26th May 2020 Newspage
That is over two months now since the call to lockdown came, the call to shut the hotels, restaurants and pubs in Scotland and the rest of the UK.
The Coronavirus Pandemic seems to have passed over much of the world in its first flush and we will see if there is the much vaunted second wave or not.
Sadly, many people have lost their lives to Covid-19; the UK death toll sits at 36,914 with 121 new fatalities.
“Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives”
In the main, the population seems to have done that.
“Stay alert, control the virus, save lives” has been a little bit more confusing with a UK / Scottish divide adding some confusion to the less obvious phrasing.
“Stay home” is quite clear “Stay alert” not quite so clear.
Thoughts are now turning to reopening, with much of Europe having opened up restaurants and bars or in the case of Sweden, never having shut them down.
What will the rest of the 2020 season bring? Difficult to try and say. No doubt, there will be some life and some businesses will strike up, pitch up their stall and trade. Others may choose not to. That is everyone’s prerogative.
At CIS, an office has been kept open at Sunnybrae in Moffat where I live and where CIS worked out of from 2009 upon leaving Wentworth Street in Portree and before the day to day business moved into the shop on Well Street in Moffat.
There are reduced opening hours for now.
Monday to Friday 9am to 3pm and shut 1pm on the Wednesday. No doubt, these hours will change. If you get an answer machine please leave a message and I will get back to you. As the jobs pick up, I will spend more time on the phones, a bit like the early days in Glenmhor on Skye, I have one landline and one fancyish mobile which will be used when the time comes.
The three ladies who worked at CIS have all started their notice periods of redundancy as of yesterday the 25th of May.
The main issues getting the CIS office back up and running Well Street would be BT and Caterer.com who are chasing CIS for full payments whilst there is no activity. I am loathe to pay them off.
CIS Prices for hoteliers and restaurateurs have been reduced, and CIS is keenly priced to go.
Initially, the rates for relief chefs will be down a couple of pounds also to reflect the expected supply and demand for chefs.
After 20 good years of trading, one bad year is maybe to be expected.
Hopefully, for all the decent, honest, hard-working and skilled chefs who are keen to get back to work, the work will come back.
Some- time in July?
Many of us will be ready.
The Early Seasons Turn
January and there were quite a lot of jobs and lots and lots of chefs looking for either permanent or relief jobs. Was it always like this?
Moving into early February and the early season turn is almost upon us.
The jobs will continue to come online for the season, albeit spread about much than in years gone by.
In 2000 when I got into recruitment seriously I think that in Scotland there was Brian at Clarke Staff Agency, a lady called Dee Cooper who gave out phone numbers, Stafffinders and we all bought the caterer and hotelkeeper religiously on a weekly basis.
We were called Skye Recruitment in the year 2000 and I would have a list of all my jobs which I wrote some stuff on like wages, chef position, location, accommodation and a little spiel about the job and would either read out to chefs looking for work or email over the list to them.
I think the gumtree was starting down in London, just one gumtree and you could advertise on it for free and maybe get an Australian chef or a kiwi chef available and ready to go anywhere. Sometimes they stuck in a job, sometimes they didn’t.
Facebook was just a flicker in Mark Zuckerburg’s imagination and in the main job advertising was done in expensive journals or newspapers. £120 plus it cost me to advertise in the West Highland Free Press for two head chefs on Skye, one for the Isles in and one for the Portree Hotel. The advert got no response which is hard to think about now. A head chef job which gets no response. Crazy.
We had one job in North West Scotland for the season on our website recently and the owner got 40 applicants. Changed days.
The Early Season Turn.
SLF}��K$�We have over 65 chefs out working in Scotland, England and Wales.
Relief remains busy as expected for the time of year.
In Skye and the Highlands we have Michael Njororge, Graham McLeish, Alan Baird, Richard Booth, Johan Sikkema, Grant Buchanan, Kris Nairn, Sean Angus, Alan MacPherson, John McInnes, Peter Norrie, Tom Tateson, John Geddes and Vytis Baltrunas.
West Coast we have Sebastian Luzszynski, Del Bonini, James MacRae, Jamie Atkinson, Donald Haughey, Scott Devine, Ally Elder, Scott Bolton, Kirsty Hamilton and Philippe Alamichel.
Central Belt we have Lillian Clarkson, Graham White, Lewis Thompson, Andras Rethi, Steve Moffat and Pawel Cimek
In Dumfriesshire and the Borders we have Ross Murdoch, Calvin Jeff, Roger Brown, Colin mooney, Stuart MacColl, Ryan Williamson, Gary McGirr and John Hyslop
In Aberdeenshire and Shetland we have Dale Harwood, Max Nisbet, John Ferguson, Barry Gauld and Sara Jayne Moffat.
In England and Wales we have Mark Shaw and Bobby Ainsworth.
Thank you all for your hard work and flexibility.
With over 65 chefs out working relief remains busy.
We are still happy to meet new and registered relief chefs at our office in Moffat, please get in touch for our availability.
We have Johan Sikkema, Kris Nairn and Grant Buchanan working at the Dores Inn, Inverness-shire, Chris Daily is at The Grant Arms in Grantown on Spey, Dale Harwood is over at the Shetland Hotel, also in Shetland is Kai Stutzkeitz at the Queens Hotel, Gary McGirr is finishing out the season along with Ryan Williamson at Tillmouth Park in the Borders, Alan Macpherson after finishing at Moorings Hotel he is now over on Skye at The Isle Ornsay Hotel working with Martin Nel and Ross Duncan, Sebastian Luszczynski is still at the Alexandra hotel along with new relief chef Del Bonini, Phil Smith is back at The Sligachan Hotel, Tim Morris getting on well at The Grant Arms in Monymusk, Piotr Miga is at Pittormie Castle, Chris McSevney at The Glencoe Hotel, Lillian Clarkson has been extended at The Alyth Hotel, Ionel Rizea at Tormaukin Hotel, Carlos Ortiz is up in the Highlands at Borgie Lodge, Peter Norrie at Archiestown hotel, Richard Booth working not too far from home at the Ben Loyal Hotel, Sarah Jeffrey was out on her 1st job a couple weeks ago at The Ballachulish Hotel where Jamie Atkinson has been on relief since March and Lewis Thompson is working in Edinburgh at Field Restaurant.
Thanks to all for doing a great job.
Chef Alan Gibb
I didn’t know that Chef Alan Gibb was a relatively young man or that he was born in Aberdeen.
Alan registered with CIS when he finished at The Cluny in Forres back in the mid noughties. He was of a mind to do a bit of relief work, but picked up a head chef position at the City Inn in Glasgow before making his way back to Gleneagles.
Over the following years, we occasionally sent out via email to him for work references. Without fail, he would take the time to fill in the work reference answering honestly and send them back to us. I am sure we were one of many such requests that he would deal with in a busy day.
I still remember the name of the first chef we placed at Gleneagles, Rosemary Phelan, this would be back in 2000 or 2001 and when the ladies from HR at Gleneagles phoned me up, sitting in my back room in Glenmore on Skye, I was astounded that I was thought worthy of trying to find them chefs. The check stub was pinned up on the wall. We placed a few chefs at Gleneagles at that time.
Ten or so years later and we weren’t dealing with Gleneagles but a good young chef from Stranraer, Ryan McCutcheon, registered with CIS and I did up his CV and popped it over to Chef Gibb.
The HR department queried our 200 pound plus VAT fee. I emailed Chef Gibb and said it is ok, just leave the fee. He said no, if HR wouldn’t pay it, it would come out of his kitchen budget. HR paid the fee.
A man of decency and integrity in the small world of Scottish Hospitality.
Our sincere thoughts are with Alan’s wife Karen and son Liam.
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