UCOL BLOG

A dedicated Whanganui UCOL Cookery Lecturer has used the money from a staff award to travel all the way to India to learn about Indian cuisine to bring her knowledge back to New Zealand.

Gina Guigou (née Wagstaffe) has been with the polytechnic since 1991, and last year she won UCOL’s Alan Furness Award for excellence in teaching and learning. The prize was $5000 and was to be used for activities or resources which would further her teaching and learning interests.

UCOL has students from over 30 different countries currently studying across its campuses, and Mrs Guigou works with the international student cohorts at Whanganui UCOL.

Read More: “Lecturer nourished by overseas travel”…

Last year’s Design Distinction Awards (dDawards) were such a success; they have been made even bigger.

The dDawards are a collaboration involving UCOL, the Eastern Institute of Technology and the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, and were created as a design challenge for secondary school students in the Polytechnics’ respective regions.

The awards were so keenly contested last year; the three Polytechnics have introduced a tertiary category. Read More: “Search for design talent widens”…

​The answer to a student’s innocent question took Whanganui UCOL Art and Design Lecturer Leigh Anderton-Hall all the way to the Czech Republic recently to attend a 12 day ‘Puppets in Prague’ workshop.

Leigh is a Lecturer in the Certificate in Art and Design (CAD) at Whanganui UCOL, and has been making puppets for a while a part of her own art practice.

She says she discovered the workshop was being held in the Czech Republic after one of her students asked her where they could learn to make models and puppets so they could get a job at Weta Workshop. “I decided the specialised programme would be ideal to build on my knowledge of the unusual craft, and then share it with my students.” Read More: “Prague on a string”…

UCOL Cookery and Hospitality students from the Palmerston North and Wairarapa campuses have returned from Friday’s Wellington Culinary Fare competitions laden with medals.

Certificate in Professional Cookery student Lauren Birch won a Gold medal and her Beef Main course was judged the best in the Open class.

Lauren’s lecturer Mark Smith says Lauren’s success is especially pleasing as a win in the hot kitchen is a true test of skill and discipline. “The competitors are preparing their dishes from scratch and are under the judges’ scrutiny the whole time,” he says. “It’s a very high pressure environment.”

Read More: “UCOL cooks bring home a pot of gold”…

A UCOL postgraduate student has started up a group-oriented community health initiative for overweight individuals in the Manawatu District.

Jonathan TeRauna, a UCOL student studying towards the Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Exercise Physiology, Level 8, has launched Health and Performance Manawatu (HAPM) to mix specialised physical testing and conditioning sessions for moderate or low health risk clients.

Jonathan, who lives in Feilding, says there is a specific need in the Manawatu for specialised fitness sessions for people with moderate health risk. “High health risk clients can be referred to exercise and wellness clinics or PHO staff but when they complete their programmes, although their health has improved, they run the risk of returning to bad behaviours.”

Read More: “Graduate exercises business know-how”…

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There is a huge weekend of frantic activity and stress ahead for three groups of UCOL students as they compete in two national competitions this weekend.

A team of Bachelor of Applied Visual Imaging (BAVI) and video diploma students will take part in the V48 Hour Film Festival and two groups of students from UCOL’s Cookery programmes from the Palmerston North and Wairarapa campuses will compete at the Wellington Culinary Fare on Friday.

Wellington Culinary Fare.

Six students from UCOL’s Palmerston North based Professional Cookery and Baking and Pastry programmes will take part as individuals in trainee and Open competition classes at the prestigious annual culinary event.

Lauren Birch (Open Beef Main), Sarah Wilson (Soup), Catherine Drinnan (Open Salmon Main), Connor Kernan (Chicken Brunch), Maia Wihare (Soup) will each have to present four identical meals within a one hour time limit, for judging. Samantha Christison will prepare her static Gateau entry ahead of time.

Certificate in Hospitality students Tom Pearson and Geneveve Du Plessis will each compete in the Classic Cocktail and Table Service classes.

The cookery students have been training for up to three sessions per week for the past three weeks and admit to being ‘quite nervous’.

Fresh from their first time competition success in Hawkes Bay’s Salon Culinaire, a team of UCOL Wairarapa cookery students will also compete in several categories. Joseph Parata (Open Beef Main) Dominique Waimotu (Open Beef Main), Matt Lett (Chicken Brunch), Casey Watson (Soup Trainee Class).

Dominique and Casey are also entered in ‘static’ or cold dish categories. Dominique will present an Open Dreamy Gateau, and Casey, an Open Childs Decorated Birthday Cake for judging.

V48 Hour Film Festival

The V48 Hour is New Zealand’s largest film-making contest and is renowned for the pressure it puts on its participants.

UCOL’s team, titled Mellifluous Buttons, is made up of eight second year BAVI students. Co-producers Suzie Smith and Jenna Davison say only one of their team has any experience with the V48 competition. “We know it will be a crazy weekend.”

The pair has been busy arranging the logistics – sponsors, food, transport, hair and makeup and scouting possible locations in preparation for the challenge.

“We have great team dynamics,” says Suzie. “We are also technically capable of handling anything they can throw at us.”

The teams are assigned a movie genre at 7.00pm on Friday night and have exactly 48 hours to write, cast, shoot and edit their movie entry.

UCOL Video lecturer in the BAVI programme, Mel Edmon says the contest is a great way for students to learn by doing. “They have to plan well and work together to meet a very tight deadline. “It is a brilliant assessment tool in an environment that you can’t recreate in the classroom.”