The Vatéliades: a new concept at Vatel Bordeaux
The Bordeaux school and the Student Committee organised the first edition of the Vatéliades to liven up student life.
The Vatéliades concept
The Vatéliades principle
It is a competition inspired by the Olympics in a format adapted to the hospitality industry. This project was initiated and set up by Clément Brochier, professor of Corporate Strategy at Vatel Bordeaux with the help of Chloé Cassagne, Head of Student Affairs, as well as the Student Committee who presents the Vatéliades in details here.
Over a week, the event combines moments of festivities and the application of the students’ professional skills acquired in class. Indeed, the Vatéliades offer participants the opportunity to compete in 4 tests to evaluate their interpersonal skills, their ability to lead and organize, their technical sales and marketing skills, their knowledge of wine, and their service skills. In addition, these challenges are accompanied by afterworks every day so that teachers, students and teaching teams can get together.
Finally, students are evaluated on each of the tests according to specific criteria to determine who is the big winner of the Vatéliades at the end of the week. Thus, the participants are all rewarded thanks to the various partners who have offered prizes.
The purpose of the Vatéliades
The Vatéliades aim to bring together all generations and all members of Vatel Bordeaux: students, teaching teams and professors. Indeed, this competition is intended to liven up student life and to promote exchanges thanks to this more dynamic rhythm that changes from everyday life. Thus, the event must be as accessible as possible in order to bring together students from all courses and to count many participants and spectators.
The Vatéliades combine fun and team activities to help participants build relationships while applying professional skills as each event is linked to the school curriculum.
The long-term goal is to make The Vatéliades an annual event.
Partners
During the Vatéliades, the organisers called on many partners to host the events, liven up the week and propose interesting offers. Joya, Delirium, Bichette, Le Carrelet and the Society participated in the organization of afterworks and parties by making the premises available. In addition, Lydia was an emblematic partner present over several days to animate and offer goodies.
Many partners provided prizes for the raffle organized during the closing ceremony and also the grand prizes for the ranking of the Vatéliades teams: Villa Foch, Radisson Blu, Copine Claude, Terre Emeraude, Escape Hunt, Tepacap, Batch Cookies, Moon Harbour, L’Autre Petit Bois, Hôtel Indigo, UCPA, Me & My Salon, Deus Ex Machina, La Gigi, Graduate, Moxy.
The progress of the Vatéliades
The first competition of the Vatéliades was held throughout the week from Monday 15 to Friday 19 April 2024.
Day 1: Vatel Got Talent
This first event was the launch party that took place on Monday at the Delirium to welcome as many students as possible who wanted to attend the show. Participants were evaluated on their ability to share their talents as a team in the form they wanted. Indeed, this event allowed to test their soft skills: knowing how to prepare in a short time and preparing something that can please as many people as possible while respecting the instructions. These skills are essential for students who want to become managers to know how to lead their teams. The jury was composed of Ludovic Glorieux, Clément Brochier, Antoine El Hage, Sophie Bonnefond and Pascale Maurie.
Day 2: Stands
The second round took place on Tuesday on the school campus. Each team was tasked with preparing, running and managing a stand to attract customers. Thus, the students used sales, marketing and communication techniques to animate their stand. They had to know their product, know how to present it and showcase it in order to sell it. Ludovic Glorieux, Clément Brochier, Jiska Leinders, Astrid Ingrid Heitz and Thierry Merel rated each stand.
Day 3: Wine Tasting
The third round took place on Wednesday in the tasting room of Les Halles campus. Wine Tasting is the exercise that was intended to test the knowledge of oenology learned during the school year. Mastering the tasting of a wine is an added value for the future of students in the hotel and catering sector. Indeed, this apprenticeship is the specificity of Vatel Bordeaux. Two teachers led and evaluated this test: Annabelle Mispelblom Beijer and Alexandre Dodds.
Day 4: Waiters’ Relay
The fourth test, the sportiest one, took place on Thursday on the Lawton quay. The emblematic event of the waiters’ relay has been brought up to date by linking it to the hospitality sector. This activity allowed participants to go back to the basics of the profession by evaluating the participants on the service, in an accelerated version and in teams for the sporting aspect of a relay race. The Student Committee was in charge of refereeing the race.
Day 5: Closing Ceremony
Finally, the closing party was held on Friday evening at the Society on the theme “Masked Ball”. The ceremony aimed to bring together students, participants as well as spectators, and administrative teams, collaborators as weel as professors, to end the week with a festive moment all together. In addition, the announcement of the winners of the events and the prize-giving ceremony were the key moments of this evening.
Feedback on the Vatéliades
The organizers feedback
Chloé Cassagne, Head of Student Affairs at Vatel Bordeaux
“The event went very well. The students played the game, they were very motivated, which brought them together! It was nice to have the administration and the teachers together. It was a new challenge that we took up. »
Clément Brochier, Professor of Corporate Strategy at Vatel Bordeaux
“For my part, this event is a sincere success in the short time we had. The students and the administration have all given good feedback. It’s great to see a project through to the end and build relationships. I was able to learn how to manage Student Committee members, which was an enriching experience. »
Antoine, president of the Student Committee and in his 3rd year of international class at Vatel Bordeaux
“We are proud to have presented an event that changes the routine of Vatel Bordeaux students. I would like to thank all the members of the Student Committee for their involvement and especially the students for their participation, which is essential to the success of the Vatéliades. I would like to personally thank Chloé Cassagne for everything she has done for the realisation of this project. »
Students feedback
Juliette, 5th year apprenticeship student at Vatel Bordeaux
“I think it was a great idea to offer team activities, it allows all the classes to get to know each other better and it comes at the right time with the year of the Olympics, we feel that there is a collective energy! Everyone has proposed different projects, and we feel that everyone has put their will into it. »
Lola, 1st year international class student at Vatel Bordeaux
“The Vatéliades allow us to break down the barriers between students. We are in a different context from the classes, conducive to new encounters, exchanges… Competition brings people together. I think it’s nice to see that we all had different ideas from the same project, whether it was on the Vatel Got Talent or on the stands. »
Joséphine, 4th year international class student at Vatel Bordeaux
“I think it’s a very good idea to stimulate the school and cohesion between teams and students. I thought that the school lacked a bit of this kind of initiative and it’s super nice to see that everyone is playing the game. Our Corporate Strategy professor had this idea and advised us on our stand project. »