Letters

The Bahrain Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BSPCA) is proud to announce a new location for our popular annual BSPCA Dog Walk, this coming Saturday, March 16!

Please bring your dogs and your whole family and join us for a 5km walk from Harbour Gate in the Bahrain Financial Harbour.

As always, please tell all your friends about the BSPCA Dog Walk and encourage them to join in too or to donate to the BSPCA by sponsoring you for completing the walk.

There will be a prize for most sponsorship money, so make sure you ask everyone to contribute – all donations large or small are very greatly appreciated.

Plus, dogs aren’t mandatory, if you don’t have one then come for a stroll and buy a few raffle tickets for the prize draw once the walk is over – you could be a winner! 

Refreshments to cool you off after the walk will kindly be provided by the Harbour Gate team and, of course, there will be plenty of water along the way for your pooch to have a drink while you’re taking in the sights of Manama and the coastline.

We can’t wait to welcome you to our new Dog Walk location. Head to the Bahrain Financial Harbour, Harbour Gate, for registration from 9am on Saturday – the walk will start at 10am.

For more information visit our website (BSPCA.ORG) or call Kate on 37733415 – see you there!

With best regards,

Ana Foltin, Social Secretary, BSPCA.

 We would like to extend my sincere gratitude to His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa for his patronage of the first Bahrain Emergency Medicine Conference (BAEM19) organised by Bahrain Medical Society and Bahrain Association of Emergency Medicine.

This unique conference, which aims to highlight the importance of emergency medicine in enhancing the government’s efforts to provide better health care in the kingdom will be staged from October 9-11 at the Gulf Hotel Bahrain Convention & Spa.

The event will highlight major medical advances and technologies and gather high-calibre speakers under one roof to share and network their ideas and practices to improve emergency medicine. The event will provide attendees an opportunity to attend pre-conference workshops and many hands-on vital stations. It will also concentrate on research and its importance in developing medical care.

We are pleased to share our thoughts with a group of emergency medicine specialists from the US, Canada, Europe and GCC, along with our Bahraini emergency doctor colleagues.

The conference has been endorsed by the International Federation of Emergency Medicine (IFEM), Gulf Federation of Emergency Medicine (GFEM), American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), Saudi Society of Emergency Medicine (SASEM), Emirates Society of Emergency medicine (ESEM), Oman Society of Emergency Medicine (OSEM) and Kuwait Emergency Medicine Society (KEMS).

It is worth noting that this conference aims to attract emergency physicians, family medicine physicians, general practitioners, all residents, emergency nurses, EMT/ paramedics and medical students.

Dr Ghada Al Qassim, president of BMS & Dr Salah Al Ghanem, president of BAEM.

 The hospitality sector is very much a people business, from the front of house teams that adds values through great service, to the kitchen brigades producing delicious local food and cuisines from around the world and all the support services teams too. As consumers, we all know that it’s the human factor that makes or breaks an experience.

At the Bahrain Hospitality & Restaurant Forum, we heard there is a growing community of hospitality entrepreneurs and senior professionals in Bahrain that meet, support each other and drive the industry forward. However, there is a problem in attracting locals to the industry, with the majority of jobs in service being fulfilled by overseas nationals.

Adversely, we heard that a key differentiator for Bahrain as a tourism destination is that Bahrainis are welcoming and you can discover the true culture, something that the larger destinations simply don’t offer. To deliver on this promise it’s vital that Bahrainis embrace the sector and the career opportunities within it.

A Bahrain-backed project bringing French international hotel school, Vatel, is a great start, but there is more to be done. With a growing trend towards more casual dining and hospitality, these traditional educators simply aren’t as relevant. There is a need for a supporting structure that will encourage and educate entrepreneurs, who will create new and interesting concepts and initiatives, bringing a sense of vibrancy.

Established businesses can play an active role in supporting the sector for the future too, by actively recruiting candidates from Bahrain and the GCC and investing more heavily in their training, taking them through to management on specialise programmes.

The forum also positively promoted and encouraged women to enter the sector, being inspired by the great female chefs and entrepreneurs, who appeared on stage. Lots of lively chat provided considerable guidance, with some stand out advice to ‘grow an attitude, not an ego’.

No matter who your team are and how you recruit them, it’s vital to remember that they are your biggest asset. If they get it right, your brand will be amazingly well represented, if you don’t, your customers are likely to be unhappy.

Communication is the key to this. Making sure your teams know who you are as a business, how you work, your values and what is expected of them.

A happy team means happy guests.

It sounds simple, but we all know how hard it is to do this in real terms, ultimately, people are all different and their nuances makes this a challenge. You will get no greater return from your time.

James Hacon, emcee at the Bahrain Hospitality & Restaurant Forum and MD of THINK Hospitality, a respected speaker, consultant and commentator on the hospitality sector.