes of a good chef!”

The menu that the teams had to produce was by no means easy –Italian themed, it included making home made pasta, roasting Guinea Fowl and baking Cantuccini biscuits.

“The teams really embraced the competitive spirit and bonded well to produce fantastic food,” said Tine Roche. “They clearly enjoyed making food from scratch that they had perhaps not tried to do before, such as home made pasta and a really superb wild mushroom sauce.”

At 1.30 teams sat down around a large communal table to eat the lunch they had prepared accompanied by some delicious wines from Noel Young wines. Each team sampled food cooked by a competing team and were given score-cards to score each other with.

“By the time we say down to eat everyone had completely left the office behind and were all having a great time and getting on famously – more so than any other corporate event I have ever attended! “ said Tim Jones. “The prize giving was a particular highlight, and even though it was all a bit of fun the winners had a certain glow of pride about them! We will definitely do this again, either for client entertainment or team building within the organisation.”

Feedback from participants was extremely positive and well above the norm for a corporate entertainment. “This was a really valuable experience – it had all the elements a corporate day needs; it was fun, informative, social and was also extremely professionally run. I also now know how to make my own Cantucci which is just fantastic!” said Lawrence Bailey, of Price Bailey.