Hilary Mcleod Email and Phone Number

Project admin, tender admin, accounts admin.

During my time at Grande Suites I spread myself across the functions, restaurant and bar teams. The functions team duties included full set up of the function rooms, either for a boardroom meeting, conference or 140 person wedding (including table setting). We were also responsible for food and beverage service throughout the function. The restaurant and bar in Grande Suites were very busy and this taught me new skills surrounding the hospitality industry and utilised my skills of teamwork and leadership. I was often left in charge of dinner service in the restaurant and solely ran the bar frequently during the day shifts.

Charlotte Wood is an event designer & organiser that I worked with on a casual basis to assist in the set up various functions including: weddings, awards dinners and Christmas parties. This was a fantastic experience that helped me learn from a professional and express my creative side providing ideas and laying out the designs. Myself and one other were left in charge of a Wedding whilst Charlotte couldn’t be there so this really allowed me to use my skills and working under pressure.

Wellington Zoo has 9 different venues for hire, both indoor and outdoor venues that cater from having a Christmas party to awards night to conference to birthday party! There are 5 booking types within the Zoo that I am fully responsible in managing; Sleepovers, School Visits, Functions, Holiday Programme and Encounters. Bookings come from internal and external sources which allowed me to build solid and positive business relationships. I was able to utilise all of my skills stated above and also gained fantastic experiences in event design, set up, planning and management. My day to day activities include new and continuous booking management, developing run-sheets, customer service both phone and email, customer site visits, communication of bookings to caterers, external suppliers and staff involved and also payment management. The tools involved were an online booking system, database, Outlook, and Microsoft office. This role is demanding so required me to work well under pressure, multi task and problem solve efficiently which I was beyond competent.

Being part of the i-SITE sales team in Waitomo was an excellent experience as I developed skills to build itineraries, sell New Zealand, ticketing and bookings for everything the client required. Responsible for the souvenir shop, basic post office duties and creating itineraries utilised most of my skills; such as organising and planning as well as coping under pressure when it is peak customer times. Communication and good people skills were also vital as some clients speak little to no English so communication must be improvised (e.g. written, hand movements or visual).

Located in the booming tourist destination of Waitomo I was responsible for up to 12 clients guiding the one and only ‘TumuTumu Toobing’ (black water rafting) trip. Each trip lasts 4 hours which within this time you are continually interacting with your clients. Whether it be the informative speeches throughout the cave or casually interacting with your clients, good people and communication skills are vital to establish trust and make the trip enjoyable. Whilst at Waitomo Adventure’s I successfully achieved risk management training, Outdoor first aid certificate and basic water rescue skills. Leadership is also another quality achieved through ultimately being responsible for everyone on your trip. Associating with different ethnicities / languages developed my patience, communication skills and how to deal with situations under pressure.