certificate in reception operations.

good morning , this was my last course of the year , i was doing my nine weak certificate in reception or front office if you may , we started there on a Monday morning and within the first day we had to start working with guests, we had modules during our nine Weeks here is some just to name a few that we had covered , front office procedures, guest accounting , safety, advanced reservations, we had to study these modules and be able to put it into play when working with guests in reception.
we were showed how to great a guests in the correct manner according to a set standard that we use , we also had to practise a set greeting when answering a telephone call , reception is a lot of hard work and the paperwork involved can become somewhat difficult at times , we had to do things as registration cards fro guests , in house list , recons which we were helped with by fellow staff members, work with guests credits and even lost and found property , we also had training on the booking system called uni res man which is internationally used this system keeps a record of guests account were accounting comes into play , keeps all there personal details such as telephone numbers etc , the unit number and the status of the guest.
during our second weak we had to deal with a difficult customer which was something new to me in that department as reception is the main communicator of any guest related issue , guests always  complain at front office as we work closely with guests , when the customer came to complain  we had let the staff members handle it as we were nor sure how to handle such an issue raised by the guest.
at the end off the month we had to do customer care were we phone guests to ask them a few questions on how there stay was this way we can see were we need improvement.
front office also in voles working with money there is a standard procedure which we had to follow when booking an activity for a guest we need to receive the money and close the transaction ,at the end of the day we needed to do a cash up we needed to balance daily and the money then gets dropped into a safe for the financial department. we were able to scan a guest and open a sale ,close a sale , deal with enquiries , do a check in and check out , we learnt so much as to how the department works and how close we are with other departments around us , this course really helps develop Iyour unknown people skills.
i had a lot of fun working with fellow students and staff we were able to work together and be able to think as one team.
i want to thank all the people in reception for the great time and a great learning opportunity.

Food and beverage skills

good morning to all , this year has gone so fast and we had done so much as first year students, i would like to tell you about my experience at food and beverage skills, we had to do a four weak skills program on how this industry works we had to cover many modules such as, table service, all the serving styles we get, glass types and many more , we had to fisically work and serve guests and work with a program called plus point were would create a guest account so that we could keep track of the items guests would buy from the restaurant , working with guests broadens your communication skills and helps you read various types of customers whether it be friendly or difficult customers, serving the guests was a challenge at first as you need have a good posture and guests need to be served from the right side of the table , your language skills also came into play we needed to able to explain a menu to guests using the correct professional grammar, there were some challenges during our training as we had to deal with internal conflict between staff and students, on a weekend we were each giving a section of the restaurant to run all the  tables in that area was your responsibility to clean and keep the guests happy at all times, this course we did is the most nerve wreaking course of all due to the fact that we had to work with unknown guests and be able to be a team worker and a leader. the hour of this course becomes really tuff , ypu work very long hour at a time , for example we had to work a fumction called bring and braai which sometimes only ends at 10 o clock if you were working from 8 o clock that morning the hours become long and hard , but on the bright side it helps prepare you for the long hour in any job in the hospitallity indutrie , i had so much fun during my training as we had to do role plays and get a feeling of how it would really feel when dealing with a customer that wants to see real service.

food prep

this now my second week in the kitchen and i am enjoying it a lot we are learning so much in such a short time !! we are now cooking like crazy and becoming young chefs in the making !!,in these last two weeks i have seen what many people never see at all i have seen a head chef go crazy and i have seen a whole kitchen function under pressure , i have now worked in the hot kitchen and cold kitchen and in all areas of the kitchen , we have been busy and have been thought how to cook in a time that is not possible at home overall though we are not real chefs we get treated like one and we have been thought how to function as one and how the kitchen can treat you , it is a great experience so far i am enjoying the food and what we had been taught , i never thought i would be able to cook more then pasta but now i can !! this is great fun and must say I'm getting fatter by the day with all the food i eat on a daily basis !!

skills in food prep

kitchen!!!!!!!!!!! time !!  i am now in my second week in the kitchen were i am doing my basic skills this has been great fun so far we did our knife skills and work in the kitchen will the help of our head chef and staff we will be able to cook more then just an egg , we have been given tasks to do and collect 25 recipes.
in these last two weeks we have been cooking things from meat to a egg that has been poached ,we are 3 students at the moment so we each get put into a section such as cold kitchen were we have to prepare salads , do breakfasts etc we learn a great deal in the kitchen as we will need to cook for guests one day when working at a lodge , one thing that has really made me smile is the fact we learn things in the kitchen no other kid learns from his mom witch is great .
we also have a great pressure on us as the kitchen does get busy and we need to be able to handle the pressure at all times .
but so far the kitchen is great fun and we love learning about food and what we can do with it ,
our main concern at this stage is so keep up the hard work and keep our customers happy.

ssb sondela share block

this week at ssb was really fun as we did our last modules in this week it was customer care and house keeping we also had to work in the luandry room to be able to know how the fabricks etc are taken care off . this week we also did many varios things such as working with chmicals and what they are used for on a daily basis and how the different equipment is used , this week that had past we also did customer care and what it in tails !!. we also did aother nie thing such as how a furniture trimming can have an effect on the flow of dust , the control off dust and dirt and the restiction off bataria and dirt was also done with us this was very intresting in many ways as we never thought that we need to controldust in an esablishment !! these intresinting aspects we were tought off will help us in many ways as we need to able to run a place with no mess ups , we also we shown how to report and and act like a junior manager shoud in this industry!! as for the industrial iron we had to use now this was a first for most off the boys as we had to help was and iron the pillow cases etc this was a great fun day !! this was week was long but the most fun by far !!!!

oky as i said i was leaving conservation for now im at sondela share block or ssb as we know it were are busy with our with first module wich is health and safety around and in the works place ,so far its been not to bad we sit alot and work on our theorie wich is not to bad we also took some time to walk through our store rooms and we were shown how it works wintin these store rooms ,we were also shown how to ensure our safety an that off geusts and the procedures that go with this kind off work. we wrote test today aswell on our module 1 i must say it was a fun paper to write i got 100 percent and im am very pleased with my marks i got , ssb is a department like no other as this department ensures that geusts are safe and there always a clean chalet for them to walk into at all time this department is a lesson to be learnt as this were geust exspectation comes into play to ensure that our costumers come back each time !!!! ssb is a great way for a person to learnt and learn great new things if were geust we would like a safe place that is clean and feels like home so ssb super student here we are to help and improve our customer exspection!!! go ssb !!

site guide

site guide !!!!!
oky so we are done with site guide !! im kind off sad to go and leave the consevation behind im giong to miss it alot , in the last two weaks we had great fun we did a boot camp and it was great fun we did some greta stuff were we had to work with kids in the area , we also did so many gamedrives it was running out by our ears , but in this last time we have obtianded a great amount of knowledge within these times we did all 16 modules and had to do assessmnets on all of them , we also did some amazing gamdrives were we assessesd on our skills!!
i would never forget the time i had here and would do it over in a blink of an eye !! site guide was a amazing learning curve i looooooovvvvvveeeee it and cant wait to go and write my fagsa in september :::::))))))))
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site guide

site guide yesterday was the most fun i have had in a long time as we always do we went out to the bush diong grasses and trees we learnt so much we did so many things and the information was a real mind bommer we did curly leaf love grass ,hering bone grass ,tamboeki grass,vinger grass , terpintean grass , and so much more we also got a beutifull devils thorn were the leafs are wetend with water and used as a soap this was amazing to see , we then thought to go to our hunting camp as we have never been there before as we were on our way to the old dipping site we walk right into a snake not any snake but a poathon she was amazing to she we think she was about 4 meters in lenght she was the most intresting thing we have seen so far on the farm . we also got something really odd a tree with blisters perhaps most of us though in fact not it was what we call goal formers these are were insects urinate on plant and the plant then swels out and eggs  are then put in this rock hard bubble this is done by velvet ants and is the most weardest thing in nature as these insects are so small we cut one open to see what is in side thes goals and a small white worm was feeding on the inside of this goal and was awesome to see , we also did some taste testing with monkey oranges now this was a melt in your mouth food source the monkey orange was a yellow color but tasted like a buttery pumpkin and was a great way for us to see just why monkeys love them so much !!, during this day we also did our bit by colecting papers that were lying around as this ia what a conservationist does to protect and clean the inviroment , we had so much fun and i will never forget this day ever it just shows that any thing is possible and nature is a true princess so clean and beutifull !!

site guide

site guide !!!!!!
we started at site guide in the past two weeks and thia what i call every boys dream!! reason why? your in the bush and learn and become a great field guide and ranger  this a great way of obtaining knowledge and enjoying the bush at the same time . so far at site guide we have done birds my favorite off all by far then we also did ecology ,geology, mammals,trees and plants. we spend at lot of time in class but when we go out into the bush its awesome we then get the time to work on trees , mammals etc were we can take samples read up and share our knowledge off what we know , we walk aroud and do things that little people can do and see . being able to work and learn about mothernature is a blessing in these past two weeks we also had the change of giong out and seening many different species and even do game drives with guests were you act as a field guide and share that knowledge with others. we have been rather busy with tests and many assessments i feel that this is a great way for us to beter our selfs. site guide is passion and care and as macdonalds would say" i'm loving it"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wildlife center

wildlife center!!!!!!!!!!!!!
we completed a 4 week course in species care at the sondela wildlife center ,this was a great great exsperience we worked hand on hand with the animals of varios shapes ,sizes , color such as lions ,civets , caracals etc in these 4 weeks we had to do a procedure each day this was called spotchecks as the titel said it is so check and clean all the cages each day ,this we had to do for safety reasons .we also did many varios subjets  at the center such as plant care , ecology etc this we had to do for a good reason animals need to be taken care of. we had to be able to provide a good shelter and plants and the ecological role the animal plays in the wild and how we would take care of this animal wether it be a bird to a lizzard. feeding is also a great deal of what we had learnt at the wldlife center we had to pepare food for the varios animals we have at the center such as cutting up chickens and meats and we also had to do milk and powders that the animlas need on a daily basis the feeding helped us a lot as we now know what animals would eat in the wild and why there diets are like this . each day was a differnt sence with the animals we had to go out and work with them accordingly to what there needs are .we also did lions walks and lions interactions and feeding tours ill start by the lions walks we have to take geusts out and then walk the lions with the geusts this a great thing to see as the lions then interact to the natural inviroment we can then see what behavior is like .we aso had the change to work with lex our female lioness wich is very nervreking but fun . included in eaxh days intirery was odd jobs were we had to clean the meat fridge or clean up the clinic etc overall the wildlife center was amazing and would never forget the moments i had there a highlight of this was when we did a sable operation with a vet and we then later released them back into the wild !!! the wildlife center is a once in a life time i am very gratefull that i was able to work with these people and animals as we are the ones that need to conserve nature and the organisms around it .

oky so we did nine weeks in rg we spent most of our time in the bush and the practical feild of rg . we did thing no one can imange . we did the fences were animals broke through it , we also did the maintance of the dip bakke and the dip applicators .we also did harvesting of flora in the blue bufflo lands abs was great we alo took out the sestrim lavigatim (ink bessie) were we learnt how to be able to provide methods and logical plans . we alsp took out bullrush in the dams and fixed up the pressure plates . in my whole time spent here i loved evey minute of it , we learnt the mapping and logical farm managemnt from all aspects , we also did game capuring and the different tipes of methods we can use . in over all i love it it took me on a adventure that i will never forget . being able to work with fire and being able to understand the work that goes into keeping afarm in top shape is needed . rg is a must and i love the fact that i can now be able to think and work in a logical manner and correct and maintian a farm bymyself oneday.

resource gardianship on the weekend

rg on the weekend

the weekend that has past we were put into different departments were we had to work and learn the end and out of these departments ,i was put into rg (resource guardianship with some second year students were had to cut down trees using only an axe and panga these tress were then used to pack a boma around a waterhole in the middle of this waterhole there is a pressure plate with amipore if a animal steps in it it sprays on then and controlling tics etc the branches from these tree ensure that animals will only walk one path and on the pressure plate. we were also shown that how to cut down a tree or bush in the right manner. i did this for two days but on Sunday i had to welcoming we had to serve the guests with some juice and pancakes and tell them about sondela this was a fun weekend and hard work but the experience we have gained is a big plus bonus for the future .

this a typical veld fire we were told that the training we got will help us to prepare for a veld fire such as this above.

we started on Sondela as little 1 graders with no idea as to what  is going on we started off by doing fire fight ing ,and first aid .we had a class on fire fighting and covered many things such as fuels ,the combustion triangle ,the methods that can be used to stop a fire etc. we also had a practical we had to put out a fire with a DCP ( dry chemical powder ) extinguishers . we also had a fire drill on the same day with Cristine pienaar and Sieg it was so much fun but hard work .we had to run with full gear and we were also showed how to work with fire flaps and the generator that pumps water. the next we did was first aid we also had to write a test on the things we learnt such as bleeding ,broken bones etc we also had to do a practical were we performed cpr (cardio pulmonary resuscitation) we had to do it as we were dealing with a real person !!. this has help us in many ways we can now help a person in need and put out fires when needed .