Hospitality Course Serves Up a Success
November, 2019
Charity Tutaki is thriving in her new role as a front-of-house team member at Virginia Lake’s Funky Duck Café.
The recently-qualified barista and café assistant is enjoying the fruits of completing a Hospitality qualification, which has helped her to secure the role.
Charity has come a long way since leaving school in Hawera at the end of Year 11 as a quiet and reserved individual. At that time, she says, “I wasn’t comfortable going to school, and being in that type of environment.”
- tried home-schooling, then moved to Whanganui halfway through 2018. She also tried other study providers before finding a good fit with Whanganui tertiary educator Training For You. Charity’s sister, a former student of Training For You, had recommended the campus and Charity found what she needed in it’s small, friendly atmosphere. Charity comments, “It’s so comfortable there.”
She joined Training For You with the intention of joining the Retail course initially, but good advice from tutors led her to start with the NZ Certificate in Foundation Skills (Level 2) before progressing on to the NZ Certificate in Hospitality (Customer Service and Sales Support), Level 2.
The shift from Retail to Hospitality was a good move, “Once I had done all the theory work, and then began the practical work, I realised it was really fun and I was enjoying it.”
The Hospitality, Level 2 course at Training For You provides students with fundamental skills for the hospitality industry. Learners get an insight in to the different opportunities available, and how they can enhance a customer’s experience. In barista training, students learn the important foundations of coffee production - the origins, harvesting and processing of coffee beans. They are schooled in different styles of coffee brewing; expresso coffees on a commercial espresso machine, filter coffee, and French press. Specialty drinks such as iced coffees and herbal teas are also taught.
Now, the bubbly 18-year-old is a natural fit for the Hospitality industry, serving up the taste of success with a fantastic smile every step of the way. She has achieved NCEA Level 2, and has the opportunity to gain a Learner License – all part of the package with qualification-based programmes at Training For You.
Charity is pleased about the direction she has taken, “I’m actually really glad that I came to Training For You because it really helped with everything. I got life skills, especially when I was learning at Training For You and going to Funky Duck at the same time. I already knew how to do some things at Funky Duck, because I had learned them at Training For You.”
Of vital benefit has been the practical experience that she gained when the campus opened its hospitality training venue to serve members of the public. In preparation for the opening, the Hospitality students spent 11 weeks honing their customer service and barista skills before hosting members of the public in a real-life coffee house. The café ran for five weeks, with students rostered into teams over several shifts.
“When we opened up our café, I was treating it like an actual workplace. We knew that in our work experience in the café, we actually had to apply the knowledge – to work as a team.”
Training For You Tutor, Bex Carr, approached Charity and asked if she would like to have a job outside of campus, because of how well she was working in the student café. “That’s how I got the job at Funky Duck Café – she noticed how well I was working in the Training For You café.”
Funky Duck owner, Dave Hill, is impressed with the skills that Charity has arrived with, “I have found her to be an excellent worker. She obviously has been trained well, and has shown us that she can do any task assigned to her. She’s a quick learner and fits in well with staff, with a positive attitude.”
Throughout the course, Charity and her fellow students have enjoyed the support from their tutor, Bex, and other Training For You staff. Charity observes, “I could see that Bex is so passionate about teaching the course. I wouldn’t have been able to gain this job without the support of Training For You – not just my own tutor, but everybody here. It’s just such a welcoming environment. It’s a place where you want to come - and you want to come and learn. And there are so many possibilities at the end of it.”
Next year, Charity plans to move her study forward - and in a new direction - but for now she is happy to have a transferable skill that will support her through future studies. “I still want to work, so I can do study, and part-time work like this. I really love my new job and I am now more confident that I can do this, because of the skills I learned during the course.”
There’s no doubt she is happy in her work, “At the start of the year, I never would have thought that this would have happened by the end. I really like that Training For You was here, because I had no solid plans of where I was going - but Training For You has unfolded it.”
