It was hot in the Devils Kitchen!

On 14 November we went head to head with the NFU York region office to take part in a Devils Kitchen event that was run by the Smile Foundation at The Holiday Inn in York.

The event saw us both provide a team of chef’s and a team of servers to put on an evening of food and entertainment for our guests, all in the name of charity.

The goal for the evening was for each kitchen to cook and serve their 40 guests a three course meal. The winning kitchen on the night was the one whose guests scored them the highest for such things as presentation, quality of the food at each course and overall service. Each team of chef’s had to prepare the food and each course before cooking it for the guests in the evening. The teams of servers had to spend the afternoon setting up the tables and dressing them ready for the guests to take their seats at 7.30pm. It was hard work, but worth it as the food was of excellent quality and the room and tables looks magnificent.

Guests then paid what they believed the meal they had eaten was worth, all the money was counted and at the end of the night it was announced that we had raised just over £3000 which would be split between the Smile Foundation, York Carers Forum and the Farmers Benevolent Fund.

The charity Crombie Wilkinson was supporting was York Carers Forum. York Carers Forum is a user-led group of unpaid carers & former carers who live, work or care for someone who lives in the York area. The money raised is going to be used to run a pilot project called 
“Carers in the Countryside” and the donation made to York Carers Forum by Crombie Wilkinson Solicitors taking part in the Devils Kitchen event on 14 November 2013 means we can put our ideas into a plan of action. Our pilot project for “Carers in the Countryside” is to plan a series of visits to some outlying villages to York where there are not already things in place or where people are not really aware of what is on offer locally, hiring the local village halls, and with a handful of essential, accessible services being represented run ‘Information Cafe’ style events providing refreshments and create a friendly, informal atmosphere for people to come along and find out more about the services that are on offer to carers.

Irene Mace and Katie Smith from York Carers Forum attended the event on the night and Irene said “May we take this opportunity to say a big ‘Thank you’ to the guests of and staff at Crombie Wilkinson Solicitors for choosing York Carers Forum as their local charity to support with the donation from Devils Kitchen to help get our ‘Carers in the Countryside’ project underway, the event was a wonderful way to raise money and all the guests looked to have had a fabulous time”.

Duncan Morter from Crombie Wilkinson, who was one of the chef’s on the night said “The event is a great way to entertain guests, raise money for charity and works as a team building exercise for myself and my staff who took part. We are usually sat behind desks and computers so this was a great way to do something completely different and worthwhile and share time with colleagues and guests away from the office meeting rooms. I would highly recommend the event to other businesses to take part in.”

Devils Kitchen is a recipe of team-building, corporate entertaining and charitable giving. If you would like to know more about the events and where they take place, please visit www.devils-kitchen.co.uk