Diary of an EU traineeship at Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing – Caroline Klein

Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing in Belfast offer traineeships for their WorldHost customer service client: Leonardo Logistics Ltd, a Cookstown based business founded by Eileen Mullan, who facilitate EU programme: Europaeischer Bildungsverbund – European Education Network.

German trainee Caroline shares her WorldHost experience in Belfast during December 2015:

My name is Caroline and I am from Berlin in Germany. After graduating my “Abitur” – diploma from German secondary school and qualifying for university admission –I decided to start 2 parallel traineeships at Mercedes-Benz called industrial business management assistant and international business transaction assistant in summer 2014. To improve my language skills and to gain new working experience I organized in collaboration with “Europaeischer Bildungsverbund” and Mercedes-Benz a 3 week working residence in Northern Ireland. Fortunately we found a really caring and friendly host family. Together with a colleague from Germany I live in a lovely home in North Belfast with Adrian and his 7 year old daughter, Adrianna.

My first working day at Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing was really exciting. Following an induction to the business by founder Chartered Marketer Christine Watson, I joined Christine on a company WorldHost certificate delivery day.

WorldHost is a customer service training programme that has been delivered to over one million service professionals worldwide. Christine is a licensed trainer for the WorldHost programme (which was created in Canada) and together we delivered a lot of WorldHost certificates and City and Guilds vocationally recognised qualifications to a wide range of Christine’s clients across Belfast City, the Belfast Harbour and Titanic Quarter tourism destinations. As an added bonus this gave me a chance to get to know and visit a lot of the city. A really impressive Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing WorldHost client for me was the Windows in Wildlife (WOW) Centre, which is part of the charity: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) Northern Ireland.

It was my first time at a bird watching station and it was amazing to see the water and wildlife in the middle of an industrial park so close to the city.

After the WOW center we delivered WorldHost customer service for customers with disabilities certificates and the corresponding City and Guilds vocational qualification to Service Professional Gayle, on board the SS Nomadic. This place is a must visit in Titanic Quarter destination.

The Nomadic was built by Harland and Wolff on Queen’s Island in Titanic Quarter destination in Belfast, alongside Titanic and her sister ship Olympic and worked as the tender ship to ferry passengers from Belfast out to the larger ships before they set sail.

After visiting the SS Nomadic and calling into another client Titanic Belfast we enjoyed a lunch break in the Dock Café. The concept of the Dock is based on a honesty box and you pay into the honesty box what you deem appropriate. You also can bring in a packed lunch or grab food from the nearby Green Deli inside the local Mace (another Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing WorldHost client) like Christine and I did. We experimented with Apple loves Mint Suki Tea (another of Christine’s WorldHost clients) and ended our lunch with some sweet treats – bypassing the German biscuits we chose a fifteen and a carrot cake.

The Dock even have information leaflets in German – I was very impressed.

After lunch we journeyed on foot to the Odyssey Pavilion and called into W5 – with over 250 amazing interactive exhibits in four incredible exhibition areas, W5 provides a unique experience as well as fantastic fun for visitors of all ages. While Christine delivered the certificates to W5 I tried some of the cool experiences on the ground floor – I created smoke rings and pumped up a hot air balloon for blast off!

We also delivered WorldHost certificates to Pizza Hut, a restaurant we also have in Germany.

In the Odyssey Bowl we were cordially received with a very warm welcome by Christine’s WorldHost graduates themselves, after a hot chocolate and some sweets we finished our deliveries for the day with a visit to the SSE Arena. The SSE Arena hosts a lot of the celebrities and artists for their live performances and is also home of the Belfast Giants ice-hockey team. Certificates were presented to Rodney for the Eventsec security team and WorldHost training workbooks returned to the management team trainees who had been invigilated by awarding body City and Guilds.

It was a really exciting first day at Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing.

The second day we spent in Christine’s amazing office in Assembly buildings, located in Spires Mall (above Grainne Maher’s Fashion Vault shop). We named the office Lillibet Tower. At key times throughout the day the bells of Assembly buildings play wonderful Christmas music such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing – at 9am as we begin our UK working day. In Germany my working day begins at 6am!

With certificate deliveries continuing throughout the month of December Christine and I stopped at restaurant client James Street South and enjoyed a great lunch after presenting the staff with their WorldHost and City and Guilds accreditations. Christine chose crab lasagne and I chose potato and bacon soup. We also got the most amazing breads smothered in ‘made in Dromara’ butter. Top tip from the WorldHost waiting team: the wheaten bread has truffle as an ingredient. The other was made with spuds!

On my third day we called to St Georges Market for the annual Young Enterprise Christmas trade show. Christine is a Young Enterprise Alumni – in her high school she helped create a business that made and sold artistic CD racks – at a time when CDs were just new!

The clients of Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing are not just spread across the whole of Belfast city but the whole of Northern Ireland!

After asking Christine, who is also an accredited WorldHost NI Tourism Ambassador – accredited for welcoming visitors to their destination, about places she would recommend I visit, I took time after my work day to visit many of these places. I wanted to find out more about my placement business and their clients and also Christine encouraged me to act as a “mystery shopper”, given I am a German tourist visiting Belfast for the very first time. Christine asked me to assess not just the visitor experience but also the welcome and to take pictures and note tips that I can share on my blog.

Following a WorldHost certificate delivery with Christine to Nu Delhi and Slums which are both owned by Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing WorldHost customer service graduate: Naz, I returned to Slums restaurant. Located within walking distance of our office in Assembly buildings, Belfast, close to the Europa bus and train station I arrived at a time when I regret to say that I wasn’t very hungry. However I decided to treat myself to a Lassi shake instead of one of the wraps on offer. This shake is yogurt based and mixed with fruits of your choice. My secret tip: mix mango and coconut – it’s really delicious.

Not far from the “Slums” and “Nu Dehli” restaurants you will find another WorldHost client of Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing: Robinsons Pub. A really nice old looking traditional Irish Pub, opposite the Europa Hotel. When you are in Belfast you have to go there! In the evenings Christine recommended a visit to the Fibber Magees pub located at the back of Robinsons which plays live traditional music, has free entry and is often crammed with visitors from all over the world.

On my “client finding tour” I also found Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing WorldHost client – newly refurbished “Alibi bar”. I arrived before opening hours but Christine has recommended a visit in the evening for a 2 course meal and cocktail for £15 along with a free live band and a pool table.

Another must see for visitors is Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing WorldHost client – Queen’s University, Belfast. The university was chartered in 1845, and opened in 1849 as “Queen’s College, Belfast” and is the ninth oldest university in the UK.

Watson & Co. Chartered Marketing founder Christine is a graduate of Queen’s University Management school. If I would live in Belfast I would definitely wish to study there!

Queen’s University is open for the public to enter free of charge and even has a Visitor Information Centre and shop inside the beautiful Lanyon building and a coffee shop in the Students Union opposite as well as in the McClay library at the back of the university campus (near Botanic Garden palm house).

Beside Queen’s University visitors can also enjoy Belfast City Council Botanic Gardens and Palm House and the Ulster Museum.

A must visit in Belfast for tourists is “Visit Belfast”. You get a lot information there. Besides you can also find the Linen Hall Library which is a really impressive building – another of Christine’s WorldHost clients it even has a coffee shop inside.

Christine also recommended that I visit Victoria Square Dome to help me find my bearings, it is free and you get a birds eye view of all of Belfast. I was very lucky to get clear weather and would recommend this spot.

Belfast is such a beautiful city and I am so happy to be completing my traineeship here. I love the mountain around the city –it is called Black Mountain and people also refer to it’s shape as Napoleons nose and I really like that the water can be found so close to Belfast city centre – the Lagan river is even home to boats, including a floating restaurant – Holohans on the Barge that Christine says cooks up superb fish dishes (the Barge was Christine’s first ever training venue in Northern Ireland).

The only thing which is very confusing to me, as a German, is the left-hand-traffic. I do find that I am often afraid to cross the road for fear of overlooking a car from the other side.