Congratulations Pembroke College Catering Team!

We are absolutely delighted that the Pembroke College catering team have made the miaList 2020 shortlist in recognition of the wonderful work they carried out in helping to feed homeless people in Oxford shelters during the first lockdown and beyond.

On the 26th of March 2020, Kevin Dudley, Executive Chef and Head of Catering at Pembroke College, was approached by the Environmental Health Officer from Oxford Council, asking if he and the catering team at Pembroke College could help with providing daily meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner, for over 100 local homeless people that had been taken in to several emergency shelters around Oxford for a two-week period. Kevin spoke to the Home Bursar and Master of Pembroke and they unanimously agreed that they would help in any way they could.

As the college was in lockdown and many of the staff placed on furlough – the first challenge facing Kevin was to encourage the kitchen team to volunteer their services and then to organise a shift pattern to cover the long hours that would be required to prepare the meals. The next tasks were to become a licenced takeaway, find suitable containers for delivery of the meals, source additional food while their usual suppliers were in lockdown and to ensure that all special diets were safely catered for. Inspired by Kevin, staff of the college and local suppliers rallied round and two weeks turned into six months!

To date the Pembroke team have delivered over 50,000 meals to homeless people in Oxford.

What a great achievement! Please help us to support them – click here to cast your vote!

We are also delighted to announce that Marie O’Connor of Conference Oxford has been shortlisted for the Individual miaList Award. The mia present this annual award to the industry’s greatest talent & we’re so proud that Marie is being recognised for all her hard work and commitment to Conference Oxford and the events industry as a whole. Marie will be judged by a panel and the winner will be announced in December.