The Old Paradians Amateur Football Club, with the support of Parade College, has provided Year 12 students with the opportunity to manage the club’s canteen . . . and it’s been a win-win for all parties.

The club has been thrilled with the calibre of applicants who responded and the selected students are now in paid positions that enable them to apply their hospitality skills and gain valuable experience.

“This approach of bringing students into the club on matchdays to complete umpiring and waterboy tasks is something we’ve been doing for several years. This year we decided to extend that arrangement to the management of our club canteen knowing there are a large number of students doing studies in hospitality and who are looking for paid opportunities to apply their knowledge and develop their skills through on the job work experience.” OPAFC President Mike Jolley said.

The successful applicants, Year 12 students Alexander Bullock and Kyle Murdoch, are doing a great job. To quote Mike: “We are really pleased with the way Alex and Kyle have settled into the role”.

“They are both very keen, quick learners and hard workers. We’ve told them we are also looking for their ideas on how we can improve the way the canteen operates and they’ve already suggested and made a number of changes,” Mike said.

“The beauty of these arrangements is that the students get the chance to manage all the processes including stocktaking, ordering, food preparation, customer sales, reconciliation of monies and end of day cleaning. We will also be able to offer the students references based on their work performance when they apply for other work or study opportunities in the future.”

The OPAFC is now taking steps to train a third student, Yin Van Beek, who will fill in when Alex or Kyle have other commitments. Mike added that the club “is really appreciative of the assistance provided by the College in promoting these types of football club opportunities, with a special thankyou to Parade Vice Principal Mark Aiello and staff in the Hospitality group”.