This week we were at Hotel Le Tour again and were welcomed with a variety of sandwiches, salads etc.

The unit was the one I dreaded the most….a whole session on Finance. Finance as anyone who knows me will know is NOT my favourite subject. I don’t mind doing Appointeeship or Managing my own money, but company finance is another ball game. The tutor Matt was great to be fair and even made finance fun. We recognise our limitations and to this end employed a Finance Director, He does the most amazing monthly presentations which even the tutor agreed were brilliant. Our use of them though is not quite what it should be! In the module we covered cashflow, profit and loss, forecasting etc I came away feeling like I had had one of the toughest days ever and had learned nothing and was feeling despondent.

Dinner before we left was at Marco Pierre Whites place. I took a photo of someone elses dinner as they had made it more presentable than mine! The mushroom stroganoff was beautiful.

The first finance meeting following the course was on Friday and I was successfully able to challenge some of the things in the meeting and even recognised the word Ebitdah! I had learned something after all!

The following evening one of our cohorts – Simon from Colour Cubed had arranged an evening out for us at The Birmingham Rep to have a backstage tour and see The Bob Marley Musical. What an amazing evening. I particularly loved the backstage tour and realised I had no real concept of the vast amount that happened backstage. Big thank you to Simon and to the staff at the Rep for giving us such a brilliant insight in to their work. Those on the course that failed to make it missed a fantastic night. Thanks again Simon and I am sure I speak on behalf of all of us who went, it was truly amazing.