NSMW Blogs

A fantastic Remembrance Day event

Fri, 11 Nov 2011

It is Get Remembering Day and the NSMW Tour has been to Alma Park Primary School in Manchester. This is the last day of the NSMW Tour but it is possibly the most important as we ask the young people to remember and think about people that have been killed or injured in war. School meals for all came into effect in the Education Act of 1944. This was at a time in the war when many young people were malnourished and so their school meal was a vital part of the school day.

As we move on nearly seventy years we find school meals still at the heart of the school day but this time fighting to reduce obesity and encourage pupils to have a healthy and nutritious school meal so they can learn more in afternoon lessons.

At Alma Park School we had a whole school assembly where Arnold Fewell used the NSMW presentation for a talk to the children. He showed them the video of Simon Weston that was recorded in Cardiff and gave out spot prizes of NSMW mugs for those pupils that got the questions right. After the assembly it was play time and this gave Philippa James the chance to set up her presentation about the 1940's

A cameraman from Lancashire Life arrived to take pictures and this included all the teachers that had dressed up for the day. We had land girls, a pilot, doctor, warden and Mrs Mopp the cleaner. Everyone had really entered into the spirit of the day. One child had dressed up as an evacuee with a label showing who she was and where she came from.

When the children returned it was time for the two minutes silence. This was perfectly observed by the teachers and pupils alike. Immediately afterwards about sixty pupils from class three listened to Philippa who showed items like a child's gas mask, a ration book and all the foods that were available during the war. The pupils had lots of questions but were fascinated to see how small the portion of food a child had to eat was. Finally Philipa demonstrated how to make drop scones and every child had the chance to try.

The final part of the day was provided by Manchester Fayre. They had decorated the dining room with bunting, Union Jacks, balloons and brightly coloured table cloths. Music from the 40's was playing and there were jugs of juice, squash, milk and water on the tables. On the menu was lamb stew and Woolton Pie, this is one of the dishes featured in the NSMW recipe book. The dining room was set up as a street party as if everyone was celebrating the end of the war.

Well that was the week that was and NSMW 2011 has come to an end. It has been a fantastic week with more schools, authorities and foodservice contractors taking part, greater media coverage and hopefully more people staying for a healthy and nutritious school meal. So our final comment must be a big thank you to all the people that worked so hard to make this year certainly the biggest and possibly the best ever National School Meals Week.

Pupils encouraged to eat more fruit and vegetables

Thu, 10 Nov 2011

Three days down and two to go as we arrive at the award winning Easingwold School to learn more about 5-a-day and the work of Mary's Meals. Bob Davies is the school catering manager at the school, he works for North Yorkshire County Caterers and has just been named as Secondary School Caterer of the Year by EDUcatering Magazine. His award was represented at a school assembly by Alan Dewberry, proprietor and publisher of EDUcatering Magazine.

There were two assemblies and during these James Kelly from Mary's Meals talked about their work. The charity provides a daily meal at school to chronically poor children that are attracted to the classroom where, through education, they can escape poverty and gain a better future for themselves and their community. Tony Begley, Education Co-ordinator for Mary's Meals, said, "During NSMW we hope to give our young people an insight into the lives of the children fed by Mary's Meals, so that they can learn how fortunate they are to have access to good food, particularly, fresh fruit and vegetables. This is so important for a healthy and balanced diet."

There was a lot going on at the school today. After the assembly the students tried the nutritious porridge that Mary's Meals feeds to more than half a million children in sixteen countries around the world every day, including Malawi, Haiti and Liberia. Mary's Meals has recently been delivering 200 tonnes of emergency food aid to famine hit Somalia as part of its response to the East Africa crisis.

Did you know that in 2009 the UK spent £799 million on ice cream? This would feed the equivalent of 129 million children for a year

During the morning Bob Davies had set up a fantastic display of fresh fruit and vegetables to promote the importance of having your five-a-day. And at lunchtime Bob had organised buckets on each of the tills so that students could drop in any change that they were happy to donate Mary's Meals. Enough money was raised in this way to feed about 900 children. On top of this the school is making a donation for each meal served today.

Mrs Carey Chidwick, Head Teacher, said, "I was delighted to welcome the NSMW Tour to Easingwold School as it gave our students a great opportunity for them to listen to someone working closely with issues facing other parts of the world. We are fortunate that we are able to provide good nutritious meals and we focus on driving the messages about healthy eating and giving our students the very best start in life."

During the morning Nicola Howard, Business Development Manager from ParentPay, presented a cheque for £688 to James Kelly from Mary's Meals. This was 15p for every parent that had paid online using ParentPay on Monday for a school meal in North Yorkshire County Council.

So now it is four down and one day to go. It is an early start on Friday morning as The NSMW Tour sets off for Manchester.

Solihull pupils learn about cooking

Wed, 09 Nov 2011

Time is passing so quickly and we are already half way through. Today we are calling in to Cheswick Green School for a day of learning about tasting food and preparing a healthy salad. LACA is delighted to be working with the Academy of Culinary Arts and their Chef's Adopt-a-School Scheme.

This is a fantastic scheme where a celebrity chef goes into a school and teaches young people how to taste food using eyes, nose and the other senses. Then they teach the pupils how to prepare a meal while paying particular attention to using knives safely. The pupils learnt about the bridge and claw method of using knives and were then supervised as they put the lesson into a practical situation.

Lynda Mitchell, National Chair of LACA, said, "I think it is vital that everyone learns more about food during their school days and this is why today is so important. The greater love of food we can create now the more likely children will adopt a healthy lifestyle in years to come. Another benefit of this scheme is that it encourages the pupils to share their experience with parents."

Idris Caldora, the celebrity chef from the Academy of Culinary Arts in the Midlands area, added, "I have visited dozens of schools recently and it is fascinating to see the change of attitudes in young people during the sessions. Today the morning is split into two parts with the second session being a practical one to create a salad. This will be a Brazillian salad and it is then going to be served to all the pupils in the school at lunch time."

On the website at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk you can see another session from the Academy featuring James Holden carrying out a similar event at Cheadle Hulme High School. Why not have a look and if you can't use the materials during NSMW you can save them for another day? Here the students learn how to cook a vegetable Biryani.

If you want more information about the Chef's Adopt-a-school scheme then please visit www.academyofculinaryarts.org.uk.

So after two sessions about getting creative with food and a delicious healthy lunch provided by Solihull Catering Services the NSMW Tour is off to Easingwold School in North Yorkshire. We will meet Bob Davies who has just been named Secondary School Caterer of the Year by EDUcatering magazine.

Read all about day one of National School Meals Week 2011

Tue, 08 Nov 2011

It was an early start for Nicola and Karen or a late night as they went online to send out the LACA/ParentPay research at one minute after midnight. Over the next two hours they checked that the report was sent out correctly to all the people that had registered to receive it plus all those participating in National School Meals Week.

They were still up when the national dailies went online and were able to read articles about the research and the week in The Independent, The Express and The Mirror. The story was also covered in The Telegraph, The Mail, The Times and a lot more around the country. This meant NSMW had created more PR in 2011 than almost all other years and the official launch had not taken place. There was hope that ITN News would attend the launch but they pulled out late on as other news stories came in.

The launch took place at St Clement Danes CE Primary School. Lynda Mitchell, National Chair of LACA was joined by Sharon Hodgson, MP, Shadow Minister for Children and Families, Arnold Fewell, author of the LACA/ParentPay research and Clint Wilson, CEO of ParentPay a LACA Partner. They talked to the audience about the research findings. Lynda said how pleased she was that parents were happy with the current standard of a school meal and they obviously appreciated all the hard work that school caterers were doing across the country. Sharon said that if she was elected PM tomorrow then she would make a school meal free to all.

Arnold referred to various issues in the report including the facts that over 90% of parents wanted their child to learn to cook at school and that 42.5% of parents wanted to go into school to try a meal. Clint talked about how parents saw online payment as easy and that it helped ensure money was spent on a school meal rather than on the way to and from school. This must be a good reason to invest in online payments especially as 43% of parents said it helped reduce bullying.

After the launch a number of interviews were recorded to camera and these can be seen at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk .

As part of Britain's Biggest School Meal, Pete Waterfield, Tom Daley's synchronised diving partner, gave a talk to the pupils about his career. The pupils had a chance to wear his Olympic silver medal and ask him lots of questions. He then helped serve lunch before sitting down to have a meal with the children. Britain's Biggest School Lunch is supported by Mars Foodservice and their Dolmio ready to use pasta sauces. They had been incredibly busy sending out free samples and money off vouchers before the week. We were due to go into a Secondary School for the launch of the week but had to pull out at the last minute due to an Ofsted inspection. So thank you to LACA Partner, Mars Foodservice, for their support and being so understanding about the situation.

Lynda said a special thank you to the school and Chartwells for a delicious pasta lunch before everyone packed up and set off down the M4. Next stop Weston-super-Mare and Get Travelling Day.

What happened in Weston-super-Mare on Get Travelling Day

Tue, 08 Nov 2011

The clouds were grey and it was very English weather as we arrived at Worlebury St Paul's C.E.V.A. Primary School but we were soon on our way to China. It was all part of Get Travelling Day thanks to Bernard Matthews Foodservice. This was the second stop on this year's National School Meals Week (NSMW) Tour.

The day started with a very colourful school assembly where all the pupils dressed up in Chinese costume. They then had an interactive assembly led by Lynda Mitchell, National Chair of LACA and Karen Fewell, one of the NSMW girls from the LACA conference. They saw a number of pictures from Lynda's recent trip to Beijingand and admired her Chinese silk jacket. The excitement continued as one class after another came on stage to have their costumes judged by Chris Walkden, National Account Manager, with Bernard Matthews Foodservice. This must have been the hardest job of the day as the costumes were brilliant. When each class had been on stage the winners were announced and invited back to receive their prizes. There were lots of cheers and shouts of encouragement with big smiling faces from the winners as they all assembled on stage to judge the overall winner.

After morning break and a chance to let off some Chinese steam, class five returned to the school hall to help Chris decorate the room. There were red and yellow tablecloths to represent China, flags, dragons, lots of balloons, bunting, chopsticks and special pots of noodles. Finally lunch was ready and the dining room filled with children. It was brilliant to see so many young people tasting new, healthy food using chopsticks to the best of their ability with a little help from the Midday Supervisory Assistants.

Chris Walkden, said, "It is days like this that make my job extra special, turkey is so popular with children and I just love to see the pleasure on their young faces. It is great to know that all my colleagues are hosting similar events today in schools across the country and that more children are enjoying turkey as part of a school meal. As a company, Bernard Matthews Foodservice, fully supports LACA in its promotional activity for healthy eating and encouraging more young people to have a school meal."

Lunch was filmed by our cameraman Paul and his edited highlights of the day are on www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk.

Sadly lunch time came to an end but pupils of the school had had a great time as they all learnt about a new country both in class and at school lunchtime. As Lynda commented, "This was a wonderful example of a whole school approach to healthy eating and I must thank the Head Teacher, Gillian Quick, and all her staff for helping and supporting the day."

LACA is also very grateful to Edwards and Ward for putting on such a lovely lunch. Russ Templeman, Contracts Manager, from Edwards and Ward, said, "as a company we regularly have theme days because they prove so popular with the pupils. It was brilliant for us to be involved with NSMW and to welcome the tour. I think it is a great opportunity for us to provide some Chinese flavour to a national event and I hope the rest of the week is as successful as today."

So next stop Solihull and a visit from Idris Caldora, a celebrity chef from the Academy of Culinary arts.

A great start to NSMW

Fri, 04 Nov 2011

Bags were packed, train tickets bought and Lynda Mitchell, National Chair of LACA and Arnold Fewell from AVF Marketing, headed to London on Thursday 3rd November for a day of pre-recorded radio interviews.

LACA had used a specialist radio media company called Radio Relations. Their job was to liaise with local and national radio stations and sell in the story about the LACA/ParentPay research. The story was embargoed until one minute past midnight.

A lot of the media picked up on the numbers of parents not claiming their free school meal entitlement. Lynda and Arnold were very keen to turn the discussion back to lots of the other positive issues in the report.

The results were incredible as Lynda and Arnold were locked in a studio for several hours. But the requests kept coming in and by Tuesday morning well over thirty interviews had been recorded or had gone out live.

It was the best start ever to any NSMW.

NSMW Kicks Off on Monday

Fri, 04 Nov 2011

I expect there are some very busy offices and schools today as everyone puts the final plans in place for NSMW which starts on Monday. Over the last few months I have seen so much activity from the organisers, local authorities, contract caterers, suppliers and schools to make this a fantastic week. I am so looking forward to hearing about your events as they take place next week.

With just a few days to go I wanted to remind you of a few things before you leave for the weekend.

Don’t forget to text in your phone photos to 88600. Start your text with NSMW followed by your photo caption. Pictures will be displayed on the website tour pages so please ensure you have permission from participants before you send them. If you don’t want to include people in your photographs you can be a little imaginative. Why not send us a picture of the delicious dish you are about to serve, your hall decorated in country flags or artwork that pupils have created.
Please send details of any local news coverage you get including press, radio and TV to nicola@avfmarketing.co.uk. It will be fantastic for us to see all the stories from across the UK.
There’s still time for you to Share your Plans with us on the NSMW website. All the plans we have received so far are at http://www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/Media/Local-Plans/.
This year NSMW is going on tour! We are visiting several LACA regions by heading to London, Weston-super-Mare, Solihull, North Yorkshire and Manchester. Keep checking the tour pages on the website to see the latest photos, videos and blogs.
If you don’t already follow @NSMW on Twitter and like the National School Meals Week Facebook page. The team will be tweeting and updating throughout the week so you can read the action as it happens.

On behalf of LACA I want to thank everyone who is taking part. With more Local Authorities, Contract Caterers and Schools than ever before it’s our biggest event yet!

We're going on tour!

Mon, 31 Oct 2011

Well, LACA’s plans are ready and National School Meals Week is only a week away. We will soon be packing our bags and going on the NSMW Tour. This idea came about after feedback from members last year. Members were saying they wanted to see more PR activity outside of London and not just concentrated on the Monday of the week. So here are the details.

Monday 7th November 2011 at 8.30am – The launch of the LACA/ParentPay market research at St Clement Danes CE Primary School, Covent Garden. The research had over 10,000 responses from parents and makes it one of the biggest research projects into school meals. It is packed full of information that will help school caterers improve their service.

Monday 7th November 2011 at 11am – The launch of NSMW by Lynda Mitchell, Chair of LACA at Greenford High School, Southall, London. There will also be a visit from Pete Waterfield, Tom Daley’s synchronised diving partner as part of Britain’s Biggest Ever School Lunch. The day is supported by Dolmio and a healthy pasta lunch will be served with the help of Papa Dolmio.

Tuesday 8th November 2011 – It is Get Travelling Day supported by Bernard Matthews Foodservice. Today will be a Chinese Theme Day with pupils and teachers from St Pauls VA School, Worlebury, Weston-super-Mare helping to decorate the dining room. Pupils are dressing up with certificates for the best outfits. There are five different country themes provided on line with activity sheets, a snap game and much more.

Wednesday 9th November 2011 – On Get Creating Day the NSMW road show visits Cheswick Green School, Shirley, Solihull and links up with Idris Caldora from the Chef’s Adopt-a-school scheme run by the Academy of Culinary Arts. Idris is running two sessions for pupils. The first is about healthy eating and the food groups. The second is a practical session about making a salad and learning how to use knives safely.

Thursday 19th November 2011 – Off we go to Easingwold School, York Road, Easingwold in North Yorkshire where Bob Davies has just been voted Secondary School Caterer of the Year by EDUcatering Magazine. There will be a school assembly where Tony Begley from Mary’s Meals will talk about the charity that provides free school meals to thousands of poor children in countries like Malawi and Somalia. Students will be able to try the fortified porridge that is served by Mary’s Meals.

Friday 11th November – It is Remembrance Day when we visit Alma Park School, Levenshulme, Manchester. There will be a two minute silence plus a presentation of World War 2 artefacts by Philippa James and a school assembly that has a video message from Simon Weston. Manchester Fayre is setting up a street party with lots of flags, bunting and great food from the 1940s.

Thanks to all the teachers and school caterers that have supported the tour as without them nothing would be possible. There are some great things going on and a report of each day’s activities will go on www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. This will include video footage and we aim to capture the fun of the events.

Get your pupils creating during National School Meals Week

Wed, 19 Oct 2011

I really enjoy cooking and love to see young people showing an interest. That's why I like the idea of the Get Creating theme day on Wednesday 9th November. The aim of the day is to get pupils interested in food and cooking from raw ingredients which is all part of promoting healthy lifestyles.

As part of this day you can download activity sheets for KS1 and KS2. Why don't you print these out and use them as placemats on each table. Pupils love completing activity sheets and they make learning about food fun.
You can also download posters, a press release, a school assembly, FAQs about the day, digital signage as well as the general logos, stickers, banners, letters etc that are available in the general toolkit.

On the day you will be able to watch a video that was filmed a few weeks ago at Cheadle Hulme High School in Stockport. This was filmed with James Holden from the Academy of Culinary Arts and can be used in lessons on Get Creating Day.
We hope you enjoy it!

The Welsh downloads are live in your NSMW account

Mon, 17 Oct 2011

The support for National School Meals Week in Wales is fantastic and every year we create many of the English resources in Welsh for the authorities there. And this year is no exception with posters, letters, logos, day graphics, activity sheets and more in Welsh. These can be downloaded from the toolkit in your NSMW accounts. However to make it as easy as possible for you to find what you need visit www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/cymru2011 and click on each of the links to take you directly to the documents.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Dafydd in Conwy who has helped the NSMW girls by checking the activity sheets and other items before they have gone live. It's been a huge help!

We've hit the big 100!

Fri, 14 Oct 2011

I've just had a very exciting email from Arnold Fewell, one of the NSMW Organisers. They have just had the 100th registration from an authority/contract caterer. This was the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Every year we have new authorities and schools taking part and with a few weeks still to go this year could be the biggest NSMW yet.

If you haven't registered for NSMW 2011 don't worry as there is still plenty of time. Everything you need to run an event is downloadable and you can personalise and print at your school or office PC. You can take part in one day, just a few days or all five - it's entirely up to you.

Only one month till the launch of National School Meals Week

Fri, 07 Oct 2011

Today marks one month to go before the start of National School Meals Week. If you haven't already signed up it's not too late to get involved. Everything you need to run a week of theme days is available on this website and you can take part in as much or as little of the week as you like.
Here are some things to consider with just a month to go:-

Are you registered on the website at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk? You can check whether you are in the Who is Taking Part list at http://www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/Media/Who-is-Taking-Part/
Have you invited guests for Britain's Biggest School Lunch on Monday 7th November? You can download letter invites and invitation templates from this website.
Have you shared your plans on the website? This will help the national and local media create news articles about who is doing what. http://www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/Media/Local-Plans/
You can prepare your press releases with ease as there is a press release template for each day of the week that your communications team can adapt and send out.
Remember the results of the LACA and ParentPay survey will be announced on Monday 7th November so register on the website so you can receive the report direct to your inbox.
There is an assembly that can be used each day of the week to promote the daily theme. This is a great way of creating a whole school approach to healthy lifestyles.
Keep up-to-date with the plans for the week by following @NSMW on Twitter and liking our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/nationalschoolmealsweek.
Have you decided if you are doing any fundraising for either Mary's Meals or the British Legion? If so, you can download a fundraising guide in the Thursday and Friday toolkit.
The videos for the week are already online at http://www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/Media/videos-about-NSMW/. Watch these now to find out more about this year's plans.
For the first time ever you can create your own artwork on this website. Add your own text and logos to create posters and banners. Visit http://www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/My-NSMW/Create-Your-Own/.

Download everything you need to run a fantastic Get Travelling Day

Thu, 06 Oct 2011

You can make sure your Get Travelling Day is an even bigger success when you use all the fantastic downloads supplied by Bernard Matthews Foodservice. Not only can you use the NSMW posters, day graphics, assembly, press release and FAQs but thanks to our Get Travelling Day sponsor you can also download:-

- Recipe for China Hong Kong Sweet & Sour Turkey
- Recipes for India Bollywood Turkey Curry or Taj Mahal Tikka Turkey Baguette
- Recipes for Mexico Mexican Mayhem Turkey Chilli or Turkey Fiesta Fajitas
- Recipe for Italy Pisa Turkey Pizza
- Snap Cards for Italy, India, China, Mexico and UK
- Activity sheets for Italy, India, China, Mexico and UK
- Open belly posters for Italy, India, China, Mexico and UK

Bernard Matthews Foodservice has also been running a competition to win a Get Travelling Day organised by their team on Tuesday 8th November.
Thank you to everyone who entered. The winning school will be announced shortly so look out for more information.

A whole school approach to healthy eating

Fri, 30 Sep 2011

I remember going to a number of school assemblies during my time at Southampton City Catering. The children listened so attentively to the headteacher or teacher running it and it was a great time to see all the school come together. That's why I am glad that each day during National School Meals Week schools can download dedicated assemblies to promote each day of the week.

This is what's available:-

Monday - An overview to National School Meals Week and Britain's Biggest School Lunch highlighting the health benefits of a school meal.

Tuesday - Pupils can learn about Get Travelling and the countries they may come across as part of this day including Mexico, Italy, China and India.

Wednesday - For Get Creating Day pupils can learn about fruit and vegetables they may use whilst cooking and how to prepare them as well as food safety advice

Thursday - On Get 5-a-Day pupils can learn more about Mary's Meals and hopefully realise how lucky they are to have fruit and vegetables on their plate at lunchtime.

Friday - For Get Remembering Day pupils can learn more about Remembrance Day and watch the inspirational video from war hero, Simon Weston.

Activity sheets are also available for Get Travelling Day and Get Creating Day. Bernard Matthews Foodservice has created activity sheets for each country that can also be used as table mats. On Get Creating Day you could provide pupils with the dedicated activity sheets to help pupils learn about cooking. All these can be downloaded from your NSMW Account.

Chef's Adopt a School Programme a great success

Wed, 28 Sep 2011

I had the privilege of visiting Cheadle Hume High School last week and saw a brilliant session all about food. We were filming the lessons for the Get Creative Day that is taking place on Wednesday 9th November during National School Meals Week. We had James Holden from the Academy of Culinary Arts. He is the North West Chef for the Adopt a School programme and he was nothing short of brilliant. He engaged with the year sevens, maintained order and their respect and on top of that we had an Ofsted inspection. Ofsted also thought the lesson was outstanding and showed how well food could be integrated into the curriculum. It was also a great opportunity for us to talk about what LACA is doing to promote a whole school approach to healthy eating.

The format of the day included: learning about the different tastes of food; where the various tastes could be felt on the tongue; how we use our eyes and noses to assess the food in front of us; looking at vegetables and herbs to identify what they were, where they had come from and how many miles the food had travelled. After that James showed the pupils how to prepare and cook a vegetable BIryani. This had ten vegetables in and it was amazing to see how many pupils ate the dish even though they said there were vegetables in it that they did not like. They had the opportunity to take the dish home and the students even asked if the dish could be on the menu.

Solutions SK who run the catering at this school will be putting the dish on the menu during NSMW. The recipe for the Vegetable Biryani will soon be available on this website. The DVD will be online and there will be a school assembly that can be used by teachers and show the various areas that James covered.

I would recommend the Chef's Adopt a School programme from the Academy of Culinary Arts to any school or local authority. There is a national network of chefs available so you will find someone in your area by visiting http://www.academyofculinaryarts.org.uk/chefs-adopt-a-school.html. Why not have a look now and also have you registered for NSMW yet. If not please go to www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. All the resources are free and research shows that it helps increase meal numbers.

A great way to promote fruit and vegetables

Tue, 27 Sep 2011

Are you promoting Get 5-a-Day in your school or authority? At the LACA Conference I was lucky enough to meet Tony Begley from Mary's Meals who was helping promote this day of NSMW. It was great to hear him talk about their work and how they help so many children in poverty. LACA is delighted to be working with such a great charity.

Mary's Meals provides daily meals to chronically hungry children in their local school. In this way the hungry child is encouraged to attend school and, through education, gain a better future for himself and his community.

If you visit the Thursday toolkit on this site you can download lesson plans for KS1 to KS4 that will help pupils understand the work of Mary's Meals. You can also download some facts about Porridge and interesting facts and figures about the hunger problem that can be used in a classroom situation. If you want more educational resources you can visit http://www.marysmeals.org.uk/education-zone/educational-resources and download the ones you need.

Tony recently sent me a video by email. It's called "The Difference A Meal Makes" and is worth watching. It certainly makes me feel extremely grateful for the fruit and vegetables available to me each day. Let's hope it does the same for young people across the UK on Get 5-a-Day on the 10th November.

Another new idea for 2011

Thu, 22 Sep 2011

Ideas come thick and fast as we plan the build up to LACA's National School Meals Week from November 7th 2011. And it is great to see so many come to fruition. When I look at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk it is amazing to see how many free downloads there are. The latest ones are four quizzes that have been created by Change4Life.

The quizzes are targeted at Key Stages 1 to 4 and just in case anyone is struggling we have provided the answers for teachers. The idea is to get pupils and teachers doing research using the materials and website that have been provided. This enables participants to answer all the questions. I think they are excellent and tested my knowledge. Why not have a go and download them yourself? You could also email the link to some of your headteachers and deputies to get them involved.

LACA is a key partner with Change4Life and I must say thank you to them for working with us on this project. Details of the quizzes will be sent out in the Change4Life newsletter and this goes to nearly half a million contacts. This should create a fantastic amount of interest in both the quizzes and the week. To find out more about Change4Life visit http://www.nhs.uk/change4life

We are going global this year

Tue, 20 Sep 2011

I love travelling to new places and learning about other countries so I am delighted that Get Travelling Day is part of this year's National School Meals Week. Learning about food from other countries and tasting new dishes is really important from a young age. I remember from my days in Southampton schools that pupils loved theme days like this.

Get Travelling Day has been made even better with the support of Bernard Matthews Foodservice. You can download lots of additional resources including turkey recipe cards, open belly posters and activity sheets for each country. They have also created a fantastic Snap game which pupils can play at lunchtime. These downloads are all in the Tuesday toolkit and are available for China, India, Mexico, Italy and the UK.

You could win a Get Travelling Themed Day for your school by entering the competition on this website. The winning school will receive a visit from the Bernard Matthews Foodservice Team who will provide everything you need for the country of your choice to ensure a memorable day - from decorations for the school dining hall and entertainment to Big Green Tick product for your chosen recipe. You can choose the country you want to celebrate from Mexico, India, China, Italy and the UK.

The closing date for this competition is Friday 30th September so make sure you enter before then and good luck.

Whichever country you choose to celebrate during Get Travelling Day I hope you have a great time and make sure you take lots of photos.

Looking forward to Britains Biggest School Lunch

Thu, 15 Sep 2011

It's now less than two months till the start of National School Meals Week and I wanted to talk a bit more about Get Eating Day. This is where your school or authority can take part in Britain's Biggest School Lunch. It's a chance for you to invite guests in to taste the delicious and healthy meals you serve. Here are some ideas of who you could invite:-

Parents
Grandparents
Governors
Councillors
Mayor
Local vicar
Representatives from emergency services such as firemen, police officers, ambulance service
Staff from a local charity
Local armed forces
Local sports stars
Local celebrities

In your NSMW account you can download invitations and letters to invite guests to your special event. You will also find posters you can download and display to publicise your event directly in schools. Make sure you tell the local media by downloading the press release template and adding in your event details.

We are delighted that Mars Foodservice is sponsoring this day with their delicious Dolmio ready-to-use pasta sauces. Have you requested your free jar yet? If not visit the Dolmio page now and read how to claim yours. There's 500 jars available* to the first 500 schools/authorities to register for them. Mars Foodservice is also giving away recipe books and money off vouchers.

You can also download Dolmio recipes from the Monday toolkit. Why don't you use one of these recipes for your menu on 7th November?

Find out more about what you can do on Get Eating Day.

Interest in NSMW is ahead of last year

Tue, 13 Sep 2011

The figures regarding visitors to the www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk website are up on the same period last year. Karen Fewell has undertaken a comparison between the launch of the website at the LACA Conference to 12th September and compared the stats with last year. The figures show that visits this year are up by 47% and that visitors on average look at 8 pages a visit. Each visitor spends on average 5.44 minutes looking around the site and downloading resources to run the week.

I believe this shows how well NSMW is progressing. Over the last three years there has been a period of enormous change and improvement. In 2009 the concepts of digital marketing were new and it has taken time for all the concepts to be fully recognised and bedded in but the effort has been worth it. Each year we have progressed with new ideas for the daily themes, increased participation with levels now beating the last 18 years, wider PR and undertaking new market research.

The market research with ParentPay has already beaten its target of 5k responses and will soon achieve 8k and possibly 10k. This will make it one of the biggest surveys ever undertaken in this sector of the catering industry. None of this would be possible without the help and support of LACA members. That is why I urge all LACA members that haven't registered to do so in the near future. It is now less than two months to the week and it is free to take part and there is so much you can download to help you personalise the week to your needs.

I must also thank ParentPay for their enthusiasm and commitment to the market research. I realise that the new academic year is a busy time for ParentPay but to achieve such a high response rate is nothing short of brilliant. Thank you to everyone at ParentPay. I must also thank Karen whose understanding of digital marketing is second to none. She with Arnold and Nicola have come up with so many ideas and these are really showing results for LACA. Thank you to them as well.

So if you haven't quite decided about participating I hope the figures above encourage you to do so. The more schools, foodservice contractors and schools that take part the stronger the week becomes for everyone. This helps the PR activity and shows that LACA's commitment and involvement is great value for money. So all you have to do is register at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. Thank you so much for your support of the wee

LACA undertakes major survey with ParentPay

Mon, 22 Aug 2011

Market research is a vital and a key part of any successful marketing strategy. It helps us identify customer attitudes to our service and is the starting point of our marketing activities. In this way the improvements and developments you make will meet and satisfy customer expectations and will result in an increase in sales, an enhanced reputation or more children having the healthy choices.

Another factor about market research is that the press and media love surveys. It is amazing how many days we see details about the latest research even if the subject matter is a little bizarre. Publishing survey results can enhance your news worthiness especially when you have a good news story like NSMW.

For these two reasons LACA is delighted to announce that it has teamed up with one of its Partners - ParentPay to undertake market research as part of this year's NSMW. The research will be undertaken in September with the objective of collecting 1500 responses. This is the sort of figure that someone like MORI will use to collect data for a national survey.

Clint Wilson, CEO of ParentPay, said, "ParentPay has a database of over a million parents who can pay online, this covers 2500 schools over 165 local authorities. This provides us with a great way of collecting the data and we are incentivising completion by offering four £250 prizes in a free draw. I am confident that this will enable us to far exceed the figure of 1500 responses. To ensure we get a balanced picture we will also be asking other schools and local authorities to take part. I believe this will give school caterers a valuable insight into their business as well as providing the media with an interesting and very relevant piece of research".

I think there are a number of benefits for LACA members to take away from this joint research between LACA and ParentPay, they are:

School caterers will have far more information about parents' views towards school meals.
The results will include parent's views both nationally and in your TV region.
The ability to find out what information parents want about school meals and in what format.
School caterers, teachers and Healthy Eating Co-ordinators can learn more about the eating habits of young people from getting their 5-a-day to the number of times chips are consumed each week.
You can read the views of parents on other key issues that affect young people including exercise, cooking, using the Internet and much more.

The full report will be published on Monday 7th November at a school in London. If you have registered to take part in NSMW the research results will be sent direct to your inbox on the same day.

An inspirational story...

Tue, 02 Aug 2011

Thanks to everyone that came to see us at the NSMW stand at the LACA Conference. We had a fantastic response and the event was the busiest yet from our point of view.

While I was at the conference I met Tony from Mary's Meals who we are working with on 10th November. The aim is link Change 4 Life and the 5-A-Day campaign with Mary's Meals so that children in this country realise just how lucky they are to be served a hot and nutritious meal each day.
Tony gave me one of his magazines and I read the first article and it says it all. This is why with their permission I have copied and pasted the article into the blog. I am sure you will be as moved as I was:-

"One of my children's favourite bed time stories is the one about a magic porridge pot given to a little girl. This wonderful pot continually produces porridge until you say the secret word which makes it stop. Of course they forget this word and things get very sticky indeed in this particular village. In some ways the story of Mary's Meals is like this fairy tale - certainly in the vast quantities of sticky tasty porridge produced every day in cooking pots. The pots we use in Malawi aren't ‘magic' but they are specially designed to use only a tiny amount of firewood compared to traditional cooking pots and each serves 400 children every school day!

Each helping is ladled into a colourful plastic cup held by a hungry, smiling child. We cannot claim either that these tasty, filling meals are magic, but each cup of porridge is life-giving and each has wonderful ramifications. First of all it draws the child to school - thousands of them, chattering and laughing in snaking lines outside school kitchens all over Malawi - then it sets to work in other ways. It, being very often the first food to reach the child's tummy that day, dispels the gnawing hunger pains and begins to nourish little bodies, works to keep illness away and lets the mind concentrate and learn. Meanwhile back at home, or at places of work, parents know that today they need not worry about how they will feed their child or contemplate sending their sons or daughters to work for food. And the local farmers, from whom we buy all the ingredients of this porridge, are able to support their families and know that they can sell all they grow for a fair price.

So many beautiful things result each time we serve a cup of porridge. In other countries the nourishing meals we serve may have different ingredients - perhaps rice, beans and vegetables instead of maize, soya and sugar - but they have exactly the same effects. Thousands of the world's poorest children are fed, drawn to school and given the chance to learn to read and write, to do sums, to sing and play football. To become more like the people God created them to be. Recently, in a slum in Haiti, I joined the ladies in a school kitchen who were preparing and serving Mary's Meals to thousands of hungry children. One after another each child held their hands out to receive a plate, piled with rice, vegetables and fish. Mesi (thanks) each says to me quietly as they turn away with their food and their laughing friends. I wonder at the privilege of being able to serve these children the food they need, children who are living in a slum built on a rubbish dump, where people die because of malnutrition and violence.

I wish that every person whose donations or hard work has provided these meals could experience this. And my heart is full of gratitude for those people who never will have that chance to meet these children but who have anyway decided to reach out to them in love and in so doing have changed their lives.

Jimmy is the 18 year old head boy of this school. On a previous visit he told me how he could not have thought about coming to school if it were not for the provision of daily meals there. Today he is planning to go to college to study agriculture so that he can help the people of Haiti grow more food. One daily meal every day can do so much. It can allow people to grow up and change their country. The next day in another part of the same slum, I meet little Peter who emerges from a group of children all naked or dressed in rags and approaches me. He chats to me persistently even though we cannot understand each other. He holds my hands and laughs and chatters on. I look at the rubbish in which we stand - the broken bottles, the excrement and the twisted plastic - and I look at his little bare feet and the bare feet of his friends standing nearby. And I wish so much we were able to provide them with Mary's Meals too but we can't. Not yet at least.

Mary's Meals does not possess a magic porridge pot of course. All of these meals served and the tonnes of porridge made and lives changed, would not be possible, I believe, without God's providence. But also each pot and mug would not be filled every day if it were not for thousands of little kindnesses. Without the donations, the direct debits, the fundraising events or the sponsored events the pots would be empty. If it were not for the volunteers who give talks, fundraise and cook and serve the food - the children's cups would not fill with porridge tomorrow. A secret password will not stop the flowing of Mary's Meals porridge, only a lack of love. That is why I believe that little Peter, and thousands of other hungry children will one day receive Mary's Meals too. For Mary's Meals is a work of love and love endures. Love, unlike magic, is real."

Visit NSMW stand at LACA Conference

Mon, 04 Jul 2011

I am sure everyone is getting ready to attend the LACA Conference and Exhibition this week and I am looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones. It is also time to launch National School Meals Week (NSMW) 2011. This will take place at 5.30pm on Wednesday 6th July in the Annual Meeting of LACA members. At the same time the website for the week, www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk will go live.

The plans for this year are very exciting and I am sure they will help you increase meal numbers as they have for the last two years. If you can't make that meeting then make sure you visit the exhibition on either the Thursday or the Friday and head to stand K7a, next to the LACA stand, and talk to either Nicola or Karen. They are affectionately known as the NSMW girls and they are easily recognisable as they are wearing white and red sashes. They can answer any questions and give advice and ideas of what you can do.

On the stand you can claim your free guide on how to organise NSMW 2011, a free NSMW mug and spoon and a free recipe book with dishes provided by Dolmio and Bernard Matthews. This is targeted at parents with advice on healthy eating provided by Change4life. The recipe book can be downloaded from www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk and you can get them printed for local distribution. It also has two dishes from the 1940's and links to the activities planned for 11th November, Get Remembering Day.

I must add that Dolmio is supporting Get Eating Day on Monday 7th November and Bernard Matthews is doing the same on Get Travelling Day which is Tuesday 8th November. So it is well worth visiting their stands to see the offers they are making as part of the week. I know it involves free product, money off vouchers and theme day packs for the first 50 people that register online. I think that is brilliant and my special thanks go out to them.

To keep up to date with all the latest news and to take part in this year's NSMW you will need to either register or reregister if you took part last year. Once you have done this you will have full access to the site and be able to download all the free items you will need and get the free offers from Dolmio and Bernard Matthews. There is no requirement to take part in every day; you can do as much as you want, and all that LACA asks is you tell us what you are doing so we can keep the media informed.

Thanks for your support of NSMW and please keep in touch with what is going on.

Time to get these dates in your diary

Fri, 20 May 2011

Well it's that time of year again when I have to sharpen my pencil and put the thinking cap on. However, in retirement it is not to do a budget (thank heavens) but to start a series of blogs in the build up to National School Meals Week 2011. I am really looking forward to this year because I think the ideas and themes we have planned are the best ever.

I am also delighted to say that we have two sponsors this year. The first is Mars Foodservice who did so much to help us last year with free samples and money off vouchers. They are sponsoring the Get Eating Day on Monday that in one City authority increased meal numbers by 2k. The second is Bernard Matthews and they are supporting the Get Travelling Day and providing a range of new turkey recipes for theme days. There will be a lot more information on the build up to the week in November.

All I would ask at this stage is for you to make a date in your diary and let your team know what is happening. Probably the best way to bring you up to date is to let you read the latest press release that LACA has sent out. So here it is:

LACA's National School Meals Week (NSMW) 2011 dates announced

The Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA) has announced that NSMW will take place from Monday 7th to Friday 11th November. The key theme of the week is to promote healthy and nutritious school meals to parents, pupils, teachers and governors across England and Wales.
Each day has a different theme, they are: Monday Get Eating as part of Britain's Biggest School Lunch; Tuesday is Get Travelling where pupils can learn about food from different countries; on Wednesday it is Get Creating when pupils and students are encouraged to be creative with food; Thursday is Get 5-a-Day and we will be explaining the importance of fruit and vegetables as part of a balanced diet, Friday is Get Remembering when young people turn their minds to all those that have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. It is also a reminder about how school meals for all were first introduced to combat malnutrition in war time.

Two sponsors have been confirmed to enhance the week's activities. Dolmio will support Get Eating and Britain's Biggest School Lunch. All Dolmio sauce recipes have been recently developed to be compliant with the strict school guidelines. They are now all RD salt compliant for 2012, are free from artificial colours, flavourings and preservatives, the range is also gluten free with no GM ingredients or MSG, and no nuts or peanuts are used as ingredients. All sauces are also HFA approved for Halal diets.

Tuesday's Get Travelling Day is being sponsored by Bernard Matthews Foodservice. Their Big Green Tick range of British turkey products ticks all the right boxes for schools. The range has been developed in conjunction with LEA's and schools to help caterers create menus that meet food and nutrient based standards, whilst appealing to children.

Sandra Russell, Chairman of LACA, said "A new twist for 2011 is the NSMW Tour. A themed event will take place in a different location each day starting in London on the Monday and ending in the North West on the Friday. I urge more schools to take part as the resources are available to download free from the website from July onwards. Schools and caterers will be able to register to take part in the week from Wednesday 6th July when the website will be launched at the annual LACA Conference. In the last two years we have seen over 16,000 schools take part and this makes it the biggest healthy eating event in the country and our research shows that sales can be increased by over 6%".

Sarah Gray, National Account Manager from Dolmio said, "NSMW is a very important event in the school calendar for several reasons. It encourages more children to have a healthy meal at lunch time and this helps young people regenerate their batteries for afternoon lessons. Pasta is a great energy food and is very popular when served with one of our delicious Dolmio sauces. Last year these sauces were reformulated so they comply with all the nutritional standards set out by the Government".

Chris Walkden, National Account Manager, Bernard Matthews Foodservice, added, "Our Big Green Tick Turkey Thigh Mince, Diced Turkey Thigh and ready to eat Turkey Breast Chunks are very popular with schools as they are low in saturated fat and extremely versatile. They can provide a protein base for dishes from around the world, from curries to chilli. This is why we are delighted to take part in the Get Travelling Day. We will be providing a range of recipe ideas, developed by our home economist to meet the food and nutrient based standards, that caterers can use on the day and then incorporate into their Autumn menus. Bernard Matthews Foodservice totally supports the aim of LACA's NSMW and I am sure this year will be bigger and better than ever".

Feedback from 2010 campaign

Thu, 24 Feb 2011

As you may be aware we sent out a questionnaire about NSMW during January. At the February Board Meeting of LACA Ltd we had a very comprehensive report of what was achieved in the 2010 week. This is a summary of the feedback:

• 103 authorities/contractors and 366 schools took part compared to 95 and 214 respectively in 2009.
• It is estimated that 17,000 schools took part on at least one day of the week.
• There were a total of 633 registrations and these were spread across the country.
• 25% of registrations were from teachers.
• 74% of respondents saw an increase in meal numbers during the week.
• On average the increase was 6.3%.
• 62% continued to see the increase the following week.
• 55% had an increase in meal numbers a month afterwards.
• The number of downloads made in 2010 were 5318 compared to just over 2000 in 2009.
• The top downloads were: Monday Primary open belly poster; the Friday Masks for Get Giggling; the recipes from the 1940s for Get Remembering Day; Monday's menu template; Thursday Primary poster.
• On average a local authority downloaded 20.4 of the NSMW tools.
• The research rated the week as 46% very good, 36% good and 18% OK. Nobody said it was poor.
• The most popular day was Monday, followed by Thursday, Friday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
• 41% thought the website was very good, 49% good and 10% OK. There were no poor responses.
• 51% of respondents thought the downloads were good, 36% very good and 15% OK. There were no poor responses.
• 85% of respondents rated the week as good or very good.

Thank you once again to everyone that took part and responded to the questionnaire.

The end of another successful National School Meals Week

Fri, 12 Nov 2010

I am sure you have had some fun to today and I hope you have watched both the online videos. One shows children telling jokes and that must have brought a smile to everyone's faces. The second was from Laughology and was presented in the style of the TV programme 24. This is worth showing to your team as it will help them deal with the challenges that all authorities are currently facing after the Comprehensive Spending Review as money for catering is not ring fenced.

NSMW seems to have gone very quickly and we are now at the end of it. I think it has been a brilliant week and the feedback I have received suggests it was even better than last year and that was a challenge in itself. Thank you to everyone that took part.

It is not the end really as on Monday we will start thinking about next year and discussing new ideas. And this is where you can be a massive help. In the next few weeks you will receive a questionnaire. I realise you will be busy with Christmas Lunches but please could you spare just a few minutes to complete the evaluation form that we will send you. This will help LACA fully evaluate the week and see if and how it can be improved.

LACA puts a substantial sum of money into National School Meals Week and I hope that continues for many years to come. To achieve this we need members to continue using the resources on www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. For example you can run Get Giggling on any day in the future. You can also do Get Dancing Day very easily or work with a local hotel to encourage an interest in food. The resources will be online until the early part of June 2011, so when marketing resources are scarce NSMW ideas and materials can still be a big help.

This will be my last blog for some time and I hope you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them. I look forward to blogging again in 2011.

We're all thinking of some very special people today

Thu, 11 Nov 2010

I am sure we will all be respecting the two minute silence at 11am today, wherever we are. It is a time to think about all those that have made the ultimate sacrifice for your country. And it is very sad that each week we still hear about fatalities happening in Afghanistan. On top of this are the many people that are left disabled and have to rebuild their life.

Online today at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk you can watch memories of people who had a school meal in the 1940s. They talk about corned beef, an unknown meat that was possibly horse, semolina and rice pudding and a lot more. It is interesting that in 1944, as part of the Education Act, school meals were introduced for all to solve malnutrition at the time and today they are doing a similar if slightly different job. In the 1940s there was not enough to eat and this led to diseases of under nourishment and now children are suffering from over eating and not exercising.

It was fascinating unearthing the online recipes for today. I looked at various books and surfed the Internet. The recipes clearly show the ingenuity of school caterers from the 1940s who managed to create nutritious meals with often very limited ingredients. I hope you try some of them if not today then at another time of the year.

Who is feeling the rhythm today?

Wed, 10 Nov 2010

This pictture shows Peridot giving their dance Masterclass at the launch of this year's National School Meals Week. It was a fantastic session and the students really got into it. Thanks to Mars Foodservice for providing water bottles as this helped everyone stay hydrated. This is an important message that we are keen to get across as well as exercising regularly.

Dance is a great form of exercise for young people because it helps improve posture, it enables young people to make friends and is a fun activity to do. Talking about fun activities have you seen the Activity Sheets you can download about water and its importance during exercise. They are great for Key Stage 2.

Congratulations to the London Borough of Redbridge who have really got behind Get Dancing Day. They have organised a professional dancer Christina Ibironke to visit a school. She is a Hip Hop Dancer and said, "I am delighted to get involved with National School Meals Week as I think it is vital that children and young people understand the importance of exercise whilst eating a healthy and balanced diet. My school dance workshops are fun for children of all ages and a great way to demonstrate that exercise doesn't have to be a chore. I am sure the pupils at Manford School will have a fantastic day and I look forward to working with them".

Photos from the NSMW Launch

Tue, 09 Nov 2010

Headteacher, Simon London welcomes everyone to Hall Mead School for the launch event

NSMW girl, Karen with Papa Dolmio

Papa Dolmio talks to the pupils

Britain's Got Talent semi-finalists, Peridot run a dance workshop with the pupils

Mars Foodservice provided Dolmio waterbottles which Peridot signed

Time for Britain's Biggest School Lunch served by Papa Dolmio

Papa Dolmio meets dance troupe, Peridot

The pupils enjoyed meeting Papa Dolmio

Time to Get Giggling with a fun workshop run by Laughology

A fantastic Get Supporting Day

Tue, 09 Nov 2010

It was great to hear on the Share your plans page of www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk how some of you are working with hotels as part of Get Supporting Day. These are just a couple of examples and I know there are more:

Richard Ware who is Head of CCS the catering service in Cambridgeshire, added, "We are working with the Hotel Du Vin in Cambridge and a group of children from St Albans Primary School is visiting the hotel. Before the week there is competition to create a special dish and the winner will be cooked at the hotel on the morning of Tuesday 9th November. The pupils will meet the Head Chef and have a chance to ask him questions. They will them meet Emma, the Bistro Manager and be shown how to lay up a table. Then Dave, the Bar Manager, will make some healthy smoothies for the pupils to try. After all that the Chef and Bistro Manager will walk back to school and help serve a school lunch. I must say a thank you to everyone at the Hotel du Vin for all their help, they have been brilliant and I know the children will learn and experienced a great deal".

In Chester a party of pupils from The Arches Community Primary School in Blacon will attend The Coach House in Northgate Street. During their visit they will hear about the importance of a balanced diet, be shown how to set a table, make a delicious fruit cocktail and given some cookery tips by head chef, James Cooke. Afterwards the pupils will be treated to the The Coach House version of a school lunch cooked by James.

Sally Williamson the children's teacher said, "We believe that by teaching young people about food and other aspects of the catering industry it will give them an interest in food that lasts a lifetime. This is vital in our efforts to encourage young people to lead healthy and active lifestyles. The pupils are really excited about their visit to The Coach House as it's a different way of learning for them."

Neil Owens director at the Coach House said that they were very pleased at being able to support National School Meals Week in this way after all there is no such thing as junk food but you can have a junk diet so educating our young people in the importance of balance in their diet and exercise is vital for us all.

Please let me know of any more examples.

National School Meals Week is officially launched

Mon, 08 Nov 2010

Well what a great day it has been and I must say a huge thank you to Simon London, Headteacher at Hall Mead School and Gerry Clinton, Head of Catering Service in the London Borough of Havering. They were the hosts for the launch earlier today in Upminster, London. There were lots of guests and LACA was delighted to welcome Sharon Hodgson, Shadow Minister for Education.

These are some of the things she had to say, "School meals are a very important part of the whole school day and I admire the work that all LACA members do in providing hot and nutritious meals that meet the high standards that were set down by the Labour Government. I hope that everyone will get behind this week and enjoy it; it's a great opportunity for all schools to promote healthy eating in a variety of fun and enjoyable ways, and I am delighted to hear that more local authorities, foodservice contractors and schools are taking part this year than ever before. Too many children are not getting hot, healthy meals at school or home for a variety of reasons, storing up health problems for the future. So I also hope that activities this week can help increase take-up of school meals, particularly where children are entitled to receive them for free."

It was great to meet dance group Peridot and watch them do a street dancing master class for the students at the school. Everyone enjoyed that and had built up an appetite for lunch. This was sponsored by Mars Food Service and we tried their new ready to use pasta sauces that meet all the current nutritional standards.

After lunch it was time to hear Kerry Leigh from Laughology and a chance to see the video for Friday that introduces the fun characters, Major Savings, Mrs Bee Positive and Will Power. If you want to see it look at the Friday page on www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. There is a serious message behind the video and it shows you the importance of FLIP. I recommend you watch it.

NSMW reaches 100

Mon, 01 Nov 2010

I have just seen that we have now reached 100 local authorities and contractors taking part in this year's NSMW plus over 300 individual schools. Last year we beat the previous record of 80 with a total of 95. This year we have got 5 more to reach the magic 100 and that is just brilliant. Thank you to everyone that has registered as it clearly shows that LACA's decision to move online two years' ago was the right one.

I know I have mentioned it before but we would still love to hear from more of you about what you are doing during the week. Please send your details to Arnold@avfmarketing.co.uk.

And the news gets even better!

Mon, 01 Nov 2010

There is another piece of fantastic news. LACA has just heard that www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk has been shortlisted in the Caterersearch.com 2010 Web Awards in the Online Marketing section. Now we really need your help in the next stage of the competition.

The competition now goes to an online vote. Please can you ask all your colleagues and staff, those in schools that took part last year, family and friends to vote for www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. You need to click on this link to place your vote -

http://www.caterersearch.com/blogs/hospitality-web-awards/shortlist.html

Then highlight www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk in the box and click on submit. You can vote more than once if you want to and the more votes we get then the better we will do. Please get voting now and let's see if we can go from shortlist to winner!

Can you guess who came for lunch last year?

Mon, 25 Oct 2010

Yes it was the former World Champion in the 110 metres hurdles and regular BBC Commentator Colin Jackson. Who is coming to your launch or taking part in Britain's Biggest School Lunch on Monday 8th November? Please let us know so we can put it on the website.

This year we will have Peridot a dance group that narrowly missed out on a place in the final of Britain's Got Talent. They will be doing a dance master class with students from Hall Mead School in Upminster. We will all be having lunch thanks to Gerry Clinton, Head of Service in the London Borough of Havering and Mars Foodservice who have arranged for Papa Dolmio to serve a delicious pasta Bolognese made with Dolmio sauce. We are waiting to hear who else will be attending but the week will be officially launched by the new LACA Chair, Sandra Russell. We will say more as soon as we have confirmation about any VIPs.

There are lots of exciting new things this year. Have you seen the school assembly presentations? And there will be lots of new videos during the week. Two from Chewton Glen the five star hotel located on the edge of the New Forest. They will be demonstrating how to make a fruit smoothie and lay up a table.

There will be a preview website before it officially goes live on 8th November. Make sure you have a look.

Will we make 100?

Fri, 22 Oct 2010

This is Beverley Baker, former Chair of LACA, at last year's launch with Colin Jackson and it won't be long before the new Chair Sandra Russell launches the 2010 Week at Hall Mead School in Upminster.

National School Meals Week 2010 is looking like the biggest yet with 99 authorities and contractors now registered to take part at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. This beat last year's record of 95 authorities. A further 301 schools have registered and this also beats last year's figure. That is fantastic news and may I stress you can still register to take part. The big question is will we get to 100 authorities? That would be brilliant so my fingers are crossed.

I must say thank you for all you support. It is really appreciated by everyone in LACA. It is great to read your plans and we would love to hear from more people. Just send us an email to Arnold@avfmarketing.co.uk. We will then put you on the Share your plans page.

There are more exciting things to come and all of them will be online by the start of the week on Monday 8th November.

Have you linked up with a hotel yet? It is worth giving them a call. If they can't do something on 9th November see if they can do something on another day.

Good luck to everyone taking part in NSMW and thanks again.

Another great benefit of school meals

Mon, 11 Oct 2010

Did you see the Jamie Oliver programme from America the other day? It showed Jamie doing his bit and getting ready for service. He noticed that the cutlery had not been put out and asked for this to be done. This resulted in a number of very puzzled faces from the catering staff because the only cutlery they had were spoons as they normally served everything to eat in the hand.

This made me realise just how fortunate we are in this country to have such a strong school meals service. Many children do come to school only being able to eat with their hands and fingers. A school meal provides a valuable skill in teaching young children how to use a knife and fork. I am sure that many will say this is something that should be taught at home and you may be right. We have to accept that this is not always the case and use the school lunchtime to educate and train children.

Yet another reason why school meals play such an important part in the school day and one that we should not forget during NSMW or when we are talking to parents and teachers.

What's new with National School Meals Week?

Mon, 27 Sep 2010

I hope everyone has had an excellent few weeks start to the new school term. We have seen from the registrations coming through that many of you are busy putting your National School Meals Week plans into place. I just wanted to update you on a couple of developments from our end.

Assembly materials

These are now ready for you to download from the General Toolkit in Downloads in My NSMW. At the moment we have assemblies for Get Eating, Get Dancing, Get Remembering and Get Giggling. We are just waiting for confirmation of an exciting development and then the Get Supporting one will be live too. As soon as we can give you more information on this development we will do.

These resources are a great way for you to get your schools and teachers onboard as they are ready-made assemblies with lots of interaction to interest and educate pupils. Make sure you start telling everyone about them as soon as possible as they are a great time-saver for your schools that week.

Welsh materials

This year we have even more of the promotional materials created in Welsh for you. These are ready to be downloaded so you can start promoting to your Welsh schools. Look in the General Toolkit in Downloads in your My NSMW account and you will see a whole section with downloads that have been translated into Welsh.

If you want to email your schools please use the link http://www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/Welsh-2010 where they can find out more and see what's available. During the actual week there will be a Welsh mini-site at this address with even more information and translations of all the video materials that will be available on the English site.

Please do let us know by emailing nsmw@avfmarketing.co.uk if there is anything for the week that you need but can't find. This is your week and your chance to promote the fantastic school meals you serve and we are here to help you do that.

Keep us posted on how your plans for the week are going!

Irene

Just two months to go....

Tue, 07 Sep 2010

As I write this blog there are just two months before National School Meals Week 2010 takes places.

It is great to see there are already 48 authorities signed up for the event and another 22 schools. This gives us half the number of last year so we have some way to go. If you have not done so already please register your intention to take part so we can show it is as big if not better than last year.

We had a great day at Chewton Glen filming the two videos for the Get Supporting Day. Arnold is also discussing linking the videos we shot with Change 4 Life and organising a competition about either cooking or five-a-day so watch out for more information soon. Final details will be sent to nearly 500,000 people so you may well find there is greater support from schools and teachers.

The arrangements for the launch in the London Borough of Havering are well under way and we are hoping for senior political support. So as soon as the politicians are back from the summer recess we hope to hear more.
We are still looking for a couple of schools that want to link up with local hotels as part of Tuesday's Get Supporting Day. If you are interested please contact arnold@avfmarketing.co.uk.

Healthy food at lunchtime is a life skill worth learning

Fri, 30 Jul 2010

Well that was the LACA conference that was and it was great to see so many familiar faces. I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and my congratulations to all the LACA Award winners. I was helping Karen and Nicola on the NSMW stand and the Guide to organising NSMW was a great success, hundreds were given out. If you could not get to the conference then you can download a copy once you have registered for the week. Another reason for registering is that Mars Foodservice are giving away £2 off vouchers for their Dolmio pasta sauce.

LACA is writing to MPs and asking them to support the week. You will find a copy of the letter below and this will be with them now. You may receive a letter from a local MP offering to visit one of your schools or you could get in early and invite them. It is up to you.

This is what has been sent:

Healthy food at lunchtime is a life skill worth learning

I am writing as Chair of the Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA) to congratulate you on your recent success at the general election and to introduce you to LACA (www.laca.co.uk).

A healthy school meal at lunchtime has the potential to save very many millions from the NHS budget. We must all work together over future years to: encourage young people and children to make healthier, balanced food choices; help improve diets and decrease obesity levels; and also help to combat poverty and malnutrition that is suffered by many children in this country.

Recent news concerning the cancelling of the increased free school meal eligibility and the potential loss of the School Lunch Grant will force many Local Authorities to reconsider the level of service they can provide. I believe the school meals service, as a whole, may well be at risk.

The previous government underestimated the journey needed to convince young people to change their eating habits following the introduction of the new Nutritional Standards. Five years of hard work and commitment in implementing the Standards have passed and no one wants to see this work undone. With Nutrient Standards requiring computer software and analysis and with greater use of fresh ingredients, purchasing and operational costs have grown considerably.

I am sure you can see in your own constituency the tremendous work that is carried out in schools, on a daily basis. May I ask and encourage you to visit a local school of your choice and participate in National School Meals Week which runs from Monday 8th November to Friday 12th November 2010. There is more about it at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk.

Please do not hesitate to contact myself or our Business Manager, Vicki Young on 07810 307182, should you have any questions about the above events or indeed other work that LACA is carrying out nationally.

I hope that we can count on your support to ensure that future generations do not miss out on the fundamental right to have access to a nutritious school meal during their school day.

Yours sincerely

Beverley Baker
National Chair, LACA Ltd

Runner up - but a brilliant achievement for Beverley

Tue, 06 Jul 2010

I was sat waiting for the call. I had numerous cups of coffee to calm the butterflies in my tummy. But then the call came from Karen and Nicola to tell me that it had just been announced that NSMW had not won the Best use of technology Catey for 2010. I admit this was a disappointment but it is still fantastic that we were shortlisted. This is the second time LACA has been shortlisted for a Catey so perhaps it will be third time lucky. Thank you to all of you that took part in the week and I am sure we can still improve in 2010.

Next the night changed completely when the Public Sector Catey was announced. The winner was LACA Chair, Beverley Baker. I was ecstatic. I had nominated Beverley because of all the work she has done for LACA while still managing to do her day job as head of Surrey Commercial Services. Well done and thank you Beverley for everything you have done to help school catering.

I must say a big thank you to Arnold Fewell and his two daughters Karen and Nicola. They have organised NSMW and been a marvellous support to me in the lead up and during the event. They are always positive, enthusiastic and full of ideas. They have made such a difference and enabled us to move into the digital age.

A very exciting time ahead

Thu, 01 Jul 2010

It is almost here. In just a few days time it will be the LACA AGM and Conference at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole. And before that, on Monday 5th July, it is the Catey Awards Dinner in the Great Room at the Grosvenor House Hotel. LACA has been shortlisted for the Best Use of Technology Catey for National School Meals Week 2010. I will be on tenterhooks waiting to hear the news. Win or lose it is still a fantastic achievement for LACA and my thanks again must go to everyone that made it the biggest and best week yet.

National School Meals Week 2010 makes a big step forward this week with the launch of the website at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk on Wednesday 7th just before the AGM at 3.45pm. Karen and Arnold Fewell will tell everyone what is planned for each day and how we have listened to your feedback to make the week even better. There are more downloads, the daily themes work in both Primary and Secondary Schools and there is even more fun. Also I am delighted that Mars Foodservice will support the launch day and they are making available 1,000 free jars of their pasta sauce plus 10,000 vouchers for £2 off a jar. Even Papa Dolmio will be going to the launch in the London Borough of Havering on 8th November. I must thank Gerry Clinton for offering to host this day.

Then it is on to the conference and exhibition. There is an excellent programme and I will enjoy the lively debate under our new host Dr David Bull. It will be an exciting evening on the 8th when the LACA Awards will be announced and you can see all those shortlisted on the LACA website. While you are there please ensure you go to the LACA stand and sign the School Meals Matter campaign letter. We need every signature so we can show central Government how important it is to continue the investment made in school meals and not undo all the hard work that has gone in over the last five years.

If anyone fancies a chat about NSMW then please have a word with me at the conference. See you there.

Dolmio to support Get Eating day on 8th November

Tue, 08 Jun 2010

Great News! One of LACA's Partners is sponsoring the Get Eating Day which is the first day of this year's National School Meals Week. The LACA Partner is Mars Foodservice and the day is officially sponsored by their Dolmio sauce brand. You may well have seen the fun Dolmio characters that appear regularly on television. If not, you can also see them at http://www.dolmio.co.uk/Meetthefamily.aspx

Schools will be able to get a free jar of traditional Bolognese sauce and download other resources to promote the day such as how to run the day, draft invitations to celebrities and menu posters. There will be a Dolmio page on the www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk website and at the launch day meal young people will be tucking into a delicious plate of spaghetti Bolognese.

I am really delighted that one of our Partners has got involved in this way. This is the first Partner to do so and I really hope that others will come forward in the future. As Sarah Gray from Mars said to me, "NSMW is a highlight of the catering calendar in our books. It is a fantastic event and one that Dolmio is delighted to help and support. The Education Catering market is a very important marketplace for us and we realise that times will be tough over the next few years as the country has to make savings. This is why I am sure the free product and resources that we are sponsoring will help caterers effectively promote a healthy, good quality and value for money school meal. Last year there was clear evidence that the week increased meal numbers and I am sure this success can be repeated. If anyone needs any help from Mars Foodservice then please contact me at sarah.gray@eu.effem.com".

School Meals Matter

Tue, 20 Apr 2010

In a few weeks time we will have a new Government. As yet we don't know what colour it will be red, blue, yellow or even a mixture. Whatever the result of the election, it is the economy that will be at the top of the agenda? And local Government will be squeezed of money and school meals could be seen an easy hit.

I believe that over the next few years the financial pressures on school caterers will grow considerably. As individual trading units the requirement will be for caterers to breakeven as a minimum. This is a challenge when meal numbers have not reached the pre Jamie Oliver figures and the transitional grant will run out in April 2011 and may not be renewed or if renewed, may not be ringfenced.

I realise that no Government can make school catering a bottomless cash hole but I do believe the money put in must be seen as an investment in the future health of this country. The savings in future NHS costs will be very substantial if there is a vibrant and successful school meals service now. And it may mean that free healthcare for all is an affordable service for the country in the years to come if we act now and improve the health of the nation.

So much has been achieved over the last few years with new nutritional standards, improved training, more money spent on food and it would be a tragedy if all this was lost. I urge an incoming government to extend the transitional grant for at least another four years. This will ensure all the success that has been achieved can be consolidated. However, there is something you can do to make this happen and this is where I am asking for your support.

LACA with Caterer and Hotelkeeper has launched a campaign called School Meals Matter. It is vital that everyone involved with school catering supports it. That includes caterers, contractors, suppliers, elected members, school based staff, local authority staff and parents. Please take a few moments to download the petition letter and pass it on to as many people as possible. Alternatively you can register your support online. The worst thing that can happen is you doing nothing. You can tell friends, family and colleagues. The more support we have the better it is so I urge you to act now. On behalf of LACA I say thank you. Let's see if we can get over 10,000 supporters. That would be brilliant.

Brilliant Feedback re NSMW 2009

Thu, 18 Mar 2010

As part of the evaluation process for the LACA Board, AVF Marketing undertook market research with all the people that signed up for last year's event. The feedback was excellent and produced a very interesting fact. It showed that where schools and authorities had a sales increase in meal numbers the average figure was 7.81%. This is a very encouraging figure and proves that not only does the week increase awareness but it can also have a significant increase in meal numbers. We will be actively promoting this result in the build up to 2010 to show the benefits of taking part.
Thank you to all of you that sent back constructive comments about the week. We discussed all these last week and will incorporate as many as we can. This includes; having more downloads; promoting more to teachers; having days that can be run in both Primary and Secondary Schools. So please keep coming back for more information in the build up to the week. The closer we get the more blogs there will be.

LACA set dates for NSMW 2010

Mon, 15 Mar 2010

Here we go again on the blogging front as we start the build up for this year. At the last board meeting of LACA the dates for this year's NSMW were agreed. The event will take place from Monday 8th November 2010 until Friday 12th. It was also agreed that the "Get involved" theme would be continued and that all schools and local authorities would be able to register free and then download all the materials they want. The event will be launched at the LACA Conference that is taking place on 8th and 9th July at the Hilton Metropole at the NEC in Birmingham.

Those magic words

Fri, 13 Nov 2009

I have always believed that when we say thank you to someone you can see them grow that little bit taller. I am sure that feeling will apply to lots of school caterers today as they receive thank you cards from their customers. Some schools have done this already and the results can be seen in the gallery at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. Well done to them all because too often we forget all the hard work that is going on during morning lessons. May I add my thanks to everyone for all their efforts on this year's NSMW. It has been a brilliant week!

It's get thanking day and we want to say a big thank you Colin Jackson

Fri, 13 Nov 2009

The NSMW Girls have loved working on National School Meals Week and we're already wondering what we will do with our lives once this year's is over...no doubt the planning will soon begin for next year!

One of the highlights for us has been working with Colin Jackson. We first met him at the filming for the Get Active Day where he showed us what a true professional he really is. The day was so much fun and we are sure you will agree the exercise videos are just brilliant! Karen also met Colin when he was speaking at the School Food Trust Marketing Conference in September, where she was also speaking.

Colin arrived at the hotel we were all staying at late on Sunday evening. He had been busy filming in Kenya with Usain Bolt so he was extremely tired and we arranged to meet up at the school at 8.30am. Both Karen and Nicola had a late night as we had to stay up to put the result of Britain's favourite school meal live at 12.01am and our alarm was set for 5.30am so we could get ready for the big day. As we were having breakfast so early we didn't think we'd bump into anyone so Karen went to breakfast with the biggest, frizziest hair you could imagine and we both looked very tired. Colin was sat bright eyed and full of beans with our get active expert, Chris Lee and he looked a lot more ready for the day than we did at that time. However his energy must have rubbed off on us as 20 minutes later we were ready to go to the school (with straight hair).

Colin arrived at 8.30am and met many of the NSMW team including Beverley Baker, Chair of LACA. What was great about him was whether he was speaking to a team of young people, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, representatives from LACA or us he was constantly upbeat and positive. Whatever was asked of him he did with a great smile and nothing was too much trouble. Even when the curtains didn't open for the launch it was Colin who took charge and between Nicola, Chris and Colin they pulled the curtains back.

You could really tell that National School Meals Week was a cause that Colin truly believed in as he talked about his experience of school meals at his Secondary School. Obviously to a sports person of his level eating a balanced diet was vital for him to have been at his peak for training. He explained how his catering staff went out of their way to make sure he got a hot meal at lunchtime. And then he announced the result of Britain's favourite school meal - Roast dinner with sponge pudding and custard!

Later in the morning Colin spoke to a group of pupils who are all keen and excel at sport. They all listened with fascination as Colin talked about how he believed his over-confidence had cost him a gold medal at the Olympic Games. He then went on to talk about how he had to overcome this disappointment that then led to him breaking the World Record and becoming World Champion. The one message that really struck a chord with both of us was when he told the young people to day dream...as he was proof that sometimes day dreams really do come true. This actually brought a tear to our eyes as we watched the video back later in the week! If his words of wisdom had this effect on us imagine what an inspiration he was to young people who are potentially just at the start of their sporting careers!

Next it was over to the school dining hall where Colin put on his hat and white jacket and joined the ladies in the kitchen to serve Britain's favourite school meal. Lots of laughter could be seen and heard as he put the Yorkshire puddings, vegetables and gravy on the children's plates. He then joined a group of pupils to taste the delicious meal.

After lunch it was time for the Get Active session which was run by Chris Lee from Trojan Training. The school teachers commented they had never seen the pupils work so hard as Colin and Chris motivated them to put everything into the circuit. Chris asked the students to give them the scientific name of different muscles in the body and said if they got it right he and Colin would do ten press up's each. This backfired when one student answered correctly and without a second thought they both did ten each. You have to watch the video blog below to see which completed ten first!

A group of Primary School pupils joined us for the next session and Colin was as great with the younger children as he was with the old. They were learning how to make coleslaw and he encouraged them all to get involved. He then helped them make thank you cards for their school cooks ready for the ‘get thanking' day and even coloured his own card in. However he was slightly concerned his colouring wouldn't be up to standard as art wasn't one of his strong points.

Despite a long and tiring day Colin still remained upbeat when everyone else had left and he encouraged Karen as she did a piece to camera for the ‘get filming' day. This is not something that Karen enjoys doing and his support meant a lot. The day ended with all three of us talking to the camera about how much we had enjoyed the week and working together. It was a great way to finish what had been a very successful and enjoyable launch for us, Colin, the school and all the guests who attended.

Our thanks go to Michael Hales and his team in Tower Hamlets for organising such a brilliant day. The team was on hand throughout the day to make sure everything ran smoothly.....and it did!

We want to take this opportunity to thank Colin Jackson on behalf of LACA and AVF Marketing Ltd for everything he did! He really is a great ambassador for school meals and believes that what we are all doing can help many young people learn to lead a healthy and active lifestyle!

Personally we don't think we could have found anyone better to be the face of this year's National School Meals Week.

The NSMW Girls

The hard work has paid off!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009

As we approach the end of the week it has been great to receive some stories of what has been happening in schools. When we receive emails like this with such postive stories we know all the hard work has really paid off. Take a look below at some of the great activity that has been going on. Please send your success stories in so we can share them with others.

From Jo at Grange Farm Primary School in Leeds

"Our week has been great! Our Year 6 children have prepared all of the cold elements of the school dinners for the last two days (such as fruit, tarts, pasta and couscous salads) and have served lunches to the rest of the school. They are now working to create their own fantasy healthy school meal which will be on the menu in the future. It has been fantastic working with the staff in our school kitchen. This morning we invited our school cooks into our assembly to give them a very special thank you"

From Anna at Solutions SK in Stockport

"Leading up to the week we ran a competition via the My School Lunch and the Yougo4it sites on healthy eating and exercise. The prize was to welcome Stockport County into their school to ‘get active.' The winners were Jade Molloy from Fairway Primary School, Offerton, Stockport and Connor Jackson from Werneth High School, Romiley, Stockport. The team presented each winner with a signed shirt and tickets to a match of their choice.

In the primary school all of Jade's classmates took part in games organised by the Football in Community Coach Mike Smith and the County Players - Carl Baker, Adam Griffin and Paul Turnball. At Werneth, County players, Matty Mainwaring, David Poole and Gianluca Havern organised a 5 a-side match between 10 selected children, which included warming up and down exercises and a question and answer session.

The event was a great success and demonstrated the benefits of a balanced diet in conjunction with regular exercise."

From Sarah at S Anselm's Prep School in Bakewell, Derbyshire

The Nursery, Pre- Prep and Prep school will be involved in taster sessions with a different theme running each day. A selection of smoothies, fresh fruit drinks and milkshakes will be tasted at each morning break along with a variety of other healthy snacks such as interesting breads (sundried tomato, cheesy and olive); yoghurt coated fruit (bananas, raisins, apricots and ginger) and a variety of seeds and dried fruits (including pumpkin seeds, pine nuts and even goji berries!) One day we will be celebrating British cheeses; on another pupils will be tasting a variety of sausages including beef and horseradish and lamb with rosemary and garlic.

The school has suspended their rolling school lunch menu and introduced new main courses and desserts for the week. Each day pupils will be voting on each dish, choosing whether they want to see it included within future menus. The week started off with pork goulash and rice pudding with strawberry puree. Other dishes include chicken korma with naan bread and various Indian relishes and chutneys and baked stuffed apples and custard.

Throughout the week, the children at S. Anselm's will be also be trying out new healthier tea-time snacks such as teacakes and scones, homemade biscuits and muffins (with poppy seeds and honey lemon and lime), homemade yogurts full of live probiotic cultures and also a variety of new and different sandwich fillings for future afternoon teas.

To top this enormous amount of activity the children will be participating in food and healthy lifestyle quizzes; a ‘What's in the box?' competition (where pupils must try and guess what food component is in the box!); poster competitions and PSHE lessons focusing on Healthy Body, Healthy Mind."

This is all fantastic to hear, please send your stories and photos to nicola@avfmarketing.co.uk so we can share your NSMW succes with others.

Great prizes for teenagers

Thu, 12 Nov 2009

There is up to £350 up for grabs today as students Get Filming their healthy school meals. All they have to do is make an advert to promote healthy eating to their friends and colleagues. There is a lot of help online with information to download plus an interview with Karen Fewell. Karen has been a key player behind the scenes and had a major input into the website. She is an experienced video producer and she shares her ideas to help teenagers produce a great advert. There is also an advert targeted at Primary School pupils. Students can watch this and see if it gives them any ideas. I am looking forward to seeing the winners as I am confident they will be very creative. We have already had some enquiries so let's hope we get lots more.

Colin is a real star

Wed, 11 Nov 2009

Cans of fruit, vegetables and beans will make great alternatives to dumbbells when students do the exercises in Colin Jackson's workout routine. You do not require lots of expensive equipment. By the way this probably explains why my stock cupboard is so low. Only joking! But I hope teenagers across the country will be taking part in the Get Active day. It is important to have a balanced diet but school caterers also need to promote the value of taking regular exercise and Colin does just that. Why not have a look yourself? In my opinion all this should be part of a whole school approach. This resource is available for the next few months so if you haven't used it this week you can do so at another time.

National School Meals Week gets off to a great start in Stockport

Wed, 11 Nov 2009

We have just received some fantastic photos from Solutions SK in Stockport. They were the 100th organisation to sign up for National School Meals Week and have planned lots of activity for the week - especially in Secondary Schools.

On Monday they launched National School Meals Week with a local band - The Harks. The Harks went to Marple Hall High School in Stockport and played a live gig over lunchtime while the children bought and ate their meals. Today the team are supporting the Get Active day by going to a Primary and a Secondary school with members of the Stockport County football team.

The Week in Video

Wed, 11 Nov 2009

We have been capturing the week so far in video. Check out these videos and see what has been happening in schools this week.

More videos will be added as the week goes on

Delicious and nutritious

Tue, 10 Nov 2009

A couple of months ago I went down to meet Debbie Mumford in Devon at her own school. I saw how she prepares her winning recipes because she is this year's LACA School Chef of the Year (SCOTY). This competition always amazes me because I see all the talent that exists in school kitchens across the country. Now you can watch Debbie hard at work. Not only does she prepare her winning recipes but she demonstrates how to make cottage pie, prepare vegetables and make a salad. This is a great way to get Primary pupils involved and start an interest in food. I am certain that the earlier this happens the sooner children will learn about a balanced diet with great tasting food. And the sooner they will start having a school meal.

Colin Jackson learning to cook

Great NSMW activity happening in Cambridgeshire

Tue, 10 Nov 2009

We're already hearing of some fantastic local activity happening this week. Please email us the details and your pictures so we can share your great work with others.

The organised by Cambridgeshire Catering and Cleaning Services as part of the National School Meals Week got off to a great start yesterday. All classes took part including the nursery.

Executive Chef, David Haw, visited Uppingham C of E Primary School and Brooke Hill Primary School in Rutland. The children had a great time helping David make bread and learnt lots about cooking. During National School Meals Week he is also visiting Hemingford Grey Primary School, Great Wilbraham C of E Primary School, Priory Park Infant School and Fordham C of E Primary School.

Aled Haydn Jones from the Chris Moyles show on Radio One gets involved

Tue, 10 Nov 2009

Radio star Aled Haydn Jones gets involved in National School Meals Week.

He tucked into a healthy plate of pasta at lunchtime after confessing he'd munched a chocolate biscuit for breakfast during the show today! Aled, who presents the Sunday Surgery and produces the Chris Moyles Show on Radio One, joined pupils from St Margaret Ward Catholic High School in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent as they tried out new, healthy additions to the school menu.

He said: "I was known for eating quite bland food but recently I have learned the importance of eating a healthy balanced diet and so I was interested to try out the new healthier school menu. I opted for Pasta with Vegetable Bolognese and it was delicious."

Aled spent more than two hours in the packed school dining room signing autographs and talking to pupils and staff.

He added "I was really pleased that the pupils took such an interest in what they were eating. Of course, we all like to have treats from time to time - like a choccie biscuit - but there's no doubting the fact that these young people are aware they should eat properly."

He also commented “I've recently come to realise how important good wholesome food is to a healthy body and mind. I would really urge young people to try the healthy options on the school menu. Even if, like me, it doesn't come easily to you, remember a good nutritious diet is really important to being fit and healthy.

The event was sponsored by The School Food Trust and marks the introduction of new healthier school meals in Stoke-on-Trent schools.

Oh what a day!

Mon, 09 Nov 2009

After months of planning NSMW is off and running. The launch was fantastic and it was a great pleasure to meet Colin Jackson. He is a great ambassador and he was brilliant with both the media and all the young people he met. He announced Britain's favourite school meal which was a Roast dinner followed by sponge pudding and custard. We had that for a lunch and a special thank you must go to Morpeth Secondary School in Bethnal Green. Colin took part in a Get Active session where students did his online exercise routine that can be done at home or at school. He also helped to serve lunch and even wore a chef's jacket and hat. Finally he made some thank you cards for the caterers with pupils from a local Primary School. These are now proudly displayed on the dining room wall.

Off to London for launch

Fri, 06 Nov 2009

Just packing the bags as on Sunday afternoon I am off to Tower Hamlets for the launch of NSMW. I am really looking forward to it as there has been so much planning over the last 10 months. We all have a briefing on Sunday night with Arnold and his team. Hazel Green will be updating us on the traditional media that are involved and I am really looking forward to meeting Colin Jackson. I have heard so many positive things about him.

Look out for coverage next week and if you have any local news please let us know.

Have a great week.

Time to double check

Mon, 26 Oct 2009

For all those working this week can I ask you to check two things for NSMW? Firstly that you have told us what you are doing during the week. If you haven't, then please fill in the section under My NSMW on www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. Secondly if you have not done it already please get everyone in the office, family and friends voting for their favourite school meal at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/vote. The vote closes on Sunday 31st so there is still time and every vote is important because it adds credibility to the results.

And if any of you have any final questions or comments then please let Arnold know at Arnold@avfmarketing.co.uk.

A time for reflection

Fri, 23 Oct 2009

As we all get ready for a great week can I ask you to think about how we can make things even better for next year? I think this year is the biggest and best NSMW ever but I do accept I am biased. We know it is the biggest but only you can decide if it is the best. In life we can always do things differently and LACA made major changes to the event this year. After the week we will be asking you to tell us what we should change or improve next year. So please make notes during the week and then let us know when we contact you. Thanks again.

Karen learns to cook!

Fri, 23 Oct 2009

What a fun day I have had. I taught the children how to film and they taught me how to cook! I have just got back from Gilbert Scott Primary School in Croydon where I was taught to cook by Debbie Mumford, School Chef of the Year and her very able assistants.

Whilst Debbie and the rest of the cooking team were preparing the food and getting all the equipment ready Leon Taylor and I talked to the children about TV and video filming. One by one each child mimed a cooking technique. The rest of us watched them through the camera TV monitor and guessed what they were doing.

Leon Taylor has lots of BBC TV experience so he was able to give expert advice on making TV programmes to the children. He ensured everyone was always smiling and explained what would happen if a child removed their jumper so far though filming i.e. we would have continuity problems with our edited videos!

Thank you so much to everyone involved in the Get Cooking Day filming. I am really looking forward to seeing the final videos.

Show you are proud to be involved in National School Meals Week

Thu, 22 Oct 2009

We have produced two graphics for you to display on your website. They are different sizes so you can decide which is the most appropriate for your site. The banners have been produced to standard display advertising sizes so they should be suitable for most websites. You can download the banners in My NSMW in the ‘Schools' and ‘Authorities' section.

200x26px

200x100px

And don’t forget to link the banner to www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk

Sumbit your plans

Wed, 21 Oct 2009

This year's NSMW is the biggest ever. It has more authorities and schools taking part. The previous best was 80 authorities and now there are over 90. Thanks must go to all of you that have registered, downloaded plans and got their teams motivated. Now I must ask for one more thing. Please submit your plans about what you are doing during this week. This will have two advantages. Firstly your local press and media can see what you are doing and we can use this information to tell the national press. So please take just a few minutes to do this. Thanks for your continued support.

Get teachers involved

Fri, 16 Oct 2009

At this year's LACA Conference the importance of headteachers came out very strongly. So much so that the Chair of LACA, Beverley Baker, has already made it one of her key objectives for the year. She said, "Where we have the support and commitment of the Headteachers we have a successful school catering service". This is why NSMW is so important as it is a great way of getting their support. There are lots of free activities. I hope that you will use them, not just in the week, but throughout the academic year ahead. I know that the more you get teachers involved the more children will have a school meal and we all know how important that is.

A round table discussion

Thu, 15 Oct 2009

I have just been to the round table discussion about NSMW and other key subjects for school caterers. It was organised by Mark Lewis, Editor of the Caterer and Hotelkeeper and Beverley Baker, Chair of LACA. The results will be published on Thursday 5th November so make sure you read a copy. It was a fascinating debate and included subjects like NSMW, what will happen after the next election and future funding issues.

Leon and Debbie show

Wed, 14 Oct 2009

This week further filming for NSMW took place in Croydon, but firstly I must say a big thank you to Allyson Lloyd who made all the arrangements. Leon Taylor who is a BBC Commentator and former Silver medallist at the Athens games in the synchronised diving was there to help with all the questions. He helped to keep everyone amused all day and he was brilliant with the children.

He also brought along his silver medal, which everyone wanted to hold!

Leon and Debbie Mumford, SCOTY winner, worked really well together with Leon acting as the presenter and Debbie demonstrating her cooking skills. She was brilliant and thanks also to her and Barbara, her contract manager, for coming up from Devon for the day. Debbie prepared her winning recipes and demonstrated a number of cookery skills. This was for the Get Cooking day on 10th November. I can say it will be a great success so make sure you use it to promote your school meals.

Four weeks to go and counting

Mon, 12 Oct 2009

We are now at four weeks and still counting down to the launch of NSMW. It is amazing how time flies and it feels like just a couple of months since we had the first presentation on NSMW by AVF Marketing. That was last December and so much has been going on since.
Just recently we have been busy filming and there are lots of new videos now on the site, including Karen Fewell, Beverley Baker and myself. And have you ordered your stickers. There are only a couple of days left to do so, order them now.

Another reminder to vote

Tue, 29 Sep 2009

The vote to find Britain's most popular school meal is well underway and there is just about another month to go. We want to make this a truly national vote so if you have not done so please vote, just follow this link www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/vote.

We want to get more votes from Primary pupils so please can you encourage your schools to "Get involved" now. There is a draft letter you can download from www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk once you have registered on the website. You can edit and amend this to meet your needs.

Also, get your family, friends and colleagues to take part as it is the more the merrier.

Read all about the NSMW girls day with Colin Jackson

Mon, 21 Sep 2009

As you were all preparing for the pupils going back to school the NSMW girls were busy filming the Get Active day video with Colin Jackson. Getting ready in the morning we talked about how nervous we were. It is such a big part of the week we wanted to be sure it would all run smoothly. But there was no need to be nervous. Colin was a true professional! He was great fun, really kind (he even got his driver to take Nicola to the station) and made the whole event run smoothly. We think he will be a real inspiration to young people. He certainly inspired us!

We were lucky to have the help and support of Chris Lee from Trojan Training. Chris is a very experienced personal trainer and he put together all the exercises for the Get Active Day. Karen and Chris also went through all the coaching points beforehand so we could make sure that young people knew how to do the exercises correctly. Some of the exercises Colin hadn't done before so a lot of time was spent on Chris showing him the exercise first and then talking through the points that had to be put across. When we were filming Karen watched it on a screen, Chris checked the exercises were being done properly and Nicola checked all the points were being made whilst Nigel from Lancashire One TV filmed. It was a real team effort!

During the day we realised how much benefit there was to selecting an athlete who was used to being on camera. Colin came across brilliantly and his experience meant we got through it without there being too many takes. Of course, there were some outtakes and very amusing moments, some of which I am sure will stick with us for a long time. This included Colin getting his glutes and quads muddled up several times which caused much laughter.
We had a fantastic buffet lunch, which we made sure was very healthy seeing as we had a former World Champion to cater for. This gave us opportunity to get to know Colin better. He's speaking at the School Food Trust Conference at the end of the month and Karen is running a workshop there. We will also meet with him again at the launch of NSMW on 9th November.

In the afternoon it was straight back to filming as we were under a great time pressure as we only had this one day to get it all right. We all worked hard to have all the filming finished by 4.30pm and then we had to do photographs of all the exercises and stretches.

We learnt a lot about Colin during the afternoon. He can juggle grapes, is an expert with a skipping rope and struggled with the dance steps in the early days of Strictly Come Dancing (obviously he improved as he was 2nd in his series and won the Christmas Day special). We also learnt that Karen likes to pose in front of the camera and would make an excellent ring girl. Oh and that Nicola can't control her giggles at really inappropriate moments i.e. mid filming. Joking aside, it is thanks to Colin, Chris and Nigel we now have a fantastic resource that you can all use to promote your school meals during NSMW. We just can't wait to see the final version!

Those of you that have met us will know we don't let a good opportunity go to waste!! We didn't let Colin leave until he had posed for photographs with the NSMW Girls and signed some autographs for us. We also asked him to sign the exercise mat that was used for the filming which will be awarded as a prize during the week. Come back soon to find out more!

Off to Devon

Thu, 17 Sep 2009

Well I am packing my bags and off to Devon but not going for a holiday this time, much is the pity as we had a lovely family holiday in August. We are filming Debbie Mumford and her SCOTY winning recipes at her school in Ivybridge, Devon. On top of that we will be creating short clips that show off some basic cooking skills. These will be uploaded later and there will be a lesson plan to support the clips.

I think this initiative is really important. Firstly it promotes the skills of all our school caterers from across the country. We know how good they are but we need to make sure parents, teachers and pupils know just how much care and thought goes into preparing every meal.

The second and perhaps the most important is that we can stimulate an interest in food and cooking. This will give the young watchers a skill for life that will also help them enjoy healthy food to the full. The younger we start the better, in my opinion.

So please tell your teachers what is on the way so the video clips can reach the biggest audience.

Croeso Cymru

Mon, 14 Sep 2009

Well I am not sure if my Welsh above is correct but I do know that a lot of Welsh translation has been taking place. Firstly you can now download all the NSMW posters in the Welsh language so our colleagues in Wales can fully take part in the week.

The next area to go live is the Welsh version of the vote to find Britain's Favourite School Meal. It means we will have a Welsh regional result and that should make an interesting comparison with England and Scotland. And finally there will be a Welsh mini site for the week at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/welsh. The online videos and thank you cards will be translated so that all the Welsh language schools can take part.

This is the first time LACA has created a Welsh language version and was an urgently needed development.

Welcome back to school

Tue, 08 Sep 2009

As everyone was getting ready for the new academic year Karen and Nicola were filming Colin Jackson undertaking a wide variety of exercise routines. It is all part of the Get Active Day that is taking place on Wednesday 11th November. Apparently there were some amusing out takes but no secrets have yet been revealed. I will keep trying to find out more.

Nicola said: "We all had a great day at the filming. Colin was a very funny, professional and really nice person to work with. I am confident that we have created a great resource for schools and caterers to use during National School Meals Week so watch this space!"

Colin is talking at the School Food Trust Conference in Birmingham on 29th September so many of you will be able to hear him then.

You can also find out more about what happened at the filming in Karen and Nicola's blog, which will be live soon.

Hear some words of wisdom - join a NSMW Webinar

Mon, 07 Sep 2009

I received an email this morning saying thank you for the webinar I ran on Friday about digital marketing. This was one of two webinars that I ran with Arnold Fewell.

I enjoy speaking about digital marketing as I know everyone is very keen to learn the best ways to use the modern tools of marketing. I show some great case studies in my presentation and people soon realise how easy it is to get fantastic results or a complete failure.

We are running webinars right up until National School Meals Week. The best thing for you is that they are free. You can dial in from a conference phone so all your team can get free training. Just login to ‘My NSMW' and register for your chosen dates.

I look forward to talking to you soon

Karen Fewell, the older NSMW girl

Well done to South Tyneside

Wed, 19 Aug 2009

South Tyneside is the first authority to tell us what they have planned for NSMW so a very special well done and thanks to them. This is what they have told us they are doing:

On the Tuesday of NSMW we are inviting all our Secondary Schools to ask if they would like their cooks to work with them to do some cooking.

On the Wednesday, our school catering teams and some local Primary pupils are taking part in a Fun run/walk around Monkton Stadium in Jarrow in aid of a local Children's charity. (Last year we raised almost £800 during NSMW)

On the Thursday we are asking all our Primary and Secondary school cooks to do a fun lunch, dress up and do up their counters (photos of them and their counters to be sent in and judged for the best in each category and the prize for the winning kitchen teams to have a meal in the local college restaurant)

Finally, on the Friday of NSMW we are holding "a Design a thank you card for the kitchen teams competition" in the Primary schools, with certificates and a prize for the winning cards in each school who takes part.

We can now give South Tyneside PR and the sooner you tell us what you are doing the more we can help you.

Please get everyone voting

Wed, 12 Aug 2009

The vote to find Britain's most popular school meal and dessert is well underway and thanks to everyone that has voted. We still need lots more of you to vote so please get all your staff, family and friends involved. You could also put something in your bulletins to staff or on your Intranet. You will benefit in the long term because the more results we have in the local regions the more PR we can do on your behalf. So please get everyone voting now.

Don't leave it to the last minute

Mon, 03 Aug 2009

August can be a funny month for school caterers. In some ways it is the quietest and in other ways it is the busiest month of the year. If schools are closed then it should be quiet but August is probably as busy as any other time. Firstly many staff are on holiday but secondly it is vital planning time for the academic year ahead. New kitchens, recruiting staff, menu planning are just some of the jobs to do in August. If you are using it to plan your activities for NSMW then make sure you have two of the key downloadable resources.

If you did not get your "How to organise NSMW Guide" at the LACA Conference then you can download one from the "My NSMW Account" page once you have registered at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/Authorities/Register-now-for-NSMW/. While there make sure you also download the A3 planning tool. This is great to put up on the office wall so that everyone knows what is going on and who is responsible for each day.

Look at who is getting involved

Sat, 25 Jul 2009

The numbers of authorities and schools taking part in National School Meals Week (NSMW) are growing every day, we only launched the site two weeks ago and already have 37 authorities/DIY schools signed up. There are lots of advantages to registering and saying you are taking part in National School Meals Week. You get access to all sorts of tools to help you prepare for the event. Why not start by following this link and seeing who has signed up in your area.
http://www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/Media/Who-is-Taking-Part/

You can register for the week from the Home Page of www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. You will then have access to the following:

Downloads - such as posters, letters, planning documents and a How to Guide are all available to download from the site now. Over the coming months more and more tools will be made available to help you prepare for the week.
Webinars - you can sign-up to free webinars to find out more about the week and to listen to an introduction to digital marketing. The webinars are run by Arnold and Karen Fewell and are a great opportunity for you to pick their marketing brains!
Interact with others - share your ideas and plans for the week and help each other make this an amazing National School Meals Week.

If you haven't already, make sure you ‘Get Involved'.

Are you tweeting?

Sat, 25 Jul 2009

Check out the National School Meals Week Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/nsmw

It has also been integrated on the left hand side of every page. So as you move around the site you can see the most up to date news, as it happens.

If you are wondering ‘what is Twitter, tweeting and micro blogging?' then sign-up to one of the free webinars on digital marketing. All you have to do now is register for the session you want to join. Nearer the time, you will receive an email with a link to the interactive session and a telephone number to call. It really is easy!

We have some authorities leading the way with their own Twitter pages, take a look at Tower Hamlets who are tweeting away: http://twitter.com/LBTHCatering

If you tweet then drop us a line @nsmw or twitter.com/nsmw, we would love to follow your tweets.

See you all soon
NSMW Girls

Thanks from the NSMW Girls

Wed, 15 Jul 2009

Well were are back from the LACA conference and so pleased with the interest in National School Meals Week.

We wondered what Arnold was doing when he ordered us sashes to wear, but I have to admit he was right - they did grab everyone's attention. Whether we were wandering around the exhibition, ordering refreshments from the bar or stood on our NSMW stand we were being asked about National School Meals Week.

The designers did a great job and the stand looked great! I think they thought we were going overboard when we went clothes shopping to ensure we were dressed in the NSMW brand colours - but everything on our stand represented the new National School Meals Week brand and added to the impact.

The feedback we had at the conference, and are still receiving now is brilliant. So many people are excited about taking part in a digital marketing campaign. We have had some fantastic comments as authorities and schools register on the website and we will share these with you in another blog.

The guides to organising National School Meals Week were sought after, people were always coming to us asking for their own copy of the booklet. If you did not manage to collect your own, register for the week and download it from the website.

Thanks for making us both feel so welcome at the conference. We are glad you like the new look NSMW and are really excited about getting ready for the actual week. We have all sorts planned, including:

spending time with teenagers to plan the NSMW social networking activity
working with our fitness specialist to get ready for filming Colin Jackson
researching what children want to learn about cooking, in preparation for the Get Cooking day

Come back soon and read our updates on how preparations for the big week are going.

Karen and Nicola, known as the NSMW girls at the LACA conference

Colin Jackson CBE will launch National School Meals Week

Wed, 08 Jul 2009

I am thrilled that Colin Jackson CBE will be launching National School Meals Week on the 9th November. This was announced today at the LACA AGM. Colin is a fantastic role model for everyone. He was a World Champion at the 110 metres hurdles, he did very well in "Strictly Come Dancing" and has appeared in the genealogical programme "Who do you think you are". He also regularly commentates on athletics for the BBC. He will be well known to parents and teachers and he will be an excellent role model for students. Make sure you see how you can include him in your plans.

I must stress that we want people to take part. That does not necessarily mean doing everything in the "How to" booklet. You can pick and choose the ideas or do your own. It is up to you. But please share the work out with your team as I know this will reap the benefits in more meals served.

LACA Conference this week

Mon, 06 Jul 2009

It doesn't seem like a year ago we were all assembling in Birmingham for the LACA Conference. But it is!

The conference is a great time to meet up with friends old and new, catch up with the gossip and hear more about the latest challenges facing school caterers. They never go away and change is always around us. But that is part of the job and what makes it so fascinating to be part of the school catering industry.

It is also an important time for National School Meals Week as Arnold and Karen Fewell unveil the latest version of the website with much more information about the week. They are making a presentation to LACA members at the AGM on Wednesday 8th. I hope you will be there. It will soon be live so bookmark this page and come back soon to register that you are taking part.

If you can't get there the PowerPoint of the presentation will be on this website so you can download it easily. Why not share it with your team. You can also download the booklet called "How to organise National School Meals Week" and an A3 planning tool for your team. These are great resources so please use them. The web address is www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk.

One soon gets back into it

Fri, 03 Jul 2009

Well I had a great holiday but it was quickly back into National School Meals Week. Lots to read about and make sure I was happy with everything - and I was. I heard that Karen Fewell has just made a great presentation in Derbyshire to the Eastern Region of LACA. Her presentation went down very well and the audience was delighted to hear about how the plans for National School Meals Week were going. Arnold and Karen have said they are happy to attend other LACA regions if that is helpful. That sounds like a good idea to me. Why not email them at nsmw@avfmarketing.co.uk.

However, Arnold and Karen will be joined by Nicola Proud at the conference. Nicola is Arnold's middle daughter. You will recognise them as they are wearing sashes saying "Ask me about NSMW". So please do. They have a stand and they are happy to talk to you about both NSMW and how we are moving towards a digital marketing age. I find the transition fascinating.

User generated content works

Fri, 26 Jun 2009

Some authorities might be wary of starting down the route of user generated content. This is where customers are given the chance to pass comment online about the food or service that their children receive. I can understand this concern but it is important to remember that most negatives can be made into a positive. This is what we aim to do with complaints and I know from my own experiences that complainants can be made into loyal customers and supporters. So if we encourage more feedback from our online customers the stronger the service will become. For example one authority I know had a negative comment about school meals contributing to the obesity problem. The Head of Service responded online and soon attracted four supportive comments and the negative was dealt with and everyone can see it. That is why user generated content has a role to play provided you use it properly. Another benefit that a colleague mentioned was how it showed elected members the way the catering service was interacting with customers and voters.

There are lots of lurkers about!

Mon, 15 Jun 2009

No these are not potential burglars but people that visit social networking sites to browse through the content. A bit like you are doing now. The aim is to attract their interest and keep it for as long as possible. That is why one writes a regular blog. At present we are going through the "lurker" phase where people browse but don't leave a comment. This is while people gain confidence in the site. I hope it won't be long before we have more people leaving comments and suggestions. I look forward to reading them. In the meantime thank you to the many people who have phoned and email me. It has been great to hear from you.

Lots of Great News!

Fri, 05 Jun 2009

I am delighted to say that LACA has received financial support from the School Food Trust (SFT). This is brilliant news and I wanted to say thank you to everyone at the SFT for their contribution to the week. The money will be put to good use and help us improve the week still further. For example we can employ an athlete with a higher profile, increase the value or number of competition prizes and add more resources to the website.

I also want to say a big thank you to Mark Lewis from Caterer and Hotelkeeper and David Foad from Cost Sector Catering. They have agreed to support the week and promote the event via their magazines. A number of ideas are under discussion so look out for more information in the next few months.

A slight change of plan

Fri, 05 Jun 2009

One of the benefits of NSMW this year is the team of people that are involved. It means lots of ideas are fed into AVF Marketing to help with the plans. For example Hazel Green, LACA PR, suggested running the online vote to find Britain's Favourite School Meal before the week and announce the results on the Monday. Chris Wainwright, Communications Director from the SFT, suggested "Get Eating" as a theme. Both of these have now been incorporated into the plan. So if you have any more ideas then please let us have them.

The suppliers' directory is a great addition this year..

Wed, 20 May 2009

Hi again,

Thanks to everyone who has read my blogs, left a message or sent an email. The interest has been fantastic. We are getting up a great head of steam that I am sure will be built up much further as we get closer to the week. Thank you also to the suppliers that have shown an interest and booked their place in the suppliers' directory. This is invaluable as it enables us to do more to promote the positive messages of school meals.

The suppliers' directory is a great addition this year as suppliers can promote their products and services online. There are three packages with different prices. The first is just for contact details (£100), the second allows two graphics and a page of copy (£250) and the top package allows a web contact plus a banner headline in the website (£400). These banners will rotate at random so the pages always look different. The big advantage of the top package is it gives the supplier another "in bound" link that will help their Search Engine Optimisation.

There are two questions we are wrestling with at the moment and perhaps you can help. The first is who should be the voice of the week? By that I mean which personality, athlete or celebrity should we have? It can't be a footballer because we can't afford it and more importantly whichever person we chose we would upset the rest of the football fans across the country and so be unproductive. Should it be an Olympian like Rebecca Adlington, the swimmer that one two gold medals in Beijing, or Rebecca Romero who has won a silver medal for rowing in 2004 and in 2008 she won a gold medal in cycling. Could it be someone entirely different? What do you think?

The second question is what are the ten most popular school meals main courses and puddings. The reason for asking is on the Monday of NSMW we are organising the "Big Vote" to find out Britain's most popular school meal. To do this we want to get people's top ten so please send them in. The vote will show regional variations so you can see what is popular in your area.

Just email me your ideas and thoughts at Irene@iloveschoolmeals.co.uk. I really look forward to hearing from you and as our strap line says I hope you "Get involved".

There is so much going on with NSMW..

Thu, 07 May 2009

There is so much going on with NSMW that it is difficult to know where to start. Marketing is changing as a result of the massive growth of the Internet. The role of paper based items is now to drive people to websites. There is also a huge growth in social networking as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter dominate more of our customers' lives. More and more people are creating their own content and letting it be read by the online community. This blog is a good example.

Our young customers and often their parents have embraced this technology and taken multi-tasking to a new level. They can talk on their mobile, send an email, go online in a chat room, listen to music and still have TV playing in the background. Communication is now on a different level. There are all the new media channels and whereas we often used to send letters that could take days and sometimes weeks, we now communicate via email, text or SMS and the response is often instant.

We need to understand, accept and use the new digital techniques. Let's start with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). This is a technique to increase the page ranking of the website. By this I mean getting your website in the top three pages of Google and ideally on the first. Very few people go beyond page three when they put in a search item e.g. school meals. People surfing in this manner will be shown the results for both "natural search" and "paid search". Paid search is what it says on the tin, as Ronseal would say. Someone is paying for their website to be featured at the top or top right hand side of the page within a highlighted area. LACA is using SEO to raise its natural search profile via NSMW.

This means writing blogs, encouraging inbound links, using key words in the copy and writing copy in a specific way that reinforces the messages. Fortunately we have Karen Fewell to help us. Her success and use of SEO can be measured very easily. Just type in "Digital marketing consultant" into Google. I have just done it and Karen comes out Number 2 in the world and Number 1 in Europe. Thank heavens for that!

SEO is something that school caterers must be aware of. You should talk to your web providers and see if they understand how to use this technology. If they don't then you must find someone that can. We are caterers and long may that remain.

First Blog for Irene Carroll

Tue, 28 Apr 2009

Irene Carroll is co-ordinating National School Meals Week for the Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA). Irene was formerly Head of Catering for the City of Southampton and National chairman of LACA 2006/7.

Well here we go with my first ever blog as we build up to National School Meals Week from 9th to 13th November. This event is very different from anything LACA has done before. We are moving into the digital age of marketing under the guidance and support of AVF Marketing.

It is a very exciting time and I am learning a lot about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Blogging, Pod and Vid Casts, social networking and much more. Over the next few months I will explain everything that is going on. So please bookmark this page and come back regularly to find out more.

On this site you can download a briefing document. There is one for school caterers and another for suppliers. Have a look at them now and start to think about how you want to "Get involved". If you have any questions then please email me at the address below.

irene@iloveschoolmeals.co.uk

The clock is counting down and the week will soon be here. It is a great opportunity to increase awareness and meal numbers so please take part.