April 11, 2014
CEO Newsletter
Te3am,
It’s hard to believe that we are already in Q2 and I’m pleased to report that year-to-date across the enterprise we have posted solid revenue performance.
Baseball season kicked off with a vengeance this week. The Tampa Bay Rays garnered tremendous PR for our new hospitality program with their home opener last week and this week attention was turned to the Seattle Mariners and San Francisco Giants for their season home opening games (attached is a copy of an interview I gave last week). Our teams’ performance at each of the ballparks, as expected, was stellar. It is important that all of our major and minor league baseball venues commit to Making It Better To Be There for each and every game.
Of course, the Making It Better To Be There challenge is obviously not exclusive to our baseball channel. It is a universal challenge so make sure that you and your teams are up to the challenge of creating insanely great hospitality. We need to stay focused and grounded on delivering the things that we can control for our clients in spite of the ups and downs we face on a weekly basis. There will always be challenges. How we thoughtfully and calmly handle all with a positive disposition makes the difference.
We recently made an organizational move to restructure our Legal and Human Resources departments under the leadership of Keith King. This was done to streamline our go-to-market practices and to ultimately make us more efficient. Our Human Resources team under Roy Arnold accomplished many great things over the last few years. I’d like to take a moment and publicly thank Roy for his personal leadership and wish him every success in his new endeavors. Moving forward and looking forward as every progressive enterprise must, I expect to build on our recent momentum in Y14 and beyond. We are delighted to have David Winarski leading our HR efforts and I personally am excited about our future talent programs.
However, our corporate Human Resources team can only develop content. It takes our Operations and Department management teams to drive the programs home. Please take a moment to make sure that you and your team are taking advantage of the Centerplate Spark online learning and everyone is completing their necessary training programs. So far this month I personally have completed 14 training modules so asking for each management team member to complete just 1 should be a cake walk. I am sure you will make it happen.
E3 moments of the week …
Our team at John Harvard’s Lake Grove is certainly Making It Better To Be There for a frequent guest celebrating his birthday with a party at the restaurant, “words truly cannot express how grateful we are to all of you. From the minute we arrived to the minute we left we were treated like family. Everyone jumped through hoops to make sure our party went off without a hitch.” All hands were on deck and it showed. Making him an honorary mug club member added that special touch which will be remembered each time he returns and uses his mug. Kudos to Joseph Bruno, Sean Buchanan, Aaron Crossett, David Deturris, Mike Devine, Shane Murphy, Kimberly Palmer, Erin Schroth and our team at John Harvard’s!
The Springfield College Senior Formal was held at the Mass Mutual Arena. With 600 attendees, they enjoyed an elegant evening featuring a choice of slow roasted sirloin with a natural pan jus or panko encrusted chicken parmesan with chef’s marinara with dried herbs from our rooftop garden. Our college client was most appreciative, “I especially wanted you to know that the wait staff was nothing less than amazing! When guests arrived late after dinner service had already begun, or people were switching tables, they did not hesitate for even a second to accommodate everyone. They truly alleviated any nerves or anxiety that I had. Never once did I hear ‘we can’t do that’ – I only heard ‘of course’ and ‘no problem at all’. I would say your staff is probably the best I have ever experienced and it was an absolute pleasure to see how kind, professional and pleasant everyone was.” Another great example of insanely great hospitality by Alan Judkins, Diane Leader, Tabitha Mahoney, Phil Roberts, Cupresha Witherspoon and our team in Springfield!
Our first class of interns recently graduated from our CRAVE Program (Centerplate Recruiting and Assistance for Valuable Employees) at Gunstock Mountain Resort. The 12-week on the job training internship was developed in partnership with Lakes Region Community Services to provide individuals with disabilities an opportunity to learn skills needed to attain competitive employment in the food service industry. Our team members enjoyed the opportunity to be mentors and the interns learned useful kitchen and social skills that will help them in future positions. Great community spirit by John Timbrook, Mary MacDonald and our staff at Gunstock!
Celtic Park recently hosted the League Cup semi-final game due to the refurbishment being undertaken at Hampden Park. The game marked record sales for Celtic Park, which is a dry ground with all sales non-alcoholic, and quite possibly holds the record for a dry ground event by Centerplate UK, and it exceeded forecasted sales. The crowd of 40,000 fans enjoyed pies, burgers, Frank’s Hot Dogs, chips, confections along with hot and cold beverages. Our client was very pleased, “Well done to the staff at Centerplate for a marvelous performance. We have experienced great feedback from both sides of supporters.” Great job by Billie O’Neill and our entire team at Celtic Park!
Here’s to driving improved performance in Q2 and throughout 2014. To quote a great leader, Ben Franklin, “Energy and persistence conquer all things”.
Onwards!
Winston Thomas April 18, 2014 at 11:59 am
Reading the information is very exciting and inspiring…
Helen Bridges April 14, 2014 at 9:43 am
Congratulations to David Winarski!
Sharon M Luhnow April 11, 2014 at 6:37 pm
Congratulations to David Winarski!
Des, congratulations also to you for completing 14 Training Modules!